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...

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.

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

when it's fading...

he stops the van and opens the doors in the shade of those trees that stand tall in the heat of the afternoon and i lean my head back as the bedlam pours outside into the quiet of the space around us.

he looks at me with a question in his eyes and a hand outstretched and i pause for a moment before putting my feet on the ground.


he knows me - stopping here shows this.


i watch the girls run and elias try to keep up while falling down on the soft grass.  i listen to them call out for us to read names to them - to give word to the ones who used to be here but are now long forgotten.

the lack of flowers shows this.

words like pioneer and gettysburg and lynchburg and other places where great wars were fought and dates like 1881 etched in stone grounds me somehow.  as though this new life growing inside of me and life long gone underneath my feet reminds me of how small i am and how unfathomable He is.


he brings me to a cemetery in the midst of a period of waiting and i can breathe deeply again.


his dad, reduced to ash and scattered over an ocean and on the top of a mountain, and there is no place to go and lay down flowers...i've been longing for this lately.  for some place to go.

instead, we walk through stone faded by sun and rain...dates that are worn down and barely discernible and i read aloud names i don't recognize and wonder when the last time someone knelt down beside their final resting place and truly remembered who they were.


we give them their final warning...the oldest and youngest get 5 mintues, olivia gets 4. but really, they all get 5 mintues, liv is just convinced that 4 is the best number in the world and with a longer time frame than any other number we can call out.

and it's as we turn left that i notice that tree and we walk towards it and i say to him that something looks funny, out of place and we come closer when i see,

and i stop, can't really move. not because i recognize the name;  the tree has already begun to swallow it up. i stop because i recognize something and i'm not sure what. and so i wait.

the last date, the only date that i can read, is 1912.  100 years ago this man was mourned and could this tree have been planted then?  i wonder who loved him and who came faithfully to lay down bits of colour to as a tribute to loss?

did they see the trunk grow closer, the bark open up and start to grow around?



it's not until later, when the three are finally quiet and tony is sleeping beside me that i realized what i had recognized in the cool of the tree that was swallowing up a memory.


you, me? we are all dead men and women walking, sin is eating us alive and because of how it is woven in and around our very dna, we don't always see how it is slowly killing us.

but Jesus.

and here is what my soul responded to...

His death on that tree conquered the sin that was destroying me - the moment i whispered those words that i believed that He was the Son of God, i became His.


and those words i have heard over and over throughout my life took on a whole new meaning when i stood there at the grave of a man i didn't know,

for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

colossians 3:3

someday, when my body has been laid beneath the ground and i am standing fully alive in the presence of my Savior, my life that was hidden in Him will no longer show any markings of the sin that died when i trusted in Him.

someday, it will all be swallowed up and i will be whole and complete

with 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

because...

sometimes, the only words that find their way out of this mouth,

are words sung.


words that carry a plea in their tune,

well worn

and well known by so many believers before.


tonight, i play it, over and over,

sing it over and over,

and He does.

He always does...

the sparrow and a giveaway... {updated}

{winner of giveaway is named at the bottom of the post...}


we sit out in the sun once school is done and lunch is hot,

the three of them and me soaking up all that light.


they pretend we are at a beach and dig through the rock bed to find those sea shells left behind.


and i think back to this very day one year ago,

the one where he got here first and unlocked that front door and waited for us to join him.


it's been a year since this address became our own.


and i felt so very lost.

but like that sparrow that He has His eye on,

He had His eye on me,

on us...


i think back to that journey that led me here...

the one that really started way back when i first said yes to His call on my heart.

the path that has so many twists and turns,

detours

and brokenness...


but i have never been out of His sight.


there are moments when that thought is hard to grasp,

when i wonder if at times, one sparrow can be harder to love than others...

or easier to overlook...


when you find yourself completely alone and unknown, it can feel that way...

and it's in those weeks before He opens those doors,

before we find ourselves walking into that warmth of that church,

before i find myself at a table,

a park,

around our dinner table,

and see Him open my heart and theirs.


it's in the quiet of those days that find us learning how to live this new life out that i come to know how deeply i am Loved,

by Him.

i'm not just another timid heart perched on a branch of fear ~

i am cherished,

provided for,

known,

seen.

every once in a while, those feelings still surface...

when circumstances overwhelm,

or loss threatens to topple new found confidence in Him.


but it's true, regardless...

