Emunah dreamed – dreamed of warmth, comfort that felt like feather down, comfy quilts, the sound of all different sizes and shapes of pattering along the floor – and big and little jumpings on her bed – and big and little thumps on the floor beside her. Whispered chatterings fading and circling back. Awareness finally dawned. She cracked open an eye. What looked like a wily fox sat curled on the foot of the bed, its brown eyes steadily watching her. A chipmunk and a mouse played a game of checkers on a pillow to the right of her head. When they saw her watching them, one slid down the pillow, down the quilt to the floor and scampered away.

Moment later, the little checkers’ player returned, Marpe following calmly behind with a tray – a tray filled with sunny side eggs, sausage links, homemade biscuits, a bowl of raspberries, and steaming cup of tea.

Marpe tried to look surprised but her eyes smiled toward the fox who closed his eyes into a faux nap – and the chipmunks’ draughts’ clicked busily on the board, as if they were so absorbed they didn’t hear her. Marpe was content to see the four making progress for now. To let them know she knew their game, she chirped happily, “Wrap up your game – lunch and a nap in an hour. You, also, Monsieur Malin.”

When Emunah moved to climb out of bed, Marpe ordered her, in her matter-of-fact voice layered with warmth – and lined with steel, “It’s time for you to rest – to refresh your body, spirit, and soul – there’s a time and place for work. Today is not that day. Today you rest and rejoice. There’ll be time enough and work aplenty – we’ve a new healing house to ready.” Marpe tipped her head. “Eat! Pray! Praise! We will sit long and talk much later.”

There was no rush in the Healing House. Healing took its own time, even it was just over-coming mental and physical exhaustion. On the second day, Emunah woke and dressed with the first chirping of the birds welcoming the morning before the sun had even risen. She made her bed, making sure to set the checker board and its pieces back on the pillow for her little friends. The fox, Sylvie’s husband, Monsieur Malin, lay curled before the hearth, snuffling snores in a deep sleep. Every so often, he cried out, his feet running fast. She bent to scratch his ears. He opened his eyes in fear, then recognizing Emunah, he settled back into a calm sleep.

Tying on a patchwork apron, Emunah sang quietly.

“You give life, You are love
You bring light to the darkness
You give hope, You restore every heart that is broken
And great are You, Lord

It’s Your breath in our lungs
So we pour out our praise, we pour out our praise
It’s Your breath in our lungs
So we pour out our praise to You only . . .

All the earth will shout Your praise
Our hearts will cry, these bones will sing
Great are You, Lord
All the earth will shout Your praise
Our hearts will cry, these bones will sing
Great are You, Lord

All the earth will shout Your praise
Our hearts will cry, these bones will say
Great are You, Lord”
~ Jason Ingram, David Leonard, Leslie Jordan, “Great Are You Lord”

Marpe found her in the kitchen, biscuits being pulled out of the oven, accompanied by Henrietta and those healing but with energy to move around, drawn to Emunah’s song. A companionable busy danced around the kitchen, setting the table, pulling out dishes, cups, thimbles for cups, leaves for placemats for the littlest, big and little spoons – hands working, little voices harmonizing with Emunah, the table a charcuterie of breakfast items for each patient ensconced in the healing house.

During breakfast, Emunah listened to the stories of those now living in the healing house. Having been lured into The Forest Where No Man Comes out Unbroken, either by by choice or coercion – not truly understanding the soul-breaking consequences of those choices and coercions, they each suffered from addictions or other life-controlling issues – but they were here. Healing would come.

Marpe later explained as they sat long and talked much that those brought to the healing house needed time to connect – maybe even re-connect with The King of All Kingdoms and his son, to trust Him enough, to believe the size of a mustard seed enough to learn how much He loves them, to trust Him enough to have a relationship with Him, to give their life to Him and allow Him to rebuild the broken places, to rebuild or possibly build anew their lives, and relationships. In time, they would be able to return to their homes or build new homes, reunite with their families – but for now, they needed to become free of the bondage theyhad enslaved them. . . .”

“But they are free? Aren’t they? That’s what I went to do – and here they are,” Emunah asked, somewhat confused.

“Do you remember how you had to learn to see with your insight after you were blinded by the enemy? It didn’t happen over night. It took time, more time than you realize right now. You, too, are still learning – we all are. There’s a lifetime of learning ahead of us. It took letting go of broken things that needed letting go. As you walked through the water and the spirit filled you, covered you – something in your heart grew that desired to pour that out to others, to save them, to heal them. Not all who are redeemed and made whole in a healing house are called to run one, but we are all called to redeem the lost and encourage the broken as they heal. Are you ready to step into your King-of-All-Kings-Designed plan for your life – to Run a healing house, to risk all to save the lost and broken?”

