letting go...{day 30}

i started out to write 30 posts about letting go...

and my computer stopped a few - odd connection issues refused to connect and so i'd wait for a few minutes and then head to bed...trusting that maybe my silence was better than my words.


because in the silence, He worked in my heart.


and i don't think i've come to any earth shattering conclusions about what letting go truly means...because letting go isn't earth shattering.  we are called, as followers of Jesus, to lay down our lives, to pick up His cross and follow Him - and as my hands empty they simultaneously fill as i choose to do what He asks.

the purposeful act of letting go of what holds me back or drags me down or pulls me away is needed and continual but worth it because of the treasure i find in Him.


during this past month, i've finally joined the bandwagon and picked up this book and started to read. and it's these words that i read late last night that i keep coming back to throughout this day,

walking in genuine intimacy and full surrender to God requires great faith.

"what are you doing right now that requires faith?" that question affected me deeply because at the time i could think of nothing in my life that required faith. i probably wouldn't be living very differently if i didn't believe in God...

life is comfortable when you separate yourself from people who are different from you...that epitomizes what my life was like: characterized by comfort.

but God doesn't call us to be comfortable. He calls us to trust Him so completely that we are unafraid to put ourselves in situations where we will be in trouble if He doesn't come through.

francis chan - crazy love

to let go -  to truly let go of my dreams, hurt, pain, anger, unforgiveness and even wishing that i knew the why of some situations - is hard. it's messy and i seem to make a mess of it even more...

but throughout this month, the one thing i have kept coming back to - that everything always seems to come back to - i keep coming back to Jesus.

i keep coming back to the freedom found in Him when the only thing i'm holding on to is His grace.

so i stand at the edge of another december.  another holiday that is missing so many.  days leading up to the days that still hold so many questions and so much hurt.  and almost three years after the fact, after the shattering and the suicide and the most unhappy of new years, i am feeling the joy again, the anticipation of celebrating that moment when Emmanuel left His heavenly home, wrapped Himself up in our fragile, dusty skin and became God With Us.

And now, O Lord, for what do I wait?

My hope is in you.

(Psalm 39:7 ESV) 

so what do i wait for? do i wait for the dark days to overwhelm and discourage again - or do i push back by looking up...to Him?

because that is the only way to be able to let go, i think.

the only way to truly let go of it all, is by lifting up my eyes to the One Who bled grace on the cross and  clinging to Hope in Jesus with everything i have...

letting go...{day 29}

we had tried for those ten months because we had that nagging feeling that our family wasn't complete yet.  we made the decision to place it in God's Hands but after almost a year with no second pink line, we figured that we were mistaken and rested in that thought and were happily content with our family of five...

only, by the time i was fully content with that decision, she was and the agenda i had already begun to craft and feel comfortable with, excited about, was suddenly out of my hands and i was stunned.


He has made a habit of doing that in my life...

maybe yours too?


i think back to that last winter there, where everything was falling apart and i had no choice but to open up clenched fists and whisper yes to what He had planned.


i remember screaming into my pillow at the God Who i thought had let me down, Who surely must be mocking my wants and wishes and dreams...

i remember driving away from what i had so desperately wanted and heading towards the big and vast empty space of Unknown.


i had never been more terrified.

i had never felt Him so near.



this past week, i feel as though every emotion i possess has been ravaged - i wrote to my sister, my friend, that all i want to do is claw out of this skin that i find myself in, to somehow escape what i have seen and what i know and how, how can all of this brokenness be possible?


the hair that hangs long over a face punched purple and green - the pain in those beautiful eyes and the smile she still manages to share.  and while i ate thanksgiving dinner surrounded by warmth and beauty, she was being beaten.

the sobs i hear as i enter the restroom, a broken girl crumpled on a cold tile floor because she just found out a loved one is dying...a loved one who walked away all those years ago.

of the dark alley i found myself in, trying to open up shut gates while danger is heading right towards us - and why can't there be more light? more light for the dark places so children don't have to be scared to walk home alone?

of that young boy, bullied and mocked and made to feel less-than - of the tears he tries to brush away and hide.


and i am angry because i get to drive away. at the end of the day, i drive away to my home safe and locked with every window secure and in place.  in place.  and i know of children who sleep in rooms lacking this simple luxury - there is nothing between them and the cold air that has settled in for this season and as i fall asleep, there are young eyes plastered open because who knows what can slip in during the dark of the night?


it's all. so. dark.


and my agenda...

my silly agenda.


so often i think i know what's best, and i beg for what i think is best, and i fight for it and i pout over it and more often than not, i sadly get my own way...


until He allows it all to be shaken - for my heart to be shaken - for my life to be uprooted and replanted and for my eyes to be opened to what i need to let go of so that He can make use of what little i have to offer.


and i wrestle with feeling like i'm drowning in a sea of what-if's - fearing that i won't be able to manage it all with a newborn and homeschooling and going down to the mission everyday like before.  and how do i maintain friendships and parenting and keeping our home a haven - let alone clean?

how do i manage the big emotions that still rise up over broken relationships?  and how do my girls always seem to manage to ask the really hard questions while i make the drive from our house to the mission - questions like, why did papa die and how did papa die and do you ever think you'll see your family again, mama?

i don't know how to do it all...

and maybe that's the point.


it's that verse in the book of james that's been dancing around my head all afternoon, the one that seems to caution against agendas and that very human tendency to think that we may know best after all,

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”

(James 4:13-15 ESV)

and it's the simple and so very complicated act of letting it all go, opening up clenched fists and giving our plans, our pain, our questions, the reality of our very uncertain tomorrows over to the One Who knows what our next breath holds ~

if Jesus wills, tomorrow, i will get up and make breakfast and i will get through as many subjects as i can with my children.