He loves because i am His.


and it's on one of those days that the box is delivered,

filled with the reminders that it has nothing to do with anything i've done,

but everything to do with what He has done...

and a heart that has been given much


can't help but overflow.




Dayspring has graciously sent me a copy of holley gerth's new book, You're Already Amazing, as well as the reminder that i am loved to hang on my wall and a mug that holds more than coffee in my hands...

i would love to pass onto you, in a small way, a big reminder of how deeply you are loved by Almighty God.

an extra mug was placed in that brown box that landed on my door step...perhaps it is for you?

if you would like to be entered in to receive both the mug and the book, please leave a comment (or two or three...) in the  box below?  i'll draw out a sweet name on the 27th of march and send both to find themselves at your front door...


and maybe, if you find yourself overwhelmed and drowning in what is swirling around you right now, You will find Him and His deep love for you at the bottom of it all...

*********

 


disclosure: i received all the products mentioned above from Dayspring in return for my blog review. all opinions are completely mine and true.


and now...very belatedly...the reveal:

becky - random.org has chosen *you* as the winner of the sweet mug and book and i will send them off in the mail to you in the next day or two.  so happy.  thank you to everyone else for entering in your names in my little giveaway - wish i could send something to each of you...

when you wait for the blooming...

he hung himself on that tree and died there.

but it wasn't just him who died...

so many other things died too.


i have thought, however naively,

that time and distance could ease and heal,

but instead, i find myself barely able to breathe as the clock climbs nearer to midnight.


i stood outside this evening, in the dark.

i threw that trash in the bin and closed the lid

and looked up...


i felt so small and alone as i looked into the milky white of a moon half dark...


tonight, grief sinks deep.


and in the moments that breathing hurts so deeply that the tears run freely,

i find myself asking why?.


i brought out the amaryllis bulb late,

planted it in the dirt even later and the single shoot stubbornly pushing through was pale and anemic.

 i wondered if it would survive.


it sits by my sink, close to that window and that stem grows higher, gets greener, tilts towards the source of light it desperately tries to get closer to.

so i turn the dirt-filled-ceramic so that what is growing grows strong and straight and i wait to see the bloom that has been promised...


and i wonder, as i look closer at the ugliness of that seed -

because i can see where it split, where life pushed through to escape the confines of death and dark and i wonder if in the cracking open, if it hurt.


i wonder about a plant with no brain, no nerve endings and worry that it feels pain?

but maybe it's because the ugly of that morning,

where more than just a man died;

love died,

dreams died,

plans died,

hope died,

a father died,

who we were died,


and it hurt.




and moving on,

watching the old split open to let the new come through

is painful.




and yet...


He uses even the pain-full to turn us to Him.

not content to allow us to grow bent over and bitter

He allows that which leaves us feeling dizzy

and confused

and lost

and grieving

so that we find He is the Only stability in a world so crooked and broken.


how He loves!

my world can be shaken,

but rooted in Him, i am not moved.

life can spin and dance and warble and swim with tears,

but it is His Life that breaks through what is dead and pulls me closer to Him.


grief was birthed the morning he hung himself on that tree,

but so was something new.

and while it appears ugly at times,

He has promised life,

abundant and full.


and soon, i'll see it bloom...

 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being,so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,may have power, together with all the Lord's holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.