“But I come from The Kingdom of Song,” she responded, trying to puzzle this out identity so different from the one she was raised to grow into. “Not nursing or doctoring or healing, or even for bringing people out of their bondage, though I admit – there’s was a peace in all the hard of that rescue mission and in my time at the healing house with you – that I was at home with myself doing what something that felt as though all the pieces of myself fit together for once – as though I had found myself through this work for Him. How does a girl from The Kingdom of Praise become something different?”

Emunah sank into thought. A comfortable quiet steeped the kitchen.

“It takes all gifts,” Henrietta said, as she climbed onto the table, having just come out from caring for her daughter. Emunah poured her a thimble-full of tea and gave her a Henrietta-sized biscuit. “The Family of The King of All Kings has many parts, but they all work together. Every job needs all gifts working to succeed in what they do. Your gift helped you save 14 lives. The Gift of Praise has the ability to strengthen inwardly, focus our heart, thoughts and vision on The King of All Kings and His Son – it has power to stop the enemy, to unarm Him. It is healing balm to a suffering soul,” Henrietta said, looking at Sylvie’s husband, still battling the enemy in his dreams. “You carry it with you into the work of redeeming and healing. You don’t leave it behind.”

Over the next few seasons, Marpe mentored Emunah in the management of a healing house. She also mentored her in how to teach and model the spiritual, emotional, physical and educational principles needed for the broken places to be rebuilt – and to live out their King-of-All-Kingdom’s design for their lives.

Some were redeemed as part of a rescue mission into Forests Where No Man Comes Out Unbroken. Some had been lured, betrayed into dangerous places, having no real discernment of the danger beyond the lure. Some were lost, like Emunah, betrayed by people the community thought trustworthy. Some found themselves betrayed by their own rebellious spirit, hood-winked when they took their eyes off The King of All Kings. In simpler terms, some were broken because of what others had done to them; some were broken by their own choices; some were broken by happenstance – they just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

As the hurting entered the healing houses, they discovered gifts they had not realized lay dormant within themselves. The shack changed year after year. One man discovered the gift of wood-working – and he built chairs, then rooms. Another came, learned, and together they built a porch, then a stairway, then they built a barn. When they were ready to return to their journey, they built lives – and in those lives, they built with wood. Some moved on, helping to build new healing houses, helping others rebuild their broken places.

Some learned the difference between healthy flour at the market and sickly flour. They learned to discern what was good for the body and soul – and what was empty, leaching the body of needed nutrients. They were called The Breadmakers – they learned to measure, to let the yeast bloom, to knead, to proof, when it is good to rise, how to savor or sweeten, the importance of bread around a table – because bread and baking are so much more than bread and baking.

One young man went out the back door, went into the rocky fields – and he bent, lifted, and carried rock day after day, laid free-hand. Every so often, he’d add a porthole, or a half-moon opening. Sometimes there’d just be a threshold with enough room for a body to go through – and then he’d continue on until eventually the broken places within himself had been healed – and he went out into the world to show people how to make a way when they could see no way.

Some came with a faith the size of a mustard seed – a seed so small some could hardly see it . . . and as that seed grew, so did their love for other seeds – sunflower seeds, green-bean seeds, zinnia seeds, Brussel sprout seeds, snap-pea seeds, maple leaf flour seeds, dill seeds, tomato and oregano seeds, lavender seeds – all kinds of seeds. One even created a clock garden filled with flowers that opened and closed at each hour of the day. Growing something worthy taught them how to give.

Not all who came to Emunah’s healing house saw beyond the shack exterior – for it was only those who saw through their own eyes of faith that saw the beauty surrounding them. That is the mystery of being redeemed – inward eyes are opened to the beauty and goodness that surrounds.

Emunah’s first visit away from the healing house was to put a letter in the post, to let her mother know she was safe, explain what happened, and let her know they were working on finding and redeeming those of their group who were lost. Then she visited The Clockmaker, to tell him what had happened, though he already knew. They talked about the next rescue. Then she brought up Tik. She had not forgotten the hungering child. That is a story, though, for another day.

A few months later, two rescues later, Emunah was teaching Tik how to write. As he wrote, she stitched a song into the lining of a mantle she had started for him. A knock interrupted their concentration.

Fox at her heals, a chipmunk on her shoulder, and one of the minks trying to convince any guest she was really just a collar – and not alive at all – Emunah opened the door. Standing on the doorstep was her mother, father, and her sister, Simchara. Their jaws hung open at the sight of their daughter before them – looking for all the world. . . unlike the Emunah who’d left home yet more Emunah than they knew could be.

