Blessings and the Bukid

Time keeps turning over here in Davao, and what it turns over is depth of life.
I arrived back from an outreach to the Bukid yesterday (mountains north of Davao City) 5 days of motorbikes up and down the glories of green. In crevices fit the stilted houses and brown children, in the valley the rice paddies and cattle egrets. And beyond these were the stories, the story of the girl sitting with the empty rice fennel, and the one on short stilts; halves of a coconut with a string between the toes. The story of the blue mist on the horizon. In all this God takes glory, and around every bend I found my prayers carried praise and awe.
Our service could not be counted as much, I cleaned out a maze of boils and dead flesh on an older woman's neck with inadequate supplies and the buntis women came to listen to heart beats in their womb. We knew the important thing was that we prayed, over every stretched belly and into every child's eyes. We prayed promise into their lives. The truth I saw was that we did not bring God with us, though He privileged us to be His hands and feet, but that we met Him there, in every mountain stream and child's smile. That He has been glorified in His creation forever before my eyes delighted on it and in the same way He has been set on the wooing of his mountain people. So our prayers are in all hope, for we have tasted what God has wrought for His children. We have been claimed in His passion, and we have been blessed with eyes to see His presence even where pain lays abundant.
Time keeps turning over here in Davao, and what it turns over is depth of life. And this is how He has been calling me, into abundance, into intimacy. Intimacy with God is the well spring of abundance of life. As He keeps drawing me closer by His own grace and humility my learning response has lately been ruptured on the principle of first fruits. "Bring the best of the first fruits of your soil to the house of the Lord your God." Ex 23:19 I am a person who verbosely works through life, I need to talk through my circumstance and tell my stories. I know that often by the time I have talked through a situation with someone, things seem clear, the mire has settled to the bed of the pond. In the same way I can't wait to express excitement over a recent event or piece of news. But the story it seems is always best the first time, and God has been asking me to share those times with Him.
I ask Him to come sit with me for the first reading of anticipated news from home and share the excitement and needs that lay within. I express first to Him the confusion of the Birth room after a hard shift. I sit in silence before His throne first after hearing of a friend's grief. It should be the most natural thing in the world; if I have entered into a covenant relationship with God of complete dependence and deepest friendship He should be the one I can't wait to tell when I do well on my exam, or discover a prayer answered (!!!)
Yet how often do we take that away from Him? And bring him the version told already three times over... Why is there something so disturbing about the gossip of old busy bodies? And as women how can we discern between what idle talk is and what is building up? How would outcomes differ if we would bring immediately to God our first guilt and doubts before Satan had a chance to whisper lies? Oh friends, seek Him!
I can't understand or convey all that is meant or should be taken from scripture regarding first fruits. As a means to strive for intimacy with God it has meant for me truly bringing to Him first, before anyone else, the struggles and labours of my breathing moments. And here my life is deepened.
" I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day for Christ Jesus." Phil 1: 3-6 Janelle