Indigo

It should be no surprise that I've decorated for Christmas using the color Blue.

My rooms are full of blue

year long

and every season.

But this year, Blue,

INDIGO,

has taken on a deeper meaning,

as I've looked at the Shepherds,

and felt the night watches

like never before.

Are you a blue person?  I think there are some of us who choose
the color blue as a favorite, for deeper reasons than we may have thought.  I usually pick "blue" whenever a random sampling of color faves is set before me. But it's not my only favorite. I waver between yellow and peach and lavendar, depending on my mood.

So where does this color feeling come from that is associated with blue?  

A friend sent me a link to this song by Fernando Ortega this week. It is a song that I sent to her several months ago.

And, it is a song that another friend had sent to me many

years ago, after I had my first glimpse of an

Indigo Bunting,

a beautiful blue bird that flashes like sapphire

if you are lucky enough to see him.

But the thing with this song is something I never realized until we moved into a house close to the woods, with a perfect setting for those beautiful birds. It really does take a stormy, cloudy day to see the full vividness of Indigo. On a sunny day, the color gets muted by the bright lights, but on those dark days, that flash of Indigo cuts through all of the surrounding gloom. 

And in the dark watches of the night,

what is the color of Hope that flashes through the gloom

in my heart?

I think God must have planned it this way.

Because even the ancient garment, the Ephod, worn by the

High Priest

was woven with that indigo blue.

"The three colors woven into the ephod were symbolic of Christ's incarnation, ministry, and second advent. The blue, probably indigo, was produced from a species of shellfish and speaks of Christ, who came down from heaven as the Son of God to do the Father's will."  

from "The Tabernacle: Shadows of the Messiah" by David M. Levy

"They made the ephod of gold, and of blue, purple and scarlet yarn, and of finely twisted linen."

Exodus 39:2, NIV 

This garment worn by the High Priest, and the dark blue of the night watches, where the Shepherds kept watch, they both point to this coming flash of light, a vivid awakening to HOPE where God met with the storms of mankind.

Jesus didn't come to a world that was bright and perfect and shining full of light.  No, He came right into a stormy mess, where a downtrodden people were crying out for justice, already having waited for what seemed like forever to find that clear patch of blue that was promised to them.

God opened the Heavens

and sent out His own dear gift of Indigo,

a patch of blue sky

to say 

"I love you"

to a world gone haywire.

In the night watches of these days

as my husband recovers from surgery,

and my weakened body

feels too overwhelmed

for a HOLIDAY,

my Lord parts the sky

and says

"I love you."

And Christmas is born again in me.

Is His Christmas born in you this year?

I pray that you will receive His gift

His

"I love you"

sent through the night.  

Linking with:
 #TellHisStory, Jennifer Dukes Lee

#TeaAndWordTuesday, Meg Weyerbacher

 

Day 19: The Anointing in the Listening

Post Exertional Malaise

This is the term for what I lay in bed feeling.

It's the "payback" that comes with many 

auto-immune diseases--

24 to 48 hours after the initial stress of 

something that is beyond the scope of your normal,

you should not be surprised if your body has a

secondary reaction of pain

and fatigue,

just as you thought you were ready to move 

out of the extra resting,

and back into the more normal slow

that your days had been shaped into.

Oh, Lord, how many hours will this last?

And what will my morning look like?

And where will my strength for the day

be found?

So, as I woke to less pain, and a grateful heart,

but still bearing the heavy fatigue,

I began my routine of catching up on reading,

visiting my favorite Biblical Bloggers.

 And my dear friend Joy, over at her site,

PoetryJoy,   click here to read her words, 

had shared a beautiful promise

that the Lord had whispered to her.



And I knew that it was time for me to 
LISTEN 
to what my Lord was speaking 
 

Isaiah 28:23 (NIV) Listen and hear my voice; pay attention and hear what I say.



Oh, yes, I understood what He was asking of me: it was time to revisit a song
that He had given me through a dream
more than 16 years ago.



"I will pour on you
the oil of gladness in the morning,

I will pour on you
the oil of my joy.

I will burn off all the dross,
Stir up what remains,

And I will pour on you
the oil of my joy."



At the time the song was given, I searched the Scriptures, and the historical processes for the Biblical anointing oil that 
was used by Moses. Was this song even Biblically accurate?  And this is what I found:


Exodus 30:22-25 (NIV) Then the Lord said to Moses, “Take the following fine spices: 500 shekels of liquid myrrh, half as much (that is, 250 shekels) of fragrant cinnamon, 250 shekels of fragrant calamus, 500 shekels of cassia—all according to the sanctuary shekel—and a hin of olive oil.  Make these into a sacred anointing oil, a fragrant blend, the work of a perfumer. It will be the sacred anointing oil 



Then to understand the process that the "work of a perfumer" would have gone through, I found these words by David Levy, in his book, 


The Tabernacle: Shadows of the Messiah 


"The anointing oil was made from a specific formula. . . 
Rabbinical sources state that Moses, having reduced the solid ingredients to powder, steeped them in water until all the aromatic qualities were drawn out. The olive oil was then poured into the ingredients and the water boiled out. The residue thus obtained was preserved in a vessel for use."



Oh, but is this personal for me today?
What is the point of all this research?
 Is God still speaking this?

      
Jesus is the Anointed One of God,
and He came to bring His anointing
to any of us who would look to Him
as our Lord and Savior. 



In this place of pain and fatigue,
there is a burning going on,
LITERALLY  some days, as I use that word
to describe what the pain of a
Rheumatoid Arthritis Flare
or a
Fibromyalgia Flare
feels like.



But if I will let myself trust in the anointing process
 Jesus walks me through,
I can see that the burning GOD allows is only to
take off the layers of dross
that have attached themselves to my body
and my soul.
This will not be my state forever.



For a day is coming, either here on this earth,
or in Heaven at His throne,
when He will pour that pure anointing oil
freely over all of me,
and my crown will be a thing of beauty.



In the meantime, I know what He is asking of me,
and maybe He is asking the same of you.



Will we walk in the way of trusting?
Will we let Him touch our lives now
with the anointing of His oil,
and the
praise of His garments?





This is Day 19 of the #Write31Days Challenge.

And I am thankful that we are still on this Journey of Listening together.

If you would like to catch up on any of the previous posts,

click here for the Series Index