Pentecost Sunday arrived this year after a long period of lockdown where I had been happy enough in my cave. However I was ready to go back to normal, but I was not allowed out again. I could really empathise with Elijah at the entrance to his cave, with his mouth covered watching the storm and whirlwinds happening in the world and straining to listen to the still small voice, maybe the Lord was saying what I did not want to hear, maybe it was not that He was not speaking, but that my ears were blocked and I was not listening. So I prayed the prayer of resignation, of release of control and of relinquishment to the will of God the 'right Lord prayer.' I had been to the Nua conference online in my back garden, I listened to prophetic words about repurposing wood to make prayer rooms, and had just watched the service online when I went outside and said 'right Lord if I am to stay at home a while longer what am I at home to do? Why am I at home, never mind about the rest of the world, what do you want me to do?? I was listening to the birds and the thought then came to me that I could put a shed in the garden and make it a prayer room, it would not cost much if it was just a simple one. So I went onto e-bay typed in hut and the third thing on the list was a shepherds hut a gorgeous barn like structure on wheels. So I found Trevor in the field with his sheep and asked him did he know what a shepherd hut was. 'What do you want one of them for?' ' A 24/7 prayer room in the garden' was the exchange between us and by the end of the conversation a vision was born.
Two days later he had seen a trailer, I had checked that Gatekeepers account had just enough and no more to purchase it and we began to think this might be real. I needed confirmation in a hurry, I was sure I had heard from God but I needed a sign or something. My phone went and it was Alain texting my pastoral call, coincidence, maybe, was I reading to much into his timing? More crying and praying and then Trevor's phone went and it was Sadie looking Trevor her plumber. I had not seen Sadie in about 3 or 4 years, I was in the bedroom asking God for money and Trevor was in the living room being offered money she had been keeping aside for me, but that is another story.
2 days after the thought, 'put a hut in the garden to pray in' we had seen the framework, got the money for it and the promise of a cheque to cover some of the cost of building. Within a week the frame was here, the money was here and the work had begun.
Song of Songs 1 v 8 The shepherd king is speaking to the one He loves and He says
Listen my radiant one if you ever lose sight of me, just follow in my footsteps where I lead my my lovers. Come with your burdens and cares. Come to the sanctuary of the shepherds my dearest on let me tell you how I see you, you are so thrilling to me, to gaze upon you is like one of Pharaohs finest horses a strong regal steed pulling the royal chariot with cheeks aglow.
If you lose sight of me, how easy is it to do that? As I follow the footsteps in that famous poem and wonder when He has carried me, and my burdens and my cares the passion translation tells me that I am Gods dearest one, that I am thrilling to Him and He gazes upon me with the same awe and admiration that I look on a beautiful stallion in a field. I was sitting in a field, and God told me to begin to build a sanctuary. 16th August was the first day I was actually physically sitting in it, and the Lord gave me one word, sanctuary. The shepherds hut is being built by a shepherd directed by the good shepherd and we pray it will be a space to find His presence where many many will find shelter, in the sanctuary of the Shepherd of their souls.