What Hail's Got (page 10)

Hail's got it.  She couldn't stop raving about the prayer room.  Every day she would tell me something new.

"I built a communion table," she would say.  I would smile.

"I painted a white tree.  It's branches are bent like they're being pulled to the ground.  And in the hollow of the tree I wrote:

He is jealous for me

Loves like a hurricane

I am a tree

Bending beneath the weight 

Of his wind

And mercy

(John Mark McMillan)

Don't you like it?" she'd ask.  And I'd smile wide. That was the only answer she needed.

"Allie and me took a night to pray over the room. Every wall.  Every inch.  It has to be a room completely all for God.  If we write, then it's to God's glory.  If we make music, it's to God.  If we paint, we display His creativity on the canvas.  This is a room for God.  A sanctuary.  A prayer room - a place to meet Him."  Every word dripped with this desire to communicate with the Divine.  Every word longed for intimacy.  

It is a closed door room for whoever it might be that meets there with our Heavenly Love.  The room can't be much bigger than 10x13.  It's small.  There are no windows.  It is private.  The room requires intimacy. And now, a Divine Intimacy.

And that is why her making this room is such a ravishing idea.  Beauty folded into the walls. Heavenly tongues whispered.  Groans from the mute incapable of putting words to needs, desires, or praises.

Give ear to my words, O Lord;

consider my groaning.

Give attention to the sound of my cry,

my King and my God,

for to you do I pray.

(Psalm 5:1&2)

Silence.

Privacy. 

Taking bread with the Lord.

Drinking of His cup.

Meditating salvation.

Contemplating the cross.

Discovering Divine intimacy to be the greatest pleasure afforded to man through God providing Himself for a lamb at the slaughter.  That is the essence of this room.

John Mark McMillan. "How He Loves." Rec. 28 Nov. 2005. The Song Inside the Sounds of Breaking Down. 2005. MP3.