 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

ephesians 3:16-21

when i miss her...

my cousin from the great and white north comes to visit me in the middle of a snowstorm.

she brings a bit of home that helps ease an ache in my heart

and she brings words.

lots of them.

this cousin that comes to visit is one i didn't know growing up and it seems that we enjoy making up for lost time.


she brings them out on an evening that finds us sitting quiet and listening to frank and ella and i have to pause because what i hold in my hands is exceedingly precious.

my hands hold onto something that had rested in my gramma's hands and more than anything

i just want to hold those hands once more.


instead, i hold her very first knitting needles against my palm and i can barely breathe.


and i want her back.

i want to know what all she made with needles as thin as these.


were these the ones that she used to knit as she sat in front of her stove on a rainy night in scotland?  that fire she blamed over and over for discolouring her shins?

i want to hear the roll of her r's


smell her perfume,

feel her arms pull me tight against her,

and watch her as she baked pies and bread and buns

and then sat down to cheat at skipbo.


i want to lay in my bed,

tucked in under my covers,

and hear her voice drift into my room as she knelt in her own

and prayed.


my sleep was always ushered in on the moments that found her bowing low before Jesus.


as a child, i loved her.

as a woman, i long to know her more.


instead, i miss her and cherish what i have until i see her again in the presence of Jesus.


i finally honour my word to my friend and come to the knitting circle at our church after the little ones are in bed,

i pull out my yarn and needles to join the rhythm of stitches and conversation

and i watch as help is asked for

and help is given

and the robin's egg blue builds another row on my needles...


i join another group of women this afternoon,

i sit by another friend who invited me to come.

she doesn't know that i have been questioning Him,

asking for guidance and wisdom,

feeling a little lost and needing a Word.


and it's in the middle of what the speaker is saying

when my heart starts beating loud and fast...


she's talking about our children and their children

and if we don't capture their hearts now,

what hearts will be caring for the hearts of their children?

and then she says those two words that stop everything else in the room and i can barely sit still...

it's called generational living.

so often, and rightly so, the term generational sins is brought out and parents are called to break them courageously and with the help of Jesus, and yes!  let's break them and break out of pain and bondage that has crippled our families and will keep doing so if we sit and do nothing - 

but what comes after?

and this is where i have sat lost

until He shouts it into my heart through the dark-haired woman passionately speaking of her love for Him;


we live.


we live!

He came so that we could have life - and have it abundantly!

and i think of those knitting needles - the very first ones that my gramma used,

of all of those stitches being added to and built upon in that little room in our church last night,

of the hope that He gave when i least expected it this afternoon...

He is a God Who builds upon losses and gains and creates something achingly beautiful if we let Him.

with hands wide open and a heart willing to accept whatever it is that He places before us, we can join Him in a dizzingly intricate journey that throws joy and sorrow up against each other and brings His Name glory and leads our children to do the same.

oh, i want a life like that.

(thank you, naomi, for taking the picture of our gramma's knitting needles and sending me a copy. i miss you. :<)

lessons in the messy...

he comes home to find me a mess.

packages of chicken thighs that normally hold a set amount all wrapped up in prepackaged plastic are each missing one and they need to be in the oven five minutes ago.


the floor that i had vacuumed at 10 was a disaster again by 4

the children that had been shouting all morning were now full on fighting

and my last nerve

was

being

stretched

very

thin.


he walks in the door to find his wife barely holding it together.


or maybe,

if i'm to be honest,

not holding it together at all.


he walks into the kitchen and stands in my way.

on purpose.

won't budge from that spot as i try and force my way around him,

exhaling loudly

and sighing impatiently

and biting my lip so i don't cry.


he knows this.

because he knows me.

and he keeps standing there.




he knows why i'm about to fall apart.


the microwave beeps

and the third package of chicken is laid down and pulled apart.

i oil and stuff and salt and pepper and place them on that rack

and set them all into the oven.


and that's when he says something,


they put their pants on this morning one leg at a time,


just like us.


and i want to laugh and cry and i did a little bit,

because it's true.


in this year hollowed out and named new

i was trying to stuff it up full with the hurt from the old...


i forgot that what He spoke in the dark of the first month

can still apply in the chaos of the second.


that when He asks us to abide, we can trust that He knows 

and those new roads He leads us on have been traveled by His feet first.


it's safe to trust Him...

even when you are scared to.

even when you have been hurt before.

even when the landscape around you leaves you feeling disorientated at the oddest of times.


