The Citadel within. . .

I just want to say, this has been a very encouraging endeavour, in so many ways. I really don't know how to write this and be understood (or even WHY I am writing so personally on this blog). It seems to me that we can all do with some encouragement and building up and if it helps YOU to know that this terribly superficial, shallow, easily distracted person, can get to know an indwelling Lord so much better, then I'm glad I'm writing this here.
It was encouraging to read the letters that Fenelon wrote to Jeanne Guyon. She is someone I look up to as having had a deep and wonderful walk with the Lord through imprisonment in the Bastille and a lonely existence, and yet her words are extremely insightful. Fenelon's letter talk of her 'excessive excitement' and her impatience, the way she 'loved her own voice' or words to that effect. I love her already. It made me feel capable of this near impossible task. AND I read in Molinos that it has nothing to do with me and my effort merely my faith, and even that is put there by his indwelling spirit - he faiths in me. What a relief.
I am pleased to say that this first five days has been a happy co-operation twixt my Lord and I. He was always pleased to be called upon for company and here I am at last deigning to do so. I have found, much to my surprise, that I have felt those prompts regularly, and each time have murmured his name, and felt that little thrill of joy spasm out from my inmost parts. It was easy on Monday, because I was working from home, and so I spent my time in my own company but practicing involving him in my thoughts, and keeping the door open to communication. (It's such a hard thing to explain).
Tuesday was harder - I was working at the Uni, but even there, whenever I wasn't immediately responding to someone or something, I was aware of Him, and KNEW it. Wow. Lord.
I have woken to a little song we sing here in the church "To Me you're so fair, to Me you're so pure, I call you my beautiful one", and taken that to heart and found the tune chasing me all day. Awwww. Jan, Helen and I sang it on our walk that morning.
And today, Thursday, whether it is to endorse my endeavours, and just FOR FUN, I have felt as if everything has been dovetailing beautifully. Now, in saying this, I know it won't always. I guess I just want to learn the route to this place, and find it an automatic response of my heart, so that when things DO get tough, I go there. Lord.
It has been raining on and off, for weeks now, today no exception. I've been on and off the bus and up to the Uni a couple of times, and each time it rained as I stepped on to the bus, or as I stepped into the Uni, and not when I was out in it. It's a little private joke. I picked up a fat letter from my mailbox today, and when I opened it at home, it was from a friend in Canada, and a wooden bookmark fell out with a butterfly carved into the wood. Anyone who knows me will understand that butterflies speak to me immediately. (It's an earlier experience I had). I read them as him saying "I love you" and I always respond the same way. As I did this time. Sigh.
There has been much more. I do so want to know Him in reality and truth, not as a figurehead or figment of imagination as I might have done so many years ago. If it is true (and I know it is) that He is Life in all its fulness, then why waste another moment chasing the shadows?
Onward and upward. . .