to know...{letters to my four}

it all fell apart that canadian winter - you knew it deep down too.  fractured something in us all like that -26 air did to those snapping metal posts buried quiet in the frozen snow.

it's been a long, slow thaw.


there are four of you now, but then, it was just the older three and there are times and moments i wish your minds were just as newborn-free as hers.

and yet, i think remembering the hard has maybe been the most freeing gift of all.


we dedicated zeruiah at the front of our church, the pastor held her in his arms and i became overwhelmed by the weight of it all.

he had asked us three simple questions and i almost fell apart.  she only weighed a mere eight pounds and yet the weight of her very life...

my arms aren't strong enough for that.

nothing about me is strong enough for that.

she was only eighteen days old and suddenly the length of her life stretched out before me and how can the broken lead?

olivia, you sat down next to me in the warmth of a sunlit window, brought our your bible and asked me to read.  you have your favorite stories - the ones we keep coming back to.  there's adam and eve and that snake you love to hate. noah and the animals and that rain that fell for days on days and seemed as though it would never end.  you love to hear how Jesus walked on water and how peter tried. the 5000 that were filled on the small amount of bread and fish and then you asked to hear another...

i turned to 1 kings - to one of your daddy's favorite stories. the one of elijah and the fire God sent from heaven. the one where he stood up against the false and faith watched flames lick up the last drop of water. you sat confused over the fact that there were some who didn't believe in God.


i thought back to what broke in the ice and the snow two years ago now.

there's still shards of that life still lying around us - sharp edges that still leave wounds. but what has busted isn't all bad - because what i had clung to for so many years was just as broken as me.  my faith was in a god who i tried to shape in my own image...

and Jesus allowed it to break open, and in the long years since canada, He's taken this heart and opened it back up.

how can the broken lead?

i look at the four of you and become so scared of failure, scared of the world around us and the skeptics and false teachings and wonder how you will ever see Him in the middle of it all...

i can easily forget that He is the One Who does all the searching, He is the One Who draws you close.


but as your mama, He chose me to talk to you about Him, to teach you and to live out an example...

so we'll start here - at the beginning...

because that is Who He is.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

(John 1:1-5 ESV)


you need to know that before anything, God was. God spoke and it all came to be. you can trust this. you can trust that His life was given so that you can live.

so let's take it one step at a time in the coming days and months ahead.

but before we can move forward, we need to camp here and know, to your very marrow, that He. Is.

love,
mama