He is trustworthy.


and even if you have lost it all

but you still have Him...


you have Everything.

and those new roads through those new places?

they lead closer to Him...

indeed i count everything as loss because of the surpassing

worth of  knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. for His sake i have suffered the loss

of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that i 

may gain Christ, and be found in Him...

philippians 3:8-9a

when you wonder where He is...

He catches my attention at a red light a couple miles from home.

my mind has wandered and my ears have tuned out the chatter...

 but my eyes?

they see it.

they see the air painted all rosy and pink around me.

and it's as the day is dying that i look up

and my breath catches

and i beg Him to stop time for just 5 minutes.


long enough to grab my camera and catch the masterpiece He has created.

the sun, however, keeps sinking

despite my pleas.

but the lower it falls

the more stunning the beauty.

i race inside the house like a mad woman.

he looks up at me with a question in his eyes...

the sun!! tony! the sun!  the way it's sinking...it's beautiful!

and my incoherent rant follows me back out the door.


i stand in the driveway as neighbours pull in weary from their long day at work.

some smile.

some shake their heads.

some stop to look too.

and i turn in a circle and keep snapping.

keep trying to keep up with my God Who creates such beauty out of thin air.



they run around me, those 2 girls who glow in the fighting light.

ethereal in the fading of an aging sun, they giggle out their wonder of The One Who loves them so.

and he says it to me tonight, in the moments before he falls asleep.  

how he read of lazarus and The One who raised him from the dead and the sisters 2 who were devastated by the slowness of their Lord's timing.

when their brother lay dead in that grave and there was no hope left.

how Jesus, knowing so much more than they did, says to sweet martha, all bowed over with grief,

"...did I not tell you that if you believe

you will see the glory of God?"

john 11:40

do you find yourself facing a moment, a circumstance, that no longer breathes hope?

have you watched what you have treasured, die?

tenderly wrapped it up

and gently tucked it away?


have you wondered where He is

while knowing full well that if He had come in time,

what is dead 

could be filled with life?


as you question like martha, 

i would stand beside you as mary.


because the questions find rest on the tip of my tongue.


but with feet planted on cement on a mild january day,

my heart hears His whisper...

the Lord wraps Himself in light as with a garment;

He stretches out the heavens like a tent...

He makes the clouds His chariot

and rides on the wings of the wind.

psalm 104: 2-3

the night may be closing in around you.

circumstances may be threatening to steal your joy...

your peace...

your hope.


but He's coming, dear one.

He is coming.

just keep your eyes on the clouds...

when the year before you is *new*...

it's on the evening of a new year that my arms are filled with new life.

a tiny bundle of pink perfection and i stand there,

lost in the weightless weightlessness of her.


her two-day-old eyes blink up at me,

her perfect rose-bud shaped mouth opens, as though caught in surprise that the arms holding her are not her mother's.


but she lays in the curve of my arms and looks up at me.

and doesn't make a sound.


january entered in as she always does,

with great fanfare and noise.

the fireworks sounded above this house as the clock sat on midnight for those 60 seconds...

 and i sat on the couch and felt the weight of the sad lift and ease off of these shoulders.


i sat and waited for what the name of this coming year would be.


the first name came in the before of it all falling apart.  it was 2010 that taught me how to abide in a way i had never experienced in all the years i've known Him.

the second name came in the midst of days that were lost in upheaval and pain.  it was 2011 that taught me to trust in the One Who means it when He says, I know.