if Jesus wills, tomorrow, i will love my husband well and pray for him as he faces the realities that this job holds.

if Jesus wills, tomorrow, i will laugh with my children and pray with them and prepare our hearts to love the ones who are so very unloved.

if Jesus wills, tomorrow, i will drive down and i will listen and i will wipe tears and i will be His Arms to whomever He brings my way.

if Jesus wills, tomorrow, i'll trust that He is holding all my future tomorrows and He'll lead me and show me how to be a mama to 4, a wife to one, a friend to my friends and a keeper of this home He's given to us...

because my haven and rest isn't found in these four walls...

my refuge is in Christ and Him alone.

and so, if Jesus wills, tomorrow, i'll keep letting it go...

letting go...{day 4}

it started during those words that our pastor spoke over us this morning,

us with those wafers of bread in our hands,

and Jesus, on the night He was betrayed, broke bread and gave thanks...

and i couldn't move past it.


i couldn't move past the breaking and the betrayal and the moment of thanks.  past the handing over of fellowship to the very one who would usher in His death with a kiss.


i think of all those areas in my heart broken...

betrayed and bruised...

all those places where i have been the betrayer.


and those Hands that hadn't yet been pierced by the nails, but Whose skin had been stretched over bone and muscle for that very purpose, they willingly broke and released the symbol of His Body so that the 12 around Him could be filled.

He let go of His Life so that we could find it and be made new...

He was willingly broken and beaten and betrayed so that when His sacrifice is truly grasped, He gets all the praise.

and letting go has nothing to do with shedding an old skin that has become too tight, or releasing dreams or hurts or pain...

but it has everything to do with bringing Him alone glory.


to let go is to open my hand to give Him whatever keeps me enslaved to my sinful nature and receive His Sacrifice willingly - 

to take up my own cross and follow Him.


letting go is releasing me and embracing Him.

no hidden agendas,

no ulterior motives.

i am just a woman so tired of who i have been and so very desperate for my Jesus.
 

for when it begins to change...

He is unchanging and yet He brings us through seasons that will bring about change in us.

i stood outside on our front step this evening and realized that with startling clarity even though it's been something He has been whispering in my heart for the last few weeks or so.


that word He gave at the beginning of this year to name the year and to give me a focus?  He hasn't forgotten and He won't let me forget either...

He wants to flow life through what has seem parched and dry.


but i don't know if i'm brave enough.


change with all its mysteries and uncertainties is certainly something i've never embraced, but could this be a step towards something new?  instead of clinging to the familiar and the old, can i trust Him to provide when it feels as though i'm grasping at air?


this post seems as vague and as hazy as the other side of that door standing wide open and it seems that the only way through is to drop a lot of dreams. a lot of hopes. a lot of what i had expected.

but maybe dropping it all is letting go of what has been holding it all back...


i feel like i always do, that last moment before that last push that brings that first moment of holding my baby in my arms:

i feel terrified.


but pushing through fear, through loss always seems to bring about new life.

it's always miraculous...


and there are other words of a river that flows that wind their way through all of my questions and fears and they are a promise.  His Promise.  and He always remains true to His Word...

when you pass through the waters

I will be with you; and through the rivers,

they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through the fire

you shall not be burned and the flame shall not consume you

isaiah 43:2

so i can give thanks. because He is good.

no matter the outcome.

1560. for tony

1561. his birthday

1562. holding his hand

1563. 12 years with him

1564. sock puppets

1565. gane

1566. hugs that soothe tears

1567. dog hair...everywhere

1568. rainy days

1569. a fire in the wood stove...

1570. ...the first of the season!

1571. snuggling with kids and books

1572. new friends

1573. books borrowed

1574. encouraged hearts

1575. being taken care of

1576. yard work

1577. taking care of clutter

1578. mixing up cookie dough

1579. blanket and couch and movie with him

1580. rain on the skylight

1581. elias pressed close

1582. friends who help

1583. moments alone - with tony

1584. 2 princesses and a motorcycle rider

1585. foggy mornings

1586. upturned, smiling faces

1587. tony standing near when i am so tired...

we could all be one...

at my last appointment, she told me i had 10 weeks and 4 days left.

my heart stopped a little.


this little one, this one already named will be here before i'm ready ~
.

i find myself wondering what she looks like.


and this baby, this unexpected little one,

she already opens doors.


i am learning, always learning, that being a mama does that.


some women feel that they have lost themselves when they are buried under mounds of dishes and laundry and clutter and chaos,

and yes.

yes

i find myself fading into the monotony at times.


as though the dreams i had dreamed and the hopes i had hoped have somehow gone the way of that second sock somewhere deep in the belly of the dryer.

but

He has drawn me out in this season as well.

becoming a mother, in many ways, has made me less afraid.  as though who i always was, who He created me to be, was waiting to be birthed out of my dark and has emerged in ways i never expected or dreamed.

and a mother?

she recognizes another and there is a connecting - even past language barriers and my inability to pronounce a name correctly...even past the busyness swirling around us,

every mother's heart needs to be spoken into.


every woman has the potential to be a mother.

each one.


and every woman needs a mother.


because it's not just a filled and emptied womb that gives this status,

i have seen with my eyes and heard with my ears the words and the love poured out from one woman onto the ears of children not her own.  her love has helped them grow.

why do we shy away from each other?

why do we overlook that sometimes the children He gives are ones not woven from our own DNA? that families are made larger, healthier, whole when we allow Jesus to form our sisters and brothers and mothers and daddies from the very core of Who He Is?

i think of the legacy that we all could leave.

us who are seemingly small,

seemingly insignificant,

the ones who have failed and should be given up on.

us.


