We drive down a back road in South Carolina searching for this place. I saw it in a magazine once. I filed it away in my invisible wish list of someday adventures.
When Finley and I arrive, it’s almost noon. I’m all smiles like a little kid in a candy store. The sun is high and it casts speckles of light on the sandy soil. It’s quiet except for the birds singing and a few crickets. My daughter and I walk through the gate and their it is ~ great columns still standing despite pillage and fire … wars and weather. It is a mere shell of its former self, but I am moved by the crumbling brick and mortar. And the stillness here. It’s something I am sorely lacking lately.
The demands of life press all around and squeeze out energy and rest. Like most people, I am bombarded with work, the house, the laundry ~ the “shoulds” and the “musts” and I can’t seem to find a hiding place to be with God. I need to go into the Sanctuary… to stare long into the Father and be still.
For all day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning. If I had said,”I will speak thus,” I would have betrayed the generation of your children. But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discerned their end.
Psalm 73:14-17
In order to gain a proper perspective I need quiet communion with God. Left to my own inclinations, I have a skewed view of life. The limitations of my human condition color my vision of everything ~ people, problems, myself. To have peace I must go into to the Sanctuary.
When I meet alone with God, I no longer feel wearied from troubling thoughts….fear…. insecurity about the future. In the sanctuary there is a great exchange. I exchange my thoughts for His. I exchange my perspective for His. I exchange my burdens for His rest. Worry fades. Peace comes.
His Word washes over me and soothes the rough edges. His Spirit fills and comforts.
Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed.
Mark 1:35 NKJV
There is one necessity. One must. One thing that is above all others. I must go into the Sanctuary.
Linking up with the lovely Laura today…
Thank you for this reminder.
You’re most welcome,Lyli. Blessings to you!
that place is gorgeous!! Where is it?
Yes to the need to come to the Sanctuary, to the stillness of peace and leave behind the loudness of the day’s business and just BE with my Heavenly Father.
This is the Old Sheldon Church in Beaufort,South Carolina. It’s such a peaceful place, Sharon. Blessings to you dear sister.
Oh, isn’t this the truth? Left on my own I am all sorts of out of balance. But when I meet with Him, yes-peace. Thank you for this, Lyn. Beautiful thoughts.
Thank you, Laura! So grateful to link up at your place.