I saw an image years ago a way of reminding myself that I can be with the Lord at any time. I can go meet Him at our trysting place. I wrote the poem below as an attempt to capture it.

Trysting Place Tree© 2011  Molly Lin Dutina

I cannot take a camera to our trysting place
My attempts to draw it are incomplete
You meet me there in a sturdy platform room
protected, sheltered, made from the wood of Your cross
and also like the palm of Your hand
where You fold Your wings of love around me

The wooden floor of the platform tree
is always smooth and comfortable
no splinters, fine weather
leaves dancing in holy wind
my joy to be there

I stand, lie, sit, sing, weep, wait
and always You are there

Occasionally I must place myself 
upon the altar table
Your soul correction treatments are
		swift and sweet when I yield to You
I can make myself miserable imagining what might happen
	if I yield to you.
		Awfulizing is never a clear mirror of truth.

When I get centered in silence
we often travel down the center of the trunk
as if by elevator  
arriving at the stream of living water
that nourishes the tree
refreshes my soul
brings to my being all things I need 


My surrender to this trysting place is sometimes jagged,
	prolonged, not smooth or graceful

Yet once I give myself to the quiet and arrive
	I always ponder 
	what spawned my reluctance? 
	

I recently made a Soul Collage retreat. Our assignment was to depict what we think of as Sanctuary. I tried choosing from hundreds of magazine cut outs to show my trysting place. It is a complicated collage but with reluctance I share it with you.

Hopefully as you read the poem you can discern what the collage means. The African tree drew my eye as a place for the trysting platform. The woman’s hands are to depict the power radiating from this trysting place. (If you have ever tried Tai Chi you learned about the power you can sense between your own hands.) I love how the tree trunk is illuminated! And they show how the brilliant blue from the Living Water travels through the trunk and is drawn from the stream. The diver in the Living Water reminds me that there is nothing dark that the Lord cannot discern. He leads me always.

Hope this has given you some food for thought and perhaps a place to begin your own prayers? How would you describe your trysting place with God?