Shelter Wings

Another Cup of Tea

I make another cup of steaming-hot earl grey and drink it down slow.

The warmth falls in and fills me, in places that have grown strangely cold.

I keep asking, what is this feeling? This longing that’s been nagging at my soul? It seems a searching for something more than what can be found in every-day-daily life, or perhaps even in this world at all.

A growing desire is stirring that I can’t quite name. It’s like wanting beauty to come alive, or a song to fill the room with color, or the wind to speak in words. 


Impossible things, that somehow, deep inside, I know are truly possible.

I look out my window.

The clouds look like wings, and I feel covered, sheltered under His. 

Oh, what comfort He can bring, this God who sings over us, who watches over us, always.

I close my eyes, and my heart begins to pray, and thanks begin to soar, to fly right up past those wing-shaped clouds, straight into the halls of heaven, to land soft as feathers at His feet – floating right into the throne room where the praise of angels does not cease.

This place? Is this the vision my heart seeks? 

The longing that aches to be filled? 


We are constantly suspended between two worlds. The world of the flesh and the world of the spirit, and sometimes the tension can be so thick it's touchable. Sometimes my spirit wants to burst right through me, and tear right in, through the thin veil that separates.

How long, O Lord? I wonder. How long, until the eternity You placed in the heart of every man finds full reality? Until this heart that beats by You, and for You, beats fully in Your presence? Finally in the place where I can reach out and touch You and Your nail-pierced hand will reach out to gently hold mine.


Yes, this. This is the longing, the needing, the aching within.


One day, it will be. 


But until then, I will seek and pray, and ponder and praise, and try to live out His plans for me in the here and now.

All the while, giving thanks for new places of vision,

often found in another cup of tea.

*********************************************************

For You are my protection,
    an impenetrable fortress from my enemies.

Let me live in Your sanctuary forever;
    let me find safety in the shadow of Your wings.

You have heard the promises I made, O God.
    You have laid upon me the legacy

due to those who fear Your name.

~ Psalm 61:3-5  (VOICE)

*********************************************************

New places of vision give me inklings of the magnitude of my ignorance – of the language, for instance, and of “things beyond our seeing, things beyond our hearing, things beyond our imagining, all prepared by God for those who love Him.” (1 Corinthians 2:9) 

- Elisabeth Elliot

*********************************************************

Linking up with Kelli and Jennifer and many other beautiful hearts over at Unforced Rhythms  and @ #TellHisStory. Click on the links to share in these encouraging and inspiring communities.

#TellHisStory