“Mama? Papa? Oh Simchara!!!” she cried as she broke through their surprise, throwing her arms around them. The crying, the tears brought everyone in the house to the door. Marpe managed to pull everyone in, take bags, coats, the mink that so wanted to be a collar. Henrietta had scurried into Emunah’s pocket. Tik came up, hid halfway behind Emunah, stealing his hand into hers. Emunah had become more than they had ever imagined. Once they were all settled into rooms – Simchara, Marpe and Emunah tucked in together, giving her parents a room themselves. All the other rooms were filled with the redeemed who were healing–they sat long and talked much.

They spent a season with Emunah, her parents overwhelmed at times that what she had been called to do was so different from what they envisioned, yet their hearts full at how her mantle full of songs of praise brought redeeming and healing to so very many. They cried at the loss of her outward vision, but rejoiced and cried more at the clarity of her inward sight. Her father often went to work with the young and old men outside.

Her mother sat with the young women, some old women, showing them how to make their mantles: cutting them to the pattern of God’s Word, grace stitching Holy Spirit threads to strengthen seams that hold tight no matter the pulling and stretching, never wavering, never raveling in its hold, hemmed in by His Law, . . . and lined with Praises telling what He has done. She gave away every silver needle she had brought with her. She helped those who lived in the healing house with their mantles, just as she had helped with her daughters’. You would find her stitching with the bold light of a newly wakened sunrise, by the weakening light of twilight, and by faith in the dark black of night, each mantle, as though its owner were her own daughter.

When Emunah’s father came in at the end of a days work, he found the heads of the redeemed bent over their mantles, stitching a new song into the lining, the sound of hums being picked up and dropped, a stanza started before falling into a hum on a sticky stitch. As he sat in a chair by the firelight, he picked up the song and carried it to the days end.

When they left to go home, there were tears at the leaving but hearts full of thankfulness for The King of All Kings saving grace. There would be many more visits like this one through the coming years – and in the coming, they saw each other becoming more than they realized they needed or could become.

On their way home, Simchara and her parents had much to think about. In just a few seasons, Simchara would be setting out on her journey. Each prayed for answers and guidance, that they see things His way, not their’s – for their eyes had been opened, too, realizing their plans for their daughters had been limited by their experience, which was the size of a mustard seed compared to God’s plans for their children’s lives. On the way home, they looked for opportunities to sing praises to The King of All Kingdoms and his Son.

(Next week I will be back with Simchara’s story)

Remember Me Monday: #144 Link-up

“I’ll make a list of God’s gracious dealings,
    all the things God has done that need praising,
All the generous bounties of God,
    his great goodness to the family of Israel—
Compassion lavished,
.    love extravagant.”
~ Isaiah 63:7, The Message

In the Old Testament, God repeatedly, quietly and loudly, tells his children, “You have forgotten me!”  (Jeremiah 3:32, Ezekiel 22:12, to name a few). It’s a heart cry from a father to a child who has forgotten all the love, all the saving, helping, little and big blessings – and it leaves me stunned when I realize our Father, the creator of the universe, who knows things I cannot begin to fathom, who authors storylines that leave me amazed, delights in all of us so much, He cries out, “Remember Me.”

While every day is a Remember God Day, I am inviting you to join me on Monday mornings to come by and remember what God has done for you, for your family. Maybe God sent a cardinal darting out in front of you, as if to tell you, “I’m here,” or broke a child’s fever after you laid it all down at His feet in a 2 a.m. bedside vigil. Maybe He stood with you in the wait of a prayer sent out, or brought someone you loved to Christ. Maybe He healed your broken heart, gave your courage, or you gave Him your dreams as a love offering only to have Him give them back in an unimaginable way. Maybe God helped you survive to bedtime after a crazy Monday, or forgive yourself for missing it with your kiddos –– Whatever it is, let’s Remember Him. . . in a “Remember Me Monday” love letter.

“My mouth will tell of your righteousness,
Of your salvation all the day long,
Though I know not its measure.
I will come and proclaim your mighty acts, O Sovereign Lord”
~ Psalm 71:15-16.

Let us delight in Him by telling the  stories of what He’s done!  If you wrote a blog post remembering what He’s done for you, join the linky. If you didn’t but still want to praise Him for what He’s done – write it in the comment section. Then visit a comment before or after yours! One of the beautiful things about the blogging community is the relationships it builds!

Rules?  Write long or short, a list or a story, include photos or not. Just Remember Him and what He has done, and let the gratitude of your heart guide you. Let’s make Monday so Rejoice, that the goodness of God spills into the rest of the week! (Link opens Mondays at 6 a.m.)

Places I’m Linking at This Week:
  Instaencouragements, Legacy Link-Up, 
Let’s Have Coffee Wednesday 
Recharge Wednesday, Scripture & a Snapshot
Grace&Truth, Sweet Tea & Friends
The Good, The Random, The Fun