What Do You Call Unique?

This morning, I've been inundated with this message from You, the One who pours scented oil on my soul: approval at a point of accomplishment in a time of testing.

Two cardinals danced in my garden as the sun rose. I tried to capture them with a photo, but neither the camera nor the birds would cooperate. Then it occurred to me that You didn't want their picture taken. What those birds did as heralds to my heart was for me and me alone. I allowed that it should be that.

Then later, thoughts of Our relationship in that private room of my soul--the journeys we've taken there, the hopes crystallized, the dreams defined...for the past few years, I've been "proving" I was ok with those things never being acknowledged outside that room, never being recognized in a larger context than what my own paltry human mind is able receive. That, despite the lie that they are too big to retain within one person, nevertheless it is enough that I and I alone pay homage to the wonder of the alchemy of my courage as it is incorporated into Your grace. This then was the test, and the definition of the accomplishment--for certain, a covered cup until the very moment I was to drink it. Until I was willing to allow all that loveliness to remain essentially private, "it" would always carry the patina of selfish honor desired honor, of settling for a recognition more immediate but from a less pure source.

So often, the idea that You are no "respecter of persons" becomes a theme used to discourage people from the inhabiting of such rooms in their hearts; but to my thinking, it is truer that if You made each of us unique in so many ways, then You must surely desire uniqueness in Your relationship with each and every one of us. It is in this way that You are no respecter of persons--that You have given every one of us such a place, a place of co-habitation between creator and created. But once therein, the relationship is allowed to become intensely personal.

Though a surface glance might call it paradoxical, sincere co-operative endeavors are only really possible--at least in the long run and in their most effective results--when they spring from who we learn we are in that place, and according to who You say we are when we commune with You there. This is the only way spiritual community works well and long-term.

My prayer: May we learn to uphold the sanctity of each other's private bell towers, each other's craggy nests, and rather than become envious should someone's joy overflow into pulic basking in the beauty of that spirit-home, may we instead be inspired to likewise open our own hearts to Your invitation. For I believe You ever whisper to Your creation: "Leave that common rookery and learn who you are in the place I designed uniquely for you. I promise nothing will delight you more than to go exploring what I have made for you here, all I humbly ask is that you explore it...with Me."