He uses the weak to showcase His Glory and wouldn't a ragamuffin lot of us reflect His very face?

maybe.

maybe i'm just rambling in the quiet of the night while my cup of coffee steams and my older two still giggle and this baby girl dances in the dark.

but i can't help but wonder what He could do through hearts completely surrendered and open to Him and to each other...

i want to know what that looks like...

when they walk away...

i don't think it matters.

i think i'm becoming bold enough to say those words.

i don't think it matters...

you came home this evening and fell onto the bed beside me, as though the day after turning 38 had felt the need to add some extra weight onto your shoulders.

you began saying their names quietly, one after the other. i felt overwhelmed by the number...i hadn't realized they were all related.

and then you said it,

their dad decided that he was done this weekend.  he left. up and walked away...

i don't think it matters...

whether you are six years old or edging closer to forty,

when a parent up and decides you are no longer worth being there for,

nothing compares to that ache.

i didn't hear the gunshots this evening, i only heard the sirens...i saw them all crowding on the front steps and huddled close together.

i was trying to find our three because it was time to go home and i still had one more stop to make.

i got to the door and it was repeated to me, gunshots had been fired, i needed to stay inside.

i knew you were inside,

but the last i had heard, our three were out in that playground.

my kids!! are my kids in the playground??

even i heard the desperation in my voice.


and i felt them all press in close, those children who deal with situations like these on a regular basis i'm sure, as though pressing in close presses in comfort and i was moved back into safety while another went out to search for my own...


they were inside, near you. at least, they knew where you were and they felt safe.  we got out to our van while the police lights were still flashing, while streets were blocked off and i drove away and you stayed behind.

you stayed behind and learned of one more family who has been rejected by a parent and you carry it home.

you stayed behind and listened to the brokenness and filled hands with food to get them through the next few days.

you stayed behind...

 and where can it go but at Jesus' feet?

because it can't go anywhere else. it can't. 

we can't make the parents around us fight for their children,

we can't make dead daddies come back to life,

we can't make mamas stop wandering to circle around and come back home.

you lay beside me in the bed we share and we aren't immune,

our children have experienced their own deep losses,

we wrestle with our own questions and bewilderment.

and in the silence you turn towards me and you say with an intensity i know is stamped with your integrity,

i'm not going anywhere.  do you know that?  i. am. not. going. anywhere.

and i know.  i know, tony.


because you could have walked away at any point. you asked if you could pursue me 2 weeks before you turned 26 and i know what you have faced choosing to stay with me. 

walking away would have been the easy and understandable thing to do.

you turned 38 yesterday and gunshots were fired today and i know that nothing short of death would ever cause you to leave.

and yet there is loss all around us and this is what your life is teaching me every day:  death can be walking alive among us because bitterness eats the living whole and when i begin to turn inward to what hurts, you cup my face and you turn my eyes back to Jesus and remind me that they only way i can walk as one living is to walk with my eyes focused on Him. 

 to lay what hurts down at His feet.

to press in close ~ to each other, to Jesus ~ because to press in close presses in comfort and pushes out what will kill our souls.


i could have celebrated you yesterday and lost you today and yet He gives us one more day together. one more day to walk through and work through and learn to press into.  

and so, even with the heaviness that this day has brought, with the hurt and pain that we walk into everyday, i want to say how thankful i am for the chances that He gives everyday to celebrate you.  

happy birthday, my tony.

i love you.

when eleven years pass by too quickly...

it's up there on our bedroom wall - that moment captured eleven years ago after our i do's had been said and you had kissed me for the very first time...

i looked at those two faces for a while today and was caught up in memories...

and i wondered how time could move so quickly.

your face was the only one i looked for at the top of that aisle, your smile was the one i longed for.

i'll never forget the way you looked as you waited for me...


i am caught by those two faces and while they look so very familiar, i find i don't really know them anymore...

you have white in your hair now, that rich black unmarred when i first saw you...


you walked into that classroom and pulled that toque down over your head, but i caught a glimpse of you and you captured me.

those four years between that moment and the moment you asked to pursue me were filled with so much pain and yet they were worth all of it because when His moment was right for us, i knew i would be safe with you.

your beard is becoming more salt than pepper and there are crows feet by your eyes and those lines carry the truth that you find Hope in every situation, you find something to laugh about no matter how dark the moment and i want to hold the snapshots i have of you now because someday, this day will be a distant memory and i don't want to take you for granted.


she looks so happy, but i know what the next few years would bring for her...for you. those first years weren't easy and you were so patient with her...with me.  your love for her made her stronger...do you know that?  can you even fathom the gift that you are? that girl in the picture - she wears the same skin as me, but i'm not her any longer and there are not enough words to tell you how grateful i am to Jesus and to you for your choice to stay faithful to the one so very timid.

i started praying for you when i was twelve.  i remember the moment.  i remember the coolness of the basement and which wall i was facing when it hit me, i needed to pray for my future husband now. i love that i have been praying for you for 21 years and i love that i have been your wife for 11 and that you are the answer to so much of what i prayed to Jesus for.

i remember the years that we fought with each other, how painful those years were.  i was always trying to run, wild with fear that i was going to fail, trying to prove to you that i would.  you fought for me long before i ever fought for us and your steadiness humbles me, because you could have walked away so very long ago and it makes me love you even more because your love is so very sure and where would i ever want to go but straight into your arms?

the longer we are married, the more i realize how short these days are...each day with you is one less with you and the more i gain the more i lose and time keeps moving us closer to that moment when we will see Jesus face to face and i want to love you well each moment we are given.  i want to find the treasure that is hidden in the light and in the dark and i want to discover all that is priceless in you.

i want to love you well, tony baker.


each year that i write on our anniversary, i include a photo from our wedding day...but today, i am deciding not to. today, i want to capture who we are now...because He has brought us so very far from those vows said with trembling and with hope...

