“Wellspring” Tenth Anniversary & Birthday Edition

♫ Happy Birthday to us! ♪ Celebrating “Wellspring” Tenth Anniversary & Birthday Edition!

This year is double-digit special for the blog and the birthday girl. (Guess who is waaaay excited to leave the single digits behind?!). Gma Nanc is faint with disbelief it has been ten years already!

Both have grown by leaps and bounds in a decade!  Which is exactly what Wellspring and Rielyn were born to do. ♥

history & legacy in the making

RJ’s 10-year photo is a face mask of the times. One day you may look back through similar photos, remember when, and perhaps like Dr. Seuss, wonder how did it get so late so soon?

Life marches on, sometimes in a slow-slog kind of way (like a 9-year old waiting to turn 10!). The most honest, hope-filled, healing truth one can come to know in a forever-settled way, is that the Lord is the Source and life itself for the journey – no matter where one is in any given season. This has ever been Wellspring’s message. And it remains the prayer and meditation of my heart for my physical and spiritual offspring. I don’t have circles of influence. I’m wherever the Lord sets me.

Thirty, twenty, and now ten years later, I can see the weave of God’s pattern in ways that only time reveals. Each decade held God-appointed significance in my own life journey. Had I not responded, both individually and with my husband, at each significant point of decision for truth, healing, growth, and intimacy with the Beloved – much futility instead of fruitfulness would frame my life still today. F.B. Meyer said well what the decades have taught –

“Abounding love (from and toward God) will lead to increased knowledge (of God);
and this to quicker discrimination between things that differ, however similar they may appear;
and this, in turn, to freedom from blame and offense.
And all will result in the fruit of a holy life, pleasing to Jesus and bringing glory and praise to God.”
(comment added) ~ F.B. Meyer commentary on Philippians 1:3-11

Seven years ago, three years after Wellspring’s inception – Vineyard Days was birthed. (As we’re all experiencing now), I did not know thirty or twenty years ago what these past ten would contain. Ah, but our heavenly Father, his Son our Lord Jesus Christ, and precious, present Holy Spirit conspire together in bringing ones from death to life – via the way from life to death to life again.*

the significance of ten

It wouldn’t be a complete anniversary & birthday post if I didn’t share a brief biblical numbers lesson, would it? 😊

While researching the biblical meaning of the number ten¹, I became aware of another beautiful thread of illumination and significance added to three, seven, and twelve. I did not know that ten completed this divine frame. Now that I do, I see God’s timely fingerprints once again! ~ His intimate way with His beloveds amazes me. In brief, here is what I discovered –

The Bible contains four biblical numbers that denote perfection or completion. While all four – three, seven, ten, and twelve – mean completion or perfection, they each represent a different type (the first three broadly known):

Three represents divine perfection.
Seven represents spiritual perfection.
Twelve means governmental perfection.
Ten is the number of completion or perfection of God’s divine order; the only one of the four in which humans have a part (built into our very anatomy with ten fingers and ten toes – to work and to walk)

divine frame for a wellspring’s life

Three, seven, and twelve are God’s divine realms, with Holy Spirit working transformation in the hearts and lives of believers. We cannot aspire to the first two (divine, spiritual) or attain the third (governmental) without God. It is not by our might or power, but by His Spirit that these are both granted and worked into our very being.

Ten, however, depicts our human labor and God-given calling (our responsibility) woven together with God’s divine order. This is the biblical fruitful place we can honor God’s covenant of His divine order and our responsibility in our work and walk.

As we fasten the spiritual eyes of our heart on Him and incline our ears to hear what the Spirit is saying, we come to know our Father’s heart and will, that informs and guides our work and walk. Ten sets the pattern for life as a wellspring that flows from the Source.

I have found this four-sided frame to be the spacious place of II Samuel 22:20, repeated in Psalm 18:19, and in Job 36:16 and Psalm 31:8. Rescue and delight and feet set in an open place of enlargement and liberty.² Like hinds’ feet.

celebrating Ten!

Rielyn sweetie, whether tucked behind a face mask or free and open, may your eyes always gaze toward heaven ♥

The next decade for you, and for Grandma Nanc and Wellspring will, with God, be no less growing and instrumental than the ten years we have lived and loved already. I wish you the happiest 10^th birthday from my un-quarantined heart! You’ve grown from cutie patootie to budding beauty ~

My Bridegroom-King ~ this dove of Yours loves You like no other. With You I have no more words, only worship. Thank You for the whole of my life – and especially these past ten years through Your gift of Wellspring of Life.

Dear readers, thank you for your companionship however brief or long. In blessing & benediction:

“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God,
and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.”
II Corinthians 13:13

~ Grandma Nanc & Gracefully Free

*written 7 years ago; life has moved into new places in God’s heart, reflected in what I offer today
¹ resourced from www.turnbacktogod.com
² Strong’s Concordance Hebrew 4800

Photo by Social Cut on Unsplash

Shammahs Field LLC/Shammah Ministries is the biblical counseling, coaching, teaching, and spiritual growth ministry entrusted to Wayne & Nancy Bentz. You can learn more about the resources they have to offer here at shammahsfield.com and nancybentz.com.