dear elias...

it started with a phone call yesterday morning.

you were humming quietly while the voice on the other end sounded measured and calm.

too calm.


she told me of a family member who had passed away. a family member who i had last talked with when you were small and fit so neatly in the crook of my arm...

we hung up and i sat there quietly, looking at you rubbing that lemon half on the top of your head...


i don't know what your life will hold.


and it's your birthday and i want to remember those first moments,

those exhausted moments,

the ones that blurred my vision and filled my heart up so full.


but elias,

you have to know,


there. is. more.


our life here is nothing more than a wisp of a moment.


and you are four and your only thought right now is probably one that involves cars and trucks and how to add to your growing collection,

but sweet son, it will all go so fast.


and as it whirls by, it will be easy to forget how quickly it spins. you could miss that life really is more than getting that one more thing.


it's taken me almost 34 years to know that, and still, i sit here with my almost-birthday latte on the table top beside me...

i am the first to admit i don't live this out perfectly.



i don't know how many years that God has planned out for you,

i don't know what paths your feet will find to follow,

where He will come near to meet you and reveal Himself as sure.


but the years that you have?

live them for Him.


if you are going to spend yourself on anything,

spend them on Him.


if you are going to fall down exhausted at the end of the day,

fall down because you have poured out everything to love Him.


your soul will keep on living after your body has turned to dust,

but while you are here,

while your blood is pumping and your heart is beating and your lungs fill up with air,

let the very dust that holds you together hold together a life that has eternity and Christ Jesus in focus.


i think of my grandma today on your birthday, i think of this woman who will be burying her second son in more than a decade...


i don't know, elias, which one of us will see the face of Jesus first.

i sat in front of your baby sister this morning as i spooned food into her mouth.

her eyes were so trusting and i began to think of her in her later years - how i won't be here to hold her close and whisper how loved she is...and i began to pray.

i began to pray for the hands that will soothe her, comfort her in the moments before she is no more,

and elias, i'm not trying to be morbid.

i'm not trying to focus sad on what should be a joy-filled day...


but i want more for you than a life that is only focused on now.

your soul will only grow shriveled and selfish and voracious for a never ending supply of what is never going to satisfy.

only Jesus will.


today, you are four.

four.


i still remember your sweet scowly face all crumpled and gasping for air in those first moments of your life.

i still remember that first moment you whispered you loved me back.

moments that are forever embedded into my heart.


i am so thankful that you are my son.


you have a heart that already knows who Jesus is,

and the prayer we pray over you every day is that your heart would become one that desires Him only.


becoming a man after the heart of God, sweet son, is nothing to laugh at, but something to respect deeply.


and when that moment of decision comes, pursue Him...


we'll be cheering you on all the way.


i love you, more than words can ever say...


~ your mama

to know...{letters to my four}

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

it's been a long, slow thaw.


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

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


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

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

my arms aren't strong enough for that.

nothing about me is strong enough for that.

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

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

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


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

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

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

how can the broken lead?

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

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


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

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

because that is Who He is.

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

(John 1:1-5 ESV)


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

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

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

love,
mama

in the quiet...

i've been told this little one could come any day...

i feel like she could come any day.


and my older three, the ones who sense that change is coming, the ones who try to snuggle as close as they can, the ones who struggle with fears of being displaced, they hover close.


and i feel quiet.

even in spaces loud and crowded, i feel quiet.

today, the doors were opened and so many children and families walked through those doors of that old school.  i awoke tired, i walked tired, i moved tired and i was worried that all that tiredness would follow me in...

i walked into a blanket of peace.

oh, i was still tired, still quiet, but the calls of merry christmas and feliz navidad and hands reaching out to rest on my belly, it was a cacophony of peace...

women with skin lovely and darker than mine, voices accented with beauty, they reach out and i see it in their eyes - the knowing.  the knowing of what it is to be a mama, to have walked tired in those long, last days, and i find myself wrapping my hands around their own and in those moments...


all those moments that have been so empty,

all those moments that silently scream with a mocking to all that this season means,

all those moments that point to empty chairs and broken hearts and shattered lives and estranged families...