He has brought us here, to a love and a trust and a relationship deeper and truer than i ever dreamed was possible.  He has brought us here in all our brokenness and humanity and allowed us to experience life and all of its ups and downs together...

the faces in our pictures from then and now may bear identical similarities, but the story that He has written on our hearts make us so very different.

so to you, i want to wish a very happy anniversary.

you have my heart and the rest of my days, always.

i love you, so very, very much.

all my love...

bending low...

i grew up in a small baptist church where all the grey-haired ones became my aunties and uncles and where i would sneak a pickle or two from the fridge down in the basement near where my sunday school class was.

it's where i met flannel-graph-Jesus and met my first friends,

it's where i was baptized and spent my first year in youth group,

and it's where i acquired my love of hymns.

those old hymns - you know the ones. where my piano teacher sat up to that organ and bobbed her head up and down as she counted out the rhythm soundlessly and pounded out, o for a thousand tongues.

where blessed assurance comforted and i tried to sing all the words to great is Your faithfulness  without ever looking down at the words.


hymns have always pulled me in and comforted when my heart has felt heavy.

there are deep truths about a Deeper God buried within those lines.


and it was on tuesday of this week when i sat in the playground with a heavy heart and watched my three play with a little girl who speaks english in only the faintest of whispers; as that one little boy kept standing on top of the monkey bars because my reaction made him almost fall off laughing.

it's in that playground that i hear a cacophony of noises, ones that tend to clash as the laughter tries to drown out the sirens or the yelling of the couple down the street.

and my husband, because he loves me, because he knows me, had asked me to do something hard, something out of my comfort zone - he had asked me to share from my heart; not in the writing down of words, but in the speaking them out...with my voice and i wrestled in the moments leading up to it all.

the noise in my head, maybe the most clashing of all the noises around me...


when above it all, for the first and only time, since we've first started showing up on the steps of this old schoolhouse, the sound in the air around me was of the Holy bending near...

because from some church steeple around us, there came the ringing of bells and in the middle of the notes moving and weaving in the air around me, i heard His call...

and His promise:

praise to the Lord, the Almighty

the King of Creation

o my soul praise Him for

He is thy help and salvation

all ye who hear, now to His temple draw near

praise Him in glad adoration

praise to the Lord 

Who o'er all things so wonderfully reigneth

shelters thee under His wings

yea, so gladly sustaineth

hast thou not seen how thy desires e'er have been

granted in what He ordaineth

praise to the Lord 

Who doth prosper thy work and defend thee

surely His goodness and mercy here daily attend thee

ponder anew what the Almighty can do

if with His love He befriend thee

praise to the Lord, o let all that is in me adore Him

all that have life and breath

come now with praises before Him

let thy 'amen' sound from His people again

gladly for aye we adore Him

hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah

i haven't heard the bells sing out again, the air is silent save for the laughter and the sirens and the yelling, but He, the God Who Sees took notice, bent low to remind this heart that i'm not forgotten.

yes, o my soul, praise Him.

in everything...

it seems to come in the quiet of those late hours, those feelings that you've failed and you're too broken and all the things that you did that you wish you didn't come back to haunt and you feel broken.

wasted.

useless.


when it seems like what the future holds is too much and the resources you have are too little and how in the world are you going to make it?


he came in late and tired last night, sat down in the couch near me and rested his head on the back of that pillow.

with his eyes close, he said my name,

talk to me, kimberley.


and it comes pouring out, the pain, the fear, the shame and he listens all quiet and sure.

and he knows because he's carried his own pain, regrets, scars...

he's shouldered a lot of my own heavy as well.

he knows.


and we sit there, together, in the silence.


sometimes we need to be still so we can know He is there.

(photo credit: becky frame)

and his own burdens come out, story by story,

of the siblings whose mama walked away 3 years ago, of their daddy in prison and the oldest boy working a full time job plus taking on the responsibility of school and taking care of the younger ones...

of the children with no running water...

of the broken and shattered families who come to dinner each evening...


brokenness is everywhere.

everywhere.

and after we read through the first chapter of ezra together, he says quietly in the lamplight,

maybe everything we've been through, everything that has left a scar, has been placed there beautifully by the Hand of God so that we could be prepared for what He had been preparing for us here...


i can't get it out of my head...

that thought.

each scar, each pain-filled moment, has a purpose, a use.


a friend sat at my table this afternoon while i scooped up cookie dough onto those parchment-lined pans.  she shared from her heart as my cookies failed, again - spread out and didn't hold together.

she made a comment,

maybe my scars don't heal over completely so that He can use that pain...

can our pain be a balm for another hurting heart?


His scars, that He will carry throughout all of eternity, continually point out the life and healing He offers - should i really be surprised that my scars never, really, completely go away either?


the last few days have been filled with the reminder that the secret to joy is found in seeing Him in everything.

most especially in the pain-filled-everything.

it was in the pain-filled words of eli the priest, after the Lord came to the child named samuel and called him by name - when the message from God was anything but good...

but it's there, straight from the mouth of the man who received such horrible news,

He is the Lord; let Him do what is good in His eyes. 

