Orion in a lightning storm, and other messages

Since my Lord Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to claim and awaken me in September 2019, I have experienced His presence and love, and His--I can only call it intentionality--towards me, in many ways. On occasion, they have been spectacular. In thinking about how to open this blog, which I intend to be an account of my fellowship with the Lord of All, as well as the unfolding of my personal commission in the Great Commission, I wanted to start with one of those.

*As a caveat, I will say that I tend toward disorganized writing, and my thoughts bounce back and forth so much that if I were to wait until I'd edited everything into coherence, I doubt I would ever post anything. I can only ask the Father to grant my words the coherence and grace necessary to strike the hearts of whatever readers might stumble onto this page.

With that said...

He visited me late one evening about a month ago (when I wrote this, it had been only the night before, so if I miss an edit that refers to "last night", don't be confused).

I didn't have a cozy, happy sense of the Lord's presence at first, as I sometimes experience. This was a display of His glory. I needed it, and I think I'd been asking for it. Just assume that I was, because I ask that of Him a lot lately. And He packaged it in a way that was 100% just for me (although I pray that the reason I feel compelled to share it is that there are others out there who will see the breathtaking glory of God in this as well). I feel so loved, and so awed, by the power and tender care of my Master. How powerful, how generous is my God, my best friend, my Teacher. How much He has given me. And to give me such an unexpected, unnecessary gift on top of it all. He lavished it on me.

A bit of background. I am currently living on the outskirts of Hanoi, Vietnam. My husband is an ESL teacher, and I came along with him from Portland, Oregon. We have a 1.5 year old boy that we call Netters. He is pretty weird, but I am finding more and more that he, too, is a tender vehicle of my Lord's grace, and so I tolerate his strangeness.

Back to the miraculous gift.

So, as a preamble, I rarely see stars here, not even one usually, nevermind a constellation. Much of the time, there is so much mist and clouds and light pollution and real pollution, so it's very rare. (My human father, who was in Vietnam during the American war, says that is a shock to him, because the thing he remembers most about nighttime is the fields of stars overhead. Pollution has done a real number on the sky here in 50 years.)