Devotionals

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“When you have eaten and are full, beware lest you forget the Lord who has brought you out...”
Deuteronomy 6:12


Beware, lest you forget ... lest you forget ... you forget ... forget ...


Though I never wanted it, though I wanted only to remain with You, the forgetting came and took Your place, Lord. I was left with four babes. Babes who needed fed, needed clothed, needed sheltered. And You provided the job, though my heart wasn’t in it. And I tried to be thankful. Though it tore at my soul, all that was being left behind, I strove to rejoice in You and Your faithfulness to my children, and me.

But each day I had to get up, a new job description draped about my shoulders, and The Forgetter snuck in through the chinks in my armor. Chinks I didn’t see, that weren’t covered in our time together during the still dark hours of the morning.

Every day I brought you with me, Lord, or so I thought. But I failed to go with You! Though my lips mouthed the words, “thank You for Your provision,” somehow the providing became mine. Every mile I drove to work took me further from Your heart. Every school lesson I prepared, every bill that arrived in my hand, every moment keeping me away from the desire of my heart fed The Forgetter. And though I never wanted it, or looked for it, The Forgetter became my companion through countless days and numerous landscapes. I simply let You tag along.

Forgive me, Lord! Though I never wanted to work, life took me where I didn’t want to go. And though the jobs were provided by Your hand to meet the physical needs of my children, of me, the demands of the job description soon filled the chambers of my heart that had held You, oh, so sweetly. The chambers filled up with so many ‘needs’ soon You were buried, no longer visible to my heart. And what was my love – fell to duty – and I got lost in the maze.

I may, indeed, have eaten, Lord – but I wasn’t full. Unless it was full of loneliness, full of desolation, full of soul weariness, full of wondering and wandering and woundedness. Full, of emptiness. My head may have been full, may have been driven by meeting needs and cloaked in laughter, but my heart knew famine. The place in which You longed for us to dwell together began to shrivel with disuse, filled from time to time with little more that the shadow of The Forgetter, who was busy blazing trails through the canyons of my mind and the fabric of my days.

Forgive me, Lord, for forgetting! For harboring The Forgetter in the quiet place we once dwelt together. Come into this empty fullness and feed me. I’m weary of feeding myself. Come into this fullness of darkness and be my Light, casting away all shadows of loneliness and doubt and wondering. Replace the business of The Forgetter with the quiet stillness we use to love together. Come into this hollow place and hallow it with Your Presence. Let me be full, at last, of You!


© 8 March 2005
DeAnna L. Brooks

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