He fills them.

quietly and simply.


tony, he was up at 4 and left at 6 and lyla crawled into bed with me at 6:15...

i listened to her breathe quiet and soft as elias banged around his room - a morning person - just like his daddy.


and as i left this evening, he said it to me quietly - i'm going to bring a few of them home with me tonight before the night game, and they all laughed at me as i worried over my messy home and it was in that moment that i realized -

it's okay that it's messy.

life is messy and love is messy and God Himself entered into the mess of a barn.


only two came home with him...

at first.

only two and i watched as elias, he crawled up beside these big, tough, intimidating guys - and all those walls, they come tumbling down in the face of an innocent child and as the door bell rang again and again and those shoes kept piling up at our door and bodies kept pouring in and finding room and once the living room was filled, the basement was used and soon there wasn't anymore room there either...

and i found him, with his sweet smile i've loved for over a decade and i found a spot beside him on the floor.


i know some of the stories that filled our walls this evening,

i know some of the brokenness that accompanies each one.

we are all broken to some extent.


and i sat with a home filled to bursting,

laughter and teasing happening all around us,

my children throwing themselves with abandon into the pure joy that a filled home brings...


i sat beside him with my hand on my belly and my family doesn't look the way i ever thought it would, i never imagined that i would find myself on this path that He has placed us on...


and how do i put into words what these last six months have done?  my heart that was so broken that week after christmas 3 years ago, that felt so fragile just 12 months ago, has stretched and grown and wrapped around these kids that seemed so very different from me, but really, truly aren't.


i wrote last year of christmas being shellacked and veneered with impossible expectations, and i still believe it to be true.  when Jesus is no longer the focus, we try and fill in that void with all things pretty and festive but which leave us emptier then before that tree began to twinkle.


the radio plays songs of silver bells and families gathering and if i can't be home for christmas, i'll be there in my dreams, but tonight? tonight, i was home.  and i was surrounded by a ragamuffin group of kids who are just as broken, if not more, and when our DNA is drenched through with the Blood of the Lamb, it doesn't matter the differences in our skin tone - we are family.

and we love.

and we tease.

and we laugh.

and we cry.

and we stand at the door to wave everyone away because no one wants to see a time with loved ones end...

my belly tightens with each contraction.

i don't know what day she'll come...


but He uses what has been knit and formed in the dark of impossible situations, in the dark of humanity, and He causes life to be born.


i'm seeing this a bit clearer these days, in the quiet and the noise.

or maybe, more accurately, it's Jesus i'm seeing a bit clearer in the mess of it all...

letting go...{day 28}

i'm entering into the last few days where he'll be my youngest...my baby boy.

only, he hasn't been a baby for quite some time and yet, there are those moments when he climbs up on my lap, curls his body around my belly and buries his face in the curve of my neck.

these are the moments that i long to hold onto...


he sits beside me the other day, his plate full of his lunch - my mug full of my coffee and he reaches out that little boy-hand, the one that will someday grow large and strong, and he rests it on my shoulder and with his other he reaches for another slice of banana and he says all quiet and soft,

i sit by my friend, i sit by my mama, and i not go anywhere. ever.


he may not realize it, but this mama does, that someday he will go somewhere, whether near or far, and the hand that i hold, the small boy that i snuggle, the sleepyhead i sing over will be precious memories that i will long for.


and these hands of mine - the ones dry and rough from the washing and wiping, Jesus created them to open and close.  and they do one or the other or even both for whatever season i find myself in...


and these little ones that He is filling our home with - they come near and press in close because they long for these hands to close around them in comfort and safety.  they don't understand the selfish-mama-heart that in the chaotic (and yes, my more childish) moments longs for order and quiet and space and why at times i cross my hands blocking them from coming so close... they don't understand because that's not what these hands have been created for.

but my hands, the ones that try to clutch close the moments that fly by too quickly, the ones with joints and bones and muscles that all work together to peel back these fingers one by one, no matter how much the opening hurts this heart...

keeping them open, and positioned towards Him, is the only way i'll know how to walk this fine balance of keeping them close and letting them fly...


and it always, always comes back to Jesus.  how in the letting go of ourselves, our agendas and what weighs us down, we are really lifting empty hands, waiting to be filled with Him...


because it is then that we love well,

friend well,

mama well,

wife well,

do life well.


and i wonder then, if that is when the  present moments because sweeter and the memories become dearer, because He is truly apart of it all...

a letter for my three...

it's the first of october and by now, i would have thought sweaters and socks and red noses would have been a part of our days.

i even brought out the hot cocoa to the front of the cupboard for those "just in case" moments that call for something hot to warm you up.


