Dauphin Island and God's Favorite

p.s.  the titles for my posts won't let me capitalize them...and it's really bugging me...

"The sound of the waves crashing on the beach and receding again remind me what God's breath must sound like."

Sweet Rebecca's words made my skin tingle with awareness that first day we walked anxiously to the shore.  There's just something about the beach that makes you feel the vastness of God in ways your mind never could comprehend before.  His glory blazes:  in the perfectly orchestrated rhythm of the tides, in the never-ending horizon, in the wild force of the waves, and the unrestrained wind in your hair.

My God who holds the oceans in the palm of his hand, yet can still hold my heart in the safety of his arms;  whose breath is the ocean's roar, yet whose whispers are as gentle as soft rain.

My God takes my breath away.

And this is the God who pursues me:  heart and soul.  Who am I that He loves me so lavishly?

It was the purpose God had for this vacation I took the girls in my small group class on (but I knew it would be so much more than just a vacation--it is always more when God is the one planning it).

He lured us away to speak tenderly to us.  (Hosea 2:14)

We played, we laughed until our sides ached, we shared our hearts, and then the sun set and our lovely girl with a guitar and a heart in tune with heaven led us into more worship.  Not just songs sung from memory, requiring little thought, but instead the thoughts of heaven became the songs that night under the stars.  God's thoughts toward us being sung to our hearts.

God's words, his spirit words, his living words:  he gives them little by little as we are obedient to share them.  And we shared them as sisters, through song and through prayer.  For one daughter of his, he tells her that he smiles on her, that he's not disappointed with her, he's washed her sins away like footprints in the sand on the seashore, he's pleading with her to let him love her.  For another of his beloved's, he gently reminds her not to compare herself with anyone else--the gifts he's given her are important to him and he has entrusted them to her.  He says her smile lights up the room, like a glimpse of heaven he's given the earth.

And His word to us all:  that we are his favorite.  

YOU are God's favorite.  There is no one like you.  No one that touches his heart like you do, because you are matchless, unique, exclusively you.   The good news (and the news I especially need to hear often) is that he doesn't pick favorites based on performance, but on creation: you are created in His image and loved for who you are by a God whose breath is the ocean's roar.