and i've wondered for the past 2 months what these next 366 days would be woven together with...what word He would use to reveal Himself to this heart that wants to know.


the 31st came and went and i still was unsure what it was to be.

could this year be one without a naming?  without a focus?  would He mean to leave me without a word to point me to Him?

it's possible.


until i sat on the couch in a house quiet and sleepy as the colours overhead exploded with joy and noise that the words began to float through...

see,  I am doing a new thing...!

my years previously named and lived through have been surrounded with loss and chaos and pain.

this year has the  potential of experiencing all of those as well...

but, in the uncertainty of a future that only He knows, can i choose to trust that in the joy and in the pain, that He can do something new?


i looked up the rest of the words to the phrase that tumbled around in my heart all day and i couldn't help but smile wide as i realized what He was saying...

see,  I am doing a new thing! now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.  

isaiah 43:19

no, i don't think i could have perceived all that He was trying to do in these last two years.  i don't think i ever will be fully able to see it.  but through the naming, He has asked me to actively participate and trust that I would come to know Him better through each one.

as i look back, i see how He had to strip so much away so that He could do something new...to make a way and to pour life back in.


i don't know what this coming year holds.


but, whatever it is...i believe it will prove to be a journey that has me loving Him in new ways, learning about Him in new ways and learning to trust Him with a love made new.

the year before you lies bundled up in possibility and hope.

the days ahead may be filled with light or broken in dark,

but regardless of what is ahead, will you join me and look to see all that He will make new...

happy  new year, sweet friend.  

look up...

the songs that fill the air keep calling for us to look up.

to search for Him,

to open our eyes to the light of that star that burned so brightly 2000 years ago.


and my middle one, the one who knows no middle ground,

the one who is rarely quiet,

yells out from the seat behind me,

mama!  was Jesus called Jesus Christ when He was a baby?

and i pause, because i'm pretty sure of the answer, but i don't want to give the wrong one...

when i look out my window,

and i lift up my eyes...

and i see Him.


and you can argue that my eyes had landed on the path of 2 jets crossing.

and you would be right.


the deep blue of a winter sky was full of the echos of the airplanes that are bringing loved ones home.


but He uses the simple

and the weak,

to declare His amazing glory,

and how can i deny that He spread His message across this beautiful sky?


this season we celebrate is more than the empty cradle.

more than the empty blood-stained cross.

more than the empty tomb that stands there, defying death.


it's all about Him and the full life He offers.


so lift up your eyes, sweet reader of mine.

like the wise men of old, come near to His Light.

He is so very close


and He loves you so much.


and who knows what He'll write on that sky above you for your very own eyes to find...

landing places...

he gathered me up in his arms this evening,

cradled me like a small child

and rocked me while i sobbed.


and i wonder if the pain will ever lessen...


i stood at our front door this evening,

the one that i had closed and locked up with my own hands,

rested my forehead against it and let the tears come.


so much grief,

so many hurts

all safely held in the love of ones who welcome us in.


and it's a contrast that leaves me feeling broken,

as that 4th candle lit on the advent wreath flickers brave

and whispers of love...


and it's been swirling in my mind since that extra day that He gave,

the one that He surprised me with on a day of this month i would just rather skip...

how when He came, Almighty God wrapped up in vulnerable flesh,

He came to welcome us in.


The One Who already had His chosen people

made a way for the unloved, the rejected and the forgotten.

He made a way that was forged by Sacrifice ~ His very own Life,

 first cradled in a feeding trough,

so that the unwanted could know


they had worth to Him.


the word love, so often overused and misapplied in so many ways,

takes on a different hue on this evening that has me broken and aching...


 my eyes catch the subtle gleam...