you all keep asking to have daddy make the wood stove work,

we even have the comfy chairs and blankets in place...

i've looked forward,

no...

i've longed for autumn to arrive and as one calendar page gives way to the next, summer wars with autumn and the hot-tempered one of the two seems to be winning.


it will come, i'm sure, when the season is ready.

but until then, we wait,


expectantly.


i sat in the quiet of a service yesterday, sat in the back with your daddy and leaned into the comfort of him.  our arms brushed and our hands intertwined and he would whisper sweet nothings at the most inopportune times, but then your baby sister began to move...the one who had been so still all morning, the kind of still that makes a mama begin to pray for a kick to the ribs.

soft movements started, like ripples in the water, as though she too needed to be still and quiet.

i understand those moments.

each one of us needs them.


and as a mama to the three of you and this one-to-be, there are times that i wait for them...

expectantly.


and it's not yet halloween and not even close to christmas but the stores have already intermingled the two and maybe it's for that reason that mary was on my mind for much of the day yesterday.  christmas will find me heavy and aching, ready for the release that your little sister will bring, but for now, i hold on to these moments...the moments that are full of just you three.  the moments that will most likely by the last of so many things...

i sometimes wonder at all the emotions that motherhood brings - the desperate need for order and space and quiet and yet,

yet...

the fear that all of it is moving too quickly and how in the world do you enjoy it all while you are barely surviving it all?

so i type it out in with this cursor that races ahead, hoping to catch the snippets that will sink deep into my heart; memories that will stay close when you have all flown away.

because you will, and my life will slow and yours will speed up and what you have lacked now i will try and provide and the foundation we lay now will become something strong for later and it is those moments that i wait for with hope...

but for now, my sweet and crazy three, i catch the quiet while i can, sit still with Jesus so that what i offer you will be full of Him and try and live fully in these moments,

expectantly.


i love you...

~mama

1537. brushing their hair in the early morning

1538. the light of a full moon

1539. feeling her foot against my ribs

1540. the way Tchaikovsky makes my heart thunder

1541. the violins moving like the waves of the ocean i crave

1542. jonah and what he reveals

1543. expecting fall

1544. expecting Him

1545. a call to place Him first...

1546. ...and realizing in what area He means

1547. victories, no matter how small

1548. tony

1549. that i get to experience life with-in one more time

1550. that i breathe for 2

1551. that i eat and drink for two

1552. that my heart beats for 2

1553. a fourth baby and the relationships they will all form

1554. that He orchestrates our lives

1555. none of it is out of His control

1556. i can trust Him. always and in all ways

1557. the dog hair everywhere

1558. for the calming that mercy brings

1559. for the way they are growing and maturing...

when you weren't made for what you face...

it's as i'm driving home yesterday, turn right onto that loopy street when i look up at the temperature right there in the center of my windshield and about hit the brakes...

107 F.

mild, yes, for some parts of this country, but for me?  it made me whisper out His Name in a plea for mercy.


i keep saying it's because i'm canadian, despite the visa and the pictures and paperwork that are just one step closer to becoming amercian.  deep down, my roots have been planted deep in "the great white north" and over and over i tell myself that i wasn't made for this...



he fights the newest transition, cries and pleads to not be a big boy as the diapers are put away and the big boy pants are brought out and we sit for hours today in that bright and sunny bathroom, those cars he desperately wants, just out of reach.

we sing and clap and laugh and still...nothing.

nothing, of course, until he is in the kitchen and then, of course, accidents happen...but i begin to question that maybe i wasn't made for this...

and it's as that thought sneaks it's way into my mind today that another thought entirely counteracts what i have been telling my heart for years when things become uncertain and rocky...

but maybe you are...

no, the blood that runs through these veins may have found their origin years before me in countries like norway and scotland, ireland and russia.  and maybe, because of this, i will always long for -40 degree winds and snow that blows from the north just to steal your breath away,

but before He ever created me, before i was ever knit together in the dark and quiet, He wrote out my story.  every smooth surface and every detour that i have thought was going to be the end of me.  each mile my life will cover...and has covered... has been penned by Him first.

i may think that i wasn't made for the circumstances i face,

but He knows i am.


she placed the doppler yesterday morning on my belly that's starting to show and almost immediately that sound of a runaway heartbeat filled the room for a moment that was too short.

this one hears my heartbeat everyday...

all day.


and maybe ~ though, i could be wrong ~ all of the i wasn't made for this's could be quieted if we purposefully hide under His Wing and lean close against Him to hear His heartbeat that beats strong for His Own.

maybe...

because i think in the cadence we'd hear the promise that He created you and me because He has a plan, a purpose, that we get to be a part of...

and it will all bring Him glory.


so in the days and moments that you feel that you couldn't possibly have been made for this, dare to believe that maybe you have been.

