Kairos Time, When It's Difficult

I've heard many definitions for "Kairos" time...that Greek word for the sort of time that is held suspended as a "time between times"...moments when the veil between earth and heaven  is very, very thin.  Some actually call these moments "portals" in time.  Some experience Kairos as the ability to be completely absorbed in the creative...absorbed, and time doesn't feel like ordinary Chronos "tick tock of the clock" time, but is transcended into something otherworldly.

I've experienced breathlessly beautiful Kairos moments...and God-kissed days...stunning in their loveliness, and brevity.

And I have had a huge, whole day of Kairos time, today.  It has been a Kairos day, and it felt stressful and painful and peaceful and prayerful.

Painful and stressful, but the heavens were opened in a special way...I could feel myself praying into the future.  Leaning into the pain of today, transforming it into prophetic prayer.  I take a huge risk with a very small liberty, but I tell you this, for sure:  There are those times - those Kairos times, when access to heaven is instant and effective.  Sometimes they are achingly beautiful, sometimes they come at a price.

My definition of Kairos is exactly this:  a moment or day when past, present, and future collide.  A moment or day that has all the elements of past, present, and even prophetic whispers of the future, all wrapped up and colliding into one moment, one event, or the sequence of events in a day.  My daughters' weddings were very Kairos.  Time seemed to suspend itself, and my heart heard their giggle as small girls, beheld the beauty of them as brides, and saw the faintest hints of the smiles of grandchildren not even conceived yet.  All of it beautifully collided.  Kairos.

But sometimes Kairos feels like spiritual warfare.

That was today.

As I was in the spirit today...gratefully, completely submerged in bathwater and Holy Spirit, I was praying over our situation, praying into the future - which is what you do in a kairos moment, when past, present, and future collide and the veil between them all is so thin.  The Lord very clearly whispered to me:

"I make beautiful things.  It's all I know. It's what I do.  All this? All the pain?  Look at it this way, Beautiful One" (...yes, He called me that...) "Close one eye, and let the other see through the lens of faith...."

"There's your life.  There's your son's life. ...it's there in my Collide-oscope.  When it all crashes together, the pieces seem to fall apart, past, present and future churning in full view, know this:   I'm at work in the collision, making art of your life.  Turn your perspective around and around, and breathe into the future all the hope and grace and glory you've come to know.  Lean into the pain, and pray into the pain.  The picture will keep changing,as you turn and turn and turn your perspective - adjusting it to look like grace.  The eye of faith - my Collide-oscope - will rearrange it all until it is as beautiful as anything you've ever seen or could have created all by yourself.  I'm here.  I am with you.  I am very near."

He knows what He is making, here in my home.  He makes beautiful things out of the darnedest things.

Life, here at The Cottage?  My family?  We are the darnedest.  We really are.