Endless Summer

By Kimberly Wilks. Feb 2019.

I close my eyes, and breathe in deep. As fresh oxygen fills my lungs, I sit in this pocket of bliss – taking in the raw tracks through wild country that lay before me. On my left, raging blue and green expanses of fierce uncharted waters. On my right, deep green melts into blues and vast hues of purple yellow and orange as the sun sets over mountain ranges which are covered in wild pine and oak trees. Before me – untamed, uncharted and uninhibited land. The greatest adventure yet. I hear my beloved’s whisper

“Welcome to the Endless Summer”.

Hope fills and overwhelms every fibre of my being as I begin to ponder His whisper – this great adventure. The summer that never ends. Memories of summers past flood my mind and bring with them familiar feelings of the bliss I encountered in the midst of these adventures. Permission to play puts my heart at ease and releases tension I didn’t realise I was carrying. As I continue to ponder, I sense a deepening awareness that this summer is wildly different from all the rest. This adventure is not just a seasonal invitation for pockets of peace and moments of bliss – it’s an invitation to stay. It’s not merely a break from the stress and pressure of the world – but complete and utter freedom from it… forever.

This extravagant act of an invested lover reveals a deep kindness in his nature that melts my heart and draws me to engage with him. This invitation not only releases me from every kind of heaviness my soul has ever known, but it liberates my heart to begin to engage in the real adventure – the endless pursuit of a Lover King who has obliterated the power of everything that once separated my heart from his. This Lover King who did everything in his power to close the gap. Who saw that it wasn’t enough to simply be with me in the flesh –  he had to be closer than that. He had to make a home in my heart. To be close in every moment- and take care of me from the inside out. I begin to realise that nearness has always been his goal. Every move he’s ever made has been towards me. A fierce intentionality fills his every gesture. His motivation – simply to be near.

Finally, the fight is over. Peace is no longer a substance to obtain..or something I can loose. It’s not running away from me. He’s running towards me. No longer to do I need to fight to preserve my freedom, my rights, my joy or my peace. Once upon a time, my every effort was geared towards finding joy, bliss, peace and pleasure..and keeping it. Preserving it. Fear ruled my choices because the slightest change in my surroundings would threaten my internal experience of peace and joy. The gift of this kind lover – the Endless Summer – is the freedom from the fight. No longer am I motivated to preserve my peace – for it can no longer be threatened by surrounding circumstances. The gift of the Endless Summer is the gift He has fought for with His life. It’s the oasis of constant nearness to the one who loves me like no other. All the energy I once used to preserve my heart, is now free to simply engage in the beautiful one. The one who saw fit to gift my heart with this outrageous freedom – for freedoms sake. With no other motive in his heart, and no strings attached. Simply – enjoy the gift of being wildly and wonderfully free. Suddenly striving becomes a fickle idea as it’s exposed for what it really is – the subtle but deadly belief that the heart of Jesus is passive about me in some way. How could I add to what he has already done? Do I really believe that my desire to be free could outweigh the strength of his desire for me to be free?

The war is over.

He has created an eternal place of internal rest for a soul that only knew how to fight. A safe space of wild freedom that liberates every fibre of my being from every ounce of fight for me and turns my heart to fight for others.

I breathe in deep, and behold the last glimmer of golden sun as it sets over the last of the hills. My heart leaps within me as I contemplate the end of a life of working-to-rest, and the beginning of the Endless Summer. A life anchored in the depths of my lovers heart – free from the fight of all i’ve ever known. Free from fear. As I take one last glance at the setting sun, I feel the thrill of my Father as he ushers me into the dawn of the best day I’ve ever had. I hear his whisper once again..

“Welcome, my dear, to the Endless Summer…”