.
because it's there, that promise of His that paul wrote down to calm trembling and doubting hearts, just in case you find yourself in the same place that my heart tends to go...

for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for 

good works, which God prepared beforehand,

that we should walk in them.

ephesians 2:10

if He penned it, He knows the outcome.  

and He's given you all that you need for each moment that has you whispering His Name as you search for mercy...

marked...

i wade through my days on waves of nausea.

everything is tinged a little green.


everything is made a little bit harder when the end can't be seen.


we make an offer and we wait.

and wait.

and wait...


until that suburban pulls up and the keys are placed in our hands and the first thing i see as i approach the front stoop,

our front stoop,

is a moment of welcome.

in bright pink.

and i can't help but cry.


and then the help comes in waves,

overwhelming grace of friends who finish packing up the boxes i didn't have the energy to stack against the wall.  and they come and they place them in rooms empty and waiting for our memories to fill.

how does one say thank you?


and it's here in this home that i feel this small one move and flutter and turn over,

this small one that has turned my world and my plans inside out and caused me to become quiet.


i think sometimes that emotions and feelings can become so large that stillness is the only way to move through them.

i could be wrong though.


tonight, they asked for spaghetti and i greened as i stirred the sauce.  held my breath and willed myself to finish.  they run in circles around me and leave me even more dizzy as i try and make my way to the table.

we sit, we may have forgotten to say grace, some of us may not have finished our dinners,

but it's near the end when elias lifts those eyes of his to meet my own that he says,

your baby is crying, mama.  i kiss it.




i try and stop him at first, i'm wearing a white shirt and his mouth is circled in red and i still have to take the girls to vbs, but he is adament, certain that only he can calm this baby inside of me who is gently rounding my belly.

so i let him, i let him press that orangey-red sauce against the mama-curves and he marks me with his love.

and soon, i am surrounded by those who were hidden deep within me once upon a time, all wanting a chance to love this small one who hides there now.


life may change and turn out in ways completely unexpected.  maybe even at times in ways we think we never want.  but i think of those scars that mark His Hands.  Hands that willingly chose the hard way so that we could become His own.

i don't do this perfectly, i'm more messy than neat, but i am a marked woman, saved and bound by Love.

this shirt of mine bears testimony...

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.

when they fly...

unexpected, it is placed in the dark and the quiet of that space and it sits there.

and it waits.


and i don't even know it's there.


like them, all three of them.

unexpected.

placed and knit together by the Hand of God deep within me,

they waited in my dark...


and now they fly.

He gives them for just a few short years,

years that feel long and never ending.

years that hold days and hours and minutes that feel stretched long,

when really,

they fly.



i sense it,

i do.

on days where i sit on the grass out front of our door,

chat with a friend while all the children whir by;

while the sun leaves it's red mark on this skin,

i sense the quickness as their independence grows and my breath is caught in the dizzying speed of time.


and it's that small little package ~

the one he hands me as i sit in the van,

as he waits as i tear into the dark

and light comes flooding in.


and i hold it up and let it spin in the sun and i wear the truth of us around my neck.


time will move.

and they will move on.


someday,

someday soon,

my walls will be clean.

my floors, uncluttered.

the air around me, quiet.


but wrapped up in the love of their mama,

they can always,

always

find home.


so the gift, from the sweetest of friends from far away,

made by talented hands of a sister's friend,

placed in that mailbox halfway down the street...

it slowed the pace for a moment or two,

and i held it,

and it graced me...


all that beauty in this time that is spinning away.

in the dark and quiet...

regardless of who he turned out to be,

he began his life, hidden in the dark and quiet of his mother.


his tiny heartbeat fluttered beneath translucent skin

and before his mama even knew he was there,

he already had a name.

she was on the run,

with a small one in her womb when she met Him,

when she named Him,

called Him The God Who Sees Me,


because He did.

and He in turn,

names him inside her.


she knows Him as the God Who sees,

but he would always know Him as

God Hears...

he would be reminded every single time his name is spoken.




ishmael...