His love that came to save

also came to provide worth.


dignity.


a place.




and in this season that leaves my heart so strongly caught between moments of such joy and sadness,

He gives me one more reason to cling even tighter...

in His Love, He gives me a place.


a place where i can freely come

freely receive

and always,

always ~


regardless if it is all taken away

and home is no longer where it once was ~

in Him i always have a place to land.

in the shadows...

i think of days that seem lost in shadow.


and the wonder that He is still there.

if i say, "surely the darkness will hide me

and the light become night around me,"

even the darkness will not be dark to You;
the night will shine like the day,

for darkness is as light to You 

~psalm 139:11-12

i think of that promise; that my dark will never be so dark that He can't see me,

that He can never see the way through,

that He has lost His way.


and The Way loves strong, even in the shadows.

until we made the move from there to here, i think i had thought, deep down inside, that when He loved, He loved in big and grandiose ways.

once-in-a-while moments.

the Lord your God is with you,

He is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,

He will quiet you with His love,

He will rejoice over you with singing.
~zephaniah 3:17

He wove these words throughout my day yesterday,

but i only see it now, in this moment,

the Lord your God is with you.

not just in the big and grandiose moments,

not just in those once-in-a-while moments...

He is here,

with you,

with me.

and every moment proclaims His love over us.

i think of His Song, and His Voice....

the way He shows His delight.


the moments are subtle,

quiet;

~ wrapped up in the gentle giving of an unexpected gift,

~ a word written that speaks of love, regardless of where one has been,

~ the moment at the end of a weary day where i am pulled close and tony whispers he loves.

the darkness may blind my eyes to the way He loves,

but He loves strong regardless,

He continues to sing regardless,

and His delight over His own covers each day...

regardless.


i read these words a few days ago, wrote them down on that black on my wall.

and when i snapped the picture, the shadows that filled the screen seemed fitting somehow.

no, no matter what this year holds, this week or this day,

we have a choice to choose.

because He, dear one, has already made His...

no matter what this year holds...

in the stressful times: seek God

in the painful times: praise God

in the terrible times: trust God

and at all times ~ at all times ~ and at all times...

thank God.

a. voskamp

the month of here {day 10}...it's in the needles

it's been 4 years since i held the smooth bamboo needles in my hands.

i was never one for trying to knit and attempt to untangle small ones from the many loops of yarn they had crawled into.

patience isn't something that i find myself entangled in to often...

we work on this.


with crawling on these floors now reserved for moments of playing "puppy" or pushing cars or trying to find that lost shoe again, i thought it might be time to pick up the needles once more.


and there is a friend here who creates masterpieces from the wool that she holds in her hands.

who has the patience to help these unpracticed hands...


and so, i knit.

i knit cables.

and the bamboo brushes against one another, the grey wool slips through my fingers.


my shoulders relax,

my breathing slows.

i find my rhythm again.

the friend here gives courage that maybe, just maybe this can be done.


and i knit for the friend many miles away.

as each row slips off and the stitches loop together and hold fast, i find my rhythm with Him.


i know that it's partly this season, where little ones are becoming not so little and my mind has a bit more reign to roam.

i know that it's partly being here, where the burden has lifted and my mind isn't so clouded by pain.

and i know, i know that it's mostly all because of Him...because of the way that He woos and draws me...how each stitch reminds me that He brought me shattered from there safely to here.

there are always going to to be strands of my life that intertwine...i am who i am here because of the way He grew me up there.  how can i not be thankful for it then?  He turns both sides into a thing of beauty.

i can trust this.


as i sat in the sun, knitting to the rhythm of lyla adding numbers, olivia stood near my shoulder, breathing near my ear.

mama!! her sweet husky voice proclaimed,

mama!!  the cross!! it's in your needles!! the cross!! just like where Jesus died!

each stitch slipped from one needle to the next with just 2 simple words breathed over them;  a simple thank You, because i am.


and with each stitch, He was reminding me that it was for the masterpiece He's creating that He died.

that He lives.

that He loves.



here or there...


He loves.

and i give thanks on this tenth day of this month that finds me here...and for the cross in the needles.