1 samuel 3:18

i can come before Jesus and ask for painful situations to change, i can beg for a different outcome, i can hope for a better tomorrow, but sometimes, sometimes what He asks is for us to embrace what hurts and receive it as straight from His Hands.

He is good.

we can trust that.

and while we may not be able to understand why He allows what He allows, we can be open vessels, willing and waiting for Him to use you and me.

because He takes our broken, what should be thrown away and discarded and amazingly and for reasons i can't even comprehend, He uses it - all of it for His glory.


how can i not praise Him?

if i see God in everything, He will calm and colour everything i see! perhaps

the circumstances causing my sorrows will not be removed and my situation will remain the same,

but if Christ is brought into my grief and gloom as my Lord and Master, He will "surround me with songs of deliverance" (ps 32:7) To see Him and to be sure that His wisdom and power never fail and His love never changes, to know that even His most distressing dealings with me 

are for my deepest spiritual gain, is to be able to say in the midst of bereavement, sorrow, pain and loss, "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord

be praised" (job 1:21).

...nothing but seeing God will completely put an end to all complaining and thoughts of 

rebellion.

~hannah whitall smith

in the wrapping around...

the sun is setting earlier and the air is turning crisper...

i leave the windows open to let fall sneak in.


and it was on an evening that was already dark this past weekend that i heard the laughter out front of our house, filling our bedroom, filling the living room, filling every nook and cranny it seemed...

curiosity got the better of me and i peeked out from behind the curtains to see the cause when i saw it.

nothing funny or absurd - something rather plain actually, but a family wrapping coloured lights round and round a post and just enjoying being together.

i caught that glimpse of them as they finished up and stepped back to admire their handiwork - backs were slapped and hugs were shared and some went one way and others went inside,

but i kept standing there.


it's amazing to me, how in the dark of the night a light can draw one's gaze and hold it captive.


he chased our van last week - that little boy who wants a new identity.  the one who told me what he wished his name was and then asked to come home with us.  i knelt down in front of him, looked into those old eyes in that young, sweet face and had to tell him no.

 but he kept pleading and i had to close the door on brokenness.

he chased me as far as his little legs would carry him and i wanted to stop that van and make everything better.  i wanted to make what was shattered in his world, whole.

i wanted to fight the pain inside.


i had to leave early on a different day, and the one whose name is full of promise asked me why we had to go...couldn't we just stay 5 more minutes?  i wrapped my arm around her shoulders and told her i couldn't, that we were already late, but i would be back the next day and she could come and sit with me then.  i heard her go up to tony as i buckled my little boy in...

she asked if she could go home with us too.

she didn't chase the van,

but she watched us with her eyes and why does there have to be so much pain and so much hurt?


he whispers in the dark to me of that young man who carries school and work on his shoulders, the young man who finally grew strong enough to fight back and stop the beatings of his mother, his siblings...

himself.

the one who has a wicked sense of humor and a quiet steadiness and is now the sole provider for the family he is a part of.

and it can easily overwhelm.

i didn't expect to love the children who come there as much as i do - i thought i would care, yes, but heart-expanding, aching love?

no...

smiling faces can hide so much, but it's always the eyes that give the pain away.


and He asks us to go into the dark places, the places void of Him.  He asks us to trust Him and to do the hard thing and to believe that He will carry us each step of the way.

it's the only way i can go back everyday, to stand beside tony and bring our Father's Love.

the only way...


and my twinkly lights may still be packed away, but He doesn't need them anyways...

because the True Light is His Son and the current to bring His Glory, the Holy into the forgotten and despised areas is your heart and mine.

so we stand in faith, and we surround the children He brings to us with the Light of His Love...

choosing to see Him in all of this dark...

1511. wide awake at 4:30am
1512. quiet hours before the day starts
1513. moments alone with Jesus
1514. that this small one inside is a girl
1515. watching her wiggle
1516. tony's grace
1517. tears in the park
1518. that he's home for the day
1519. that staff we miss

1520. a long awaited cup of coffee

1521. canadian geese flying overhead
1522. their song of home
1523. longing for the ocean
1524. mornings that are crisp and cool
1525. this amazing dog at my feet
1526. that He gives strength to a weary mama

1527. a kitchen mess easily cleaned up
1528. little girls who still need a mama's help
1529. the quiet of a sunday afternoon
1530. flower-glory
1531. the family He makes
1532. baby kicks

1533. the way elias absentmindedly plays with my hair
1534. kisses before work
1535 mornings and their early quiet
1536. watching my girls learn to read

what they forgot to tell me...

he greets me, whenever we happen to be there at the same time with the same words spilling from his lips.

those words said in thickly accented and broken english that my ears struggle to decipher,  he says it slow because he knows - this white lady can barely keep up.

it is not a house. not. a. house, yes?

and he pauses because he wants me to understand.  wants it to sink deep and so i nod my head and wait for those words i already know are about to fill the space around us,

it is a palace, kimberley. a palace.  you understand?

and yes, i do. i understand that what bears the marks of tagging and the places worn and crumbling because of age and use is so much more here in the the hardened edges around us.

he laughs at my attempt to say his name; me, the canadian with no ability to roll my r's with the flair and passion of his spanish, but i try and he applauds and tells me i can say his name in english.

i want to learn how to say his name in spanish.

the children too - seem to delight in the fact that this white woman who sits in the hot sun at the playground completely and utterly butchers the beauty of their language, but they are determined it seems to teach me the basics, even if it sounds awful and makes bellies hurt from laughing so hard.

