Having looked at the personalized slices of ‘bread’ offered to us in the Elijah Streams interview I now turn toward ‘the meat’ of Our Donegal Sandwich.
Mo Donegal was the name of the winner in the Belmont.
Johnny Enlow linked Mo to momentum, Moses and mountain.
I would add another. Mo is short for Maureen a friend and prophetic intercessor who we journeyed with ‘up the mountain’ in Belfast.
I had been lead to call our last gathering ENDWEAVE. Maureen’s husband Bill wrote to me the following day.
“Maureen was not aware that you had termed last night’s gathering, Endweave.
The word she got from The Lord, the day before our get together was, “Watch how I WEAVE everything together. Every strand is important and has it’s place.”
God’s weaving together can be seen with the ‘big picture’ but also with us, ‘little people’
Over the years I can recall three experiences where at a designated time and place akin to Moses in Exodus 33/34 I experienced God ‘brushing past me’. One of these instances was in Donegal.
We began to meet with a group we were training as a prayer team for the FREEDOM! retreat. One of the group and her husband were a well known and much loved and respected couple in the community in Northern Ireland and active in mission work far beyond. They were both doctors and seemed fit and well, but a few weeks into our visit, her husband, suddenly and unexpectedly died! He had just turned 70 years a few days before.
Obviously this dear sister had to drop out of the team training and the retreat. She told us that after the funeral, (that was attended by many hundreds of people) she intended to ‘get away’ to spend time alone with the Lord. She would go to stay with her sister in a caravan on a piece of land her family had owned for generations – in Donegal.
We were amazed to then discover this ‘piece of land’ was the ‘mountain’ where a few years before I had my ‘Moses-type encounter’ with the Lord!
A week later she arrived back in Belfast, in time to be welcomed back into our ‘koinonia’ circle at our final ENDWEAVE gathering. As we entered into worship, we began singing,
“On the day you were born I danced over you on the day you were born I rejoiced
On the day you were born all heaven proclaimed,
‘You’re the child of my love you’re my choice.'”
At one point I opened, and couldn’t believe, my eyes. She and another one of the sisters, were in the centre of the circle, engaged in a divinely choreographed dance!**
“Freedom! Freedom! Freedom to dance and sing!
When you know the love of the Father
When you know the love of the King.”
It was a holy moment – too sacred for a photograph…… had anyone even thought!!
She then shared how in the very same spot I had my encounter, she had her own Moses experience on that Donegal mountain, and that her heavenly Father had spoken to her through the words of a song,
“You give and take away. You give and take away.
My heart will choose to say,
Lord blessed be your name.”
I realized those words from the book of Job were being recast. Instead of a disgruntled wife goading her husband with “Curse God and die!” here was a woman recently widowed who had been touched by the glory and the goodness of God, freely acknowledging as she danced and sang the truth that “From him and through him and to him are all things!”
She shared how she had owned the Zeph.3:17 scripture, on which the FREEDOM! song was based since her baptism, when it had been sung over her.
“Yahweh your God is there with you, the warrior – Savior.
He will rejoice over you with happy song.
He will renew you by his love.
He will dance with shouts of joy for you!”
…..and now more than ever……. she knew the reality of it!
In looking for photos from the area I came across this one and thought “How appropriate!”
…..for ‘godly grief’ leaves us with ‘no trace’ of regret, but as our sister acknowledged, – only Gratitude, for that which our Father, who dances with delight over us, has given!*
* (2Cor. 7:10)
** I did witness this once before when one evening in our Upper Room during worship, another dear friend shortly after her husband was taken home, abandoned herself to the Lord in dance, partnering on that occasion with her beautiful and beloved banners!