It’s 1:31 p.m. CT and my fingers are just now settling on the keyboard. If I were a professional blogger, I would have posted this weeks ago, or at least a few days in advance.

Except I want to take this journey with you. And intimacy with God doesn’t work in advance. It’s a right-now in the thick of real life journey.

This week we moved. We had delays and rain. We had five beautiful grandbabies three-years-old and under and our grown children all under the roof helping us move.

We are living in the midst of boxes marked “bedroom stuff” and “books I love” and “random stuff from the utility room.”

I am happy and content and filled with gratitude, and sore and tired. I want a nap. Desperately. 

So my time with God and you is coming late today.

To get out of the chaos of moving and find that sanctuary, I drove to a local little community prayer room. The door was locked.

As I walked to the car, rain came down in a flood. I started to giggle. Then to laugh out loud.

I fully understand why I felt the Holy Spirit asking me to do this with you, not to talk at you in theories and theology. Because it’s often really, really hard to get alone with Jesus.

It’s real life.

As I slipped into my car and rain pelted the window shield, I closed my eyes and thanked God that He was with me.

Everywhere.

In the midst of boxes. In the middle of beautiful babies grabbing me by the hand with the plea of, “Gaga, hold you!” In the midst of stormy weather. In the midst of tiredness. In the midst of trusting God. In the midst of joy and crankiness that makes you feel spiritual and oh-so-human at the same time.

So, has real life hit you?

Does the enemy try to tell you that real life means there is no intimacy for you?

Today let’s get alone with Him, no matter where that is. No matter how much time that is. No matter what the weekend held, or what today has already thrown at you.

Write these verses in your journal. Meditate on them. It is your truth.

Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the Lord. —Jeremiah 23:24, ESV

Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. —Psalms 139:7-10

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. —Isaiah 43:2, ESV