i was warned about which colours to avoid wearing when we came to spend time at this place. i made a mental note and double check us all before we walk out our door, but they forgot to warn me about the most important thing...

they never warned me that my heart would break.

i remember saying to him, in the days leading up to his final days at starbucks, i said that maybe i would stay away, not because i was scared of gangs and violence and drugs...i was scared of becoming attached again.  scared of opening up my heart. maybe, i reasoned, staying away would help his ministry if i stayed in the background.

he paused, like he always does before he says something hard but needed,

you can stay away, kimberley, and i would understand. but that would be the most selfish thing you could do.  Jesus asks us to lay down our lives and lose them for Him.  to hide in the corner would feel safer, but you'd be missing out on everything He has for you there.

i didn't know what to expect, that first day or two that we were there, but what i didn't expect was the warmth, the joy, the shy smiles. i didn't expect to fall in love with their names. 

 he was asked, in his interview, how he would point out Hope to those who came because sometimes, in the darkest places, Hope seems so hard to find...

but it's there...in the names of the children.  when those mamas first held those newborn babies and breathed out a name over brand new skin, they named with a longing for Hope.

it's all around me.

it's as they sit close at the dinner table, as they yell out, hey lady! your belly got big! it's when they ask what time they have to go and it's written all over their faces that they don't want to.

it's in the wiping down of tables together and the sitting close on the playground together and watching my three run and play with no idea whatsoever that their skin colour doesn't match those of their playmates.  of that little boy with the big chocolate brown eyes who comes up to me and throws his arms around my neck before he ever says hey.

it's the 13 year old boy, shyly sharing his poetry with me as he waits for his brothers and cousins to finish playing.

i didn't expect my heart to break wide open and find myself with tears streaming down my face as i leave that part of town for mine. which honestly, neither is really that different from the other. aren't we all broken? aren't we all hurting in some way, trying to dull the ache with whatever we can hold on to?  oh, the houses may look shabbier if you cross the tracks, or they may gleam and sparkle if you drive further up the valley road, but without Hope, without Jesus, aren't we all desperate? 

i stood in the dark this evening as i waited for our dog to finish running around the yard, finish sniffing out the last of this day when i looked up.

today had been particularly hard, for many reasons, and at the end of the day a perfect storm brewed and i spoke harsh words to a strong willed daughter and we were both left split wide open and in pain. 

sin permeates both sides of the tracks.

but it was that wordless prayer that groped and grasped for words i couldn't seem to form that He answered on that back porch in the inky black...

because when i looked up in desperation He had already pasted it there at eye level, perfectly level and still...

the big dipper.

i can love and i can fail within moments of each other and i can mess up in a hundred thousand different ways, but His love is always sure, always steady and it cups around my failings and He offers that perfect love for me to dip from, to immerse myself in so that i can become a channel that He can flow through.

and i wonder, does He allow our hearts to break, to shatter, not so that we will hurt and experience pain, but so that His Perfect Love pours out freely from the broken...

to the broken.

dear dad, when you need to know...

the wind has been blowing outside these windows,

the leaves are beginning to fall.


this small baby inside of me is tumbling in my dark

and you...


you are moving in the presence of God.


i woke up this morning at 4:30, unable to go back to sleep.  i fleetingly thought of you and your habit, the one that found you up and out the door at 4 am to run, no matter the weather that would blow in.

i thought of that cold february morning when the phone rang in the dark, the snow was blowing outside our window then.  i remember the sound of tony's voice as he listened to his mama.  how we heard that your heart had rebelled and you had crawled on your hands and knees on the ice and snow to make it home.  how you fought to live...

we had 10 more months with you.


the last time i had a baby in my belly, the last time i laid down and saw those tiny fingers and toes and spine up on that screen, tony was with you.

you were here.

and i wonder if that's why, when the appointment was all done and he held me in the quiet of that park, if that's why the tears came.

because last time, when your son shared with you that he was going to have a son of his own, you raised your fist and said triumphantly, yes! boys are ahead, 6 to 4!  

you were here to hear the news.

the last time i carried a child in my belly, that child was held in your arms.

all my babies have known you,

they've heard your voice,

they have fallen asleep against you.


this is the first of my four that will never know you.


but i want you to know.

i want you to know that this little one growing in the dark is a sweet baby girl who wiggles and wriggles and is already making us laugh with her stubborn streak that i'm sure you would be proud of.

she may never meet you here on earth's soil, but she will know of you. she will hear of your love for Jesus and how you allowed Him to change you into a man of humility and grace.

and someday she will hear of your struggle, how you gave up at the very end...but even in that, dad, even in that there is hope. 

it took tragedy to shake us out of our complacency and He promises that He takes the ugly of our lives and turns into beauty.  

we can trust that.

and we will teach each of our children, your grandchildren that they can trust Him for that too.


but more than anything, i just wanted to let you know that you are going to be a grandpa again...


and i'm trusting that Jesus will let you know that the girls are catching up...

i love you, dad.

and i miss you...

1511. wide awake at 4:30am
1512. quiet hours before the day starts
1513. moments with Jesus
1514. that she is a girl
1515. watching her wiggle
1516. tony's grace
1517. tears in the park
1518. that he is home for the day
1519. the community of sweet friends we found and still have even though he's moved onto a different job

endings and beginnings and hope...

ending moments are always the hardest, the most difficult.

especially when they are drawn out and still need to be lived through.