God Hears.


lost with his mama in the wilderness,

hidden beneath a bush while she turns away,

can't bear to see her son die in the heat.


she cries out, because sometimes that is all one can do in deep pain.


does she forget that He has His Eyes on her? did she forget His Voice that found her in that first wilderness she wandered in?


but it's his cry He hears.


He hears Ishmael's cry,

because He responds to His promises

and He opens her eyes to the water that He provides.


and i think of the dreams that He places within,

hidden in the dark and in the quiet...

unknown to anyone but Him.


and He has named them.


could we all be pregnant with an ishmael?

those dreams that surge with a heartbeat that only God Hears?

and when i feel unseen

unheard

and i place those hopes under wraps,

hide them away and choose to forget all He has done...


what if what i fear most is that i will remain in the wilderness?

what if?


can i still choose to,

will i still choose to live in a way, no matter how quiet,

how simple,

that glorifies Him - that brings honour to His Name?


this life,

this purpose,

what He has placed deep within and named...

i am filled and expectant with what He alone hears.

and when i find myself in my wilderness -

when what i dream seems to be dying,


let me remember that He hears what is deep within...

and He sees.

He sees me.

and He knows exactly where i am...

you can read about ishmael and his mama here and here

home...

it's almost midnight and if i don't crawl beneath those covers in the  next 10  minutes that second wind is going to hit and i'll be awake until 2...

and i was going to let today pass because sometimes i feel like my words here are too many...and it's another post and another date and another milestone for this family and who really wants to hear about that?


tonight, my heart is heavy.


again.


this past week has seemed filled with tears that i can't seem to explain to a husband who wants to understand, to children who kiss away the wet on this face...


tonight, the emotions feel quiet but need to get out and that's okay.


there is a family member who is passing away,

over that pass.

i don't know her well,

but i love the ones who do.


and i have been here one year today.

one year.


and it's never ending,

this losing and filling;


this feeling of being completely lost

and completely found.


and i don't know how to grasp what is contrasted this evening in the quiet of the dark

as elias tosses and olivia whispers out sleep-nonsense and lyla breathes heavy.


i look at them,

listen to them,

and wonder...


we all end up losing everything here,

everything that's under our feet.


but when we know Him,

we gain everything.


but it's those in between spaces that ache,

when who and where you are is Known,

but not.


tonight, instead of my oldest, it's me who grieves and celebrates,

because i miss what was

but wouldn't trade anything for where we are now.


that town, those friends...

i miss them.

this town, these friends...

are home.




but it's all laced with a hurt i can't place...


i know The One Who led us here.

The One Who knows how to define what i can't.


He sees what i can't,

He stills this soul when i can't sit down...



and maybe...

He allows this ache in the in between

to keep us longing for Him...


longing for Home...

for when the prayers are broken...

it's as i pulled the cloth over the surface of the tv stand that i paused and said it out loud,

the life you ask us to lead is too hard, Jesus.  i don't think i can do it.  do You see how often i fail?

and He saw it, in the early hours of this morning,

how i became impatient and spoke harshly and brushed aside what seemed important to them but not so important to me...

i saw the slump in olivia's shoulders,

lyla's tears,

elias' disgruntled sigh.

and He saw it too.


i had read it in again the other night, that passage on love and traded that word for my own name,

kimberley is patient,
kimberley is kind...

and i was neither or any of those things on this morning that even a coffee couldn't save.

dust dusts dust,

and as the cloth becomes blackened with the remnants of our life lived this week,

my heart grows heavier.


what's the use in trying when what is learned in the dark can't be put into practice once dawn arrives?


i stand at the counter slicing through leafy green lettuce and ruby red tomatoes as the dinner hour approaches.

i pull out my little black moleskin with the pages pasted in,

the ones that paul wrote to the colossians to encourage and strengthen,

the ones i'm trying to know fully in mind and heart by the time 2013 rolls in.

i flip it to week 9 and begin to whisper the words over grated cheese,

He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together...

and the grating slows as His answer to my broken prayer comes like a balm over all those raw places..
.

the life He asks me to live really is too hard for me to accomplish.


He is asking the impossible of the ones that choose to follow Him,


because it is only in Him that the weak become strong,

the foolish become wise,

the broken are held together,


and as their small tummies are filled,

my heart begins to overflow...

1318. those pussy willows on my kitchen table
1319. that fresh snowfall outside
1320. the surprise of a shoveled walk and drive