Jesus used the familiar and the known to bring us here during a season of huge upheaval and change and so very many unknowns.  a job that had been his for almost 20 years now, off and on, was his again and in the middle of trying to find our way that was entrenched deep in His, we had this.

we had coffee.

we had almost instant community.


and one can gripe and complain about corporate america and the "big, bad" coffee chains that charge too much and support what we don't support and how they probably add an addictive chemical or two that keep you coming back (i heard the same rumour...), but for us, in those months where i stood under a moon and hardly knew a soul outside those 4 that shared a roof with me,

it was familiar when i had lost almost everything.


we had always wondered, when we first moved here, if coffee was the reason or a way to get us into this city, because His Hand in moving us here was so very evident.

and honestly? i had read the statistics on crime and had lived gripped in fear for the first few months of living here, quietly housed on the safe part of town.  everything in my head told me that moving here was a risk...but we had no other options.

no other options but to trust the One Who was doing the moving.


trusting that when we found a home out in the country, where it was quiet and peaceful with a small bit of land,

that just before we took that last deep breath and agreed to sign,

we both felt it...

that urging to look closer.

closer to the noise and the pressing in of neighbours and people and traffic.

closer to what didn't feel safe.

closer to a desperate need.


i'm learning, however slowly, that comfort isn't a zone that is found in Christ.  that when He asks us to take up our cross, to deny ourselves, to lose our lives,

He's serious.


and that sometimes our sacrifices are bathed in tears.


we give up peace for sirens and chaos and some questionable neighbours just down the street.

we give up coffee and the amazing community that we have found in a group of people who we have learned to love deeply...

and we give it up for the wrong side of the tracks and for those that need Him.


we have dipped our toes in ministry in the past, and we have walked through deep pain and brokenness as a result.

and it's funny, one would think that facing the prospect of watching ones husband drive down into that part of town, where drive-by shootings are a reality,  where gangs are a reality, where drugs and who-knows-what-else is a reality would be enough to make me want to whisper out no.

the truth?

it's the fear of trusting other believers in a ministry setting again. because pain in christian community is so very real, so very possible, and we are still healing from it all.


but it's the story, the one that he came home with after that afternoon spent with those children playing wiffle ball and seeing what all the job would entail; it's the one of the little girl, eight years old, found wandering the streets after midnight because she didn't know where her parents were.

it's because of that young boy i can't seem to forget, the one who tried to act so tough, but whose eyes pleaded with me to notice,

it's all the stories i don't yet know,

the children who haven't yet heard His Hope,

a dark place that so desperately needs His Light,

it's all of these and even more that i can't even comprehend that has me saying a yes that seems to drown out my fear.


He used coffee to bring us to where He wanted us,

but it was only the start.


the endings are always the hardest,

especially when the are drawn out and long and still need to be lived through.


but that beginning ahead of us?

it's rich with hope.  hope to hear the laughter of children discovering His Love for them and their worth in Him that is drawing me outside a comfort i crave and closer to Him...

in the morning...

it's in the early hours that she crawls in under the covers and presses her warm little body up next to me.

i often wake up pressed on both sides by two sleepy bodies wrestling this third one for a space in this bed and i lay there fighting to breathe but not daring to move because i don't want to wake either one up.

(though, i suspect, with his body half on and half off his edge of the mattress, that husband of mine isn't sleeping too well either.)

and while i feel the darkness and heat and lack of personal space press in, olivia sleeps on in peace...she's found what she was missing and slumber comes easy.

either the darkness presses in and we find hope fading, or we press in close to Jesus and find ourselves wrapped up in peace.


i thought of this as the sun flickered across my eyes in the early morning hours and she still slept.


two of my youngest robbed me of my sleep in those late and early hours as i laboured through the night.  those pangs that started slow and easy, ones that i could breathe through and nap through suddenly raged and it was all i could do to barely catch onto my next breath.

i remember the sunrises of both of those mornings - as a new day emerged and i held new life in my arms.  there was relief from those dark hours that i thought would kill me.


this morning's sunrise was no different as her sleepy breath brushed across my cheek.


i think, sometimes, He lets the darkness press in close...

allows it to build in intensity in order to break through the complacency that can so easily hold us rapt until the need to fill our lungs with oxygen forces us to push back and cry out for Him.


worst-case scenarios and all those what-ifs can make a mind spin all crazy.  can oh-so-subtly take eyes trained on Jesus and turn them inward.

and without Him, there's nothing good to focus on in these inward parts.


and it's only Jesus Who can bring relief to a soul dragged through a season, no matter how small, meant to birth new life in her.


it's in the middle of all the questioning and wondering and all the circles my mind would go, spiraling lower and lower until my worry had taken on a frenzied dance of its own...it's when His Truth - the very first one i had ever planted deep - began to whisper Its way in and around and through the lies that were screaming loud and i heard Him:

trust in the Lord 

with all your heart

and lean not

on your own understanding.

proverbs 3:5

fourteen sunrises have blazed by that window by my bed...thirteen of them have seemed glaringly cruel, even on the most rainy of days.

this morning, though, with her sturdy little body nestled against my own, her eyelids closed over those chocolate depths i find mesmerizing, i felt the weary relief of new life wrestled and birthed...

and hope.

because always, always, always, our days and the moments that fill them and the worries and joys that seep into those spaces - they are all about Jesus.

without Him as the One my eyes, my heart, my soul anchors to, i'm so easily distracted, tossed about by every thought and whim.

but that second Truth i planted deep when i was still so small, before the innocence i can't remember was taken away?

it stakes His claim on my life He's never let go of and my heart is a bell that Unrelenting Love rings loud...

in all your ways

acknowledge Him

and He will make your paths straight.

proverbs 3:6

when it tilts...

it's when everything shifts and the world tilts in a dizzingly familiar way that all those old fears come back.

when the new slides back to old and you wonder what on earth He could possibly be doing.


and really, even if you did know, you might not understand because His ways are always higher, just like His thoughts are always His and all He is asking is that you trust.


because even when everything changes,

He doesn't.


He doesn't change.

why is it always so very hard for this heart to grasp that simple truth?


they get it, those three little ones of mine all tucked in their beds,

as we sit in a circle come morning time and sing our song that goes through the days of the week;

as we sing about this day that He has made,

just like we sang yesterday that He made that one too.


He's unchangeable,

even as life whirls around us and leaves us wide eyed.


He's an anchor that can hold us steady.


anything else that i cling to,

anything else i claim as security and strength crumbles in my hands as the temporal gives way to the mirage that it all really is.

nothing is sure but Him.


can i trust that?

can i really trust that?


can i trust that to say yes to a Wild and Unpredictable and Loving God means the very best for me, for us?

can i trust that when i step onto the path He has laid out before me, full of questions and fears, that He truly does hem us in behind and before and every step i take,

is taken with Him.

Very God walks with crumbly dust and He won't leave me, won't forsake us because we are engraved into His Hands.


yes, the earth may tremble beneath these feet of mine,

walls may give way,


but i wonder,

when everything crumbles around us,

is it all making way for the new things He is doing?


could that be the moment we are surrounded by those streams rushing through all the dry places deep inside?


so, let Him move what is underneath you,

let it tremble and break open into all the new ways He longs to love and lead you...


and trust Him,

because He Who Is, is true and sure and nothing can move One So Strong.

her name...

when she was nestled into the dark of me, she didn't move much.

and when she was named, her face was still unseen.

i thought her name would be fitting of the child who moved all quiet.

olivia - my peaceful one.

 

her life has been anything but.


her middle name was added in very purposefully

because i would meet her in the home of my midwife

with nothing to ease the pain to come.

and that woman, so very calm and sure, suggested the name that always seemed to bring about an easy entrance:

grace - goodwill and favor.


as i bent over and tried to draw in air with each wave of pain that brought her closer to my arms, i became convinced that all that quiet for those 9 months was just a building of energy to tear right through me.

and i was right

in a sense.


we've wrestled, she and i,

since the moment my midwife knelt in front of me, placed her hand on my belly and prayed for Jesus to protect that small one and i...

did that prayer cover us in words that have lasted until now?


four and a half years of looking into a face that mirrors my own,

battling a will that grows stronger than my own,

trying to wrap my arms around a small yet sturdy body once confined in my own that tries to break free of anything that attempts to hold that passion back.


i have felt hopeless.

i have felt scared.

scared that i'll lose her heart that burns so hot.


i have made the mistake of trying to conform her to my ideals of who she should be.

of how she should obey.

of trying to make sure she doesn't embarrass me...


oh, olivia.


i am so sorry.


he holds me in the night,

wraps his arms around me as i question everything i am doing,

everything she is doing,

everything that seems to be going wrong.


and he prays to Him Who created our sweet girl,

prays for wisdom for this mama and

protection for that little girl in the room next to us who seems to be constantly wrestling with something deep within.


and i know,

deep down,

i know...

she needs to know she's loved.

 

more than a nuisance,

more than a problem


more than a will that can't be tamed.


i read the words in the dark of the night,

as tears run down and the prayers seem weak,

A mother’s smile is the child’s sun — what can grow without the warmth of grace?

~a. voskamp

and i know,

she doesn't see the sun very often from the face of her mama.

she hears more thunder of disapproval

and the lightening that flashes my frustration

than she ever catches a rainbow of grace reflecting His Love for her from me.


it's awkward at first,

and i am ashamed to write it,

ashamed to write that it was awkward to smile at my own daughter,

but i pushed through the awkwardness and knelt down in front of her and smiled from ear to ear,

made a silly face that made that belly laugh and throw that sweet face back and she looks into my eyes and whispers,

why did you smile at me?

why?

she should never have to ask why,

but she needs to hear it.

she needs to know it deep down in her marrow 

because i don't want her left wanting.

mama smiled at you because i love you, sweet girl.  and because when mama smiles, you smile back and there is nothing more beautiful than that.

i walk into the room all breathless this morning,

trying to catch up on a class i missed how many days ago.

i sit down on the seat found for me and i listen and fill in the blanks like the word nerd that i am.

but it is in the closing of one lesson,

before the beginning of the next,

that my heart starts to pound.

that i want the one speaking to move from the first line and onto the second.

i'm desperate and i don't know why,

only that it's because i'm in love with my daughter and i see her name.

i see her name and i want to know...

and i break wide open.


because all this time i've been fighting to change who she is.

fighting to win this battle between us,

prove that i am in charge

and that she was created to bend to my standards.

what arrogance,

what stupidity.

because with that simple line filled in,

my whole view changed:

grace is...being offered what i don't deserve.

when we named her

before we even saw her,

i was, in an essence, claiming her as a gift i didn't and still don't deserve.

daily, she is an example of a Great and Loving and Merciful God Who looks at me in all my rebellion and pride,

Who holds me as i thrash against being conformed into His Likeness,

Who is Just and Good and refuses to allow me to stay where i am,

Who bends low and draws near and calls me His own,

in spite of who i am.


no, her will is a part of who she is,

i won't break it.

to break it would shatter her.

to break it would shatter us.

but to soften,

with the warmth of a small smile,

all full of the Grace of His Son...

we are made whole.

olivia.  the one who points me to the One Who is Peace.

grace.  the gift i never, ever deserved.

and it becomes this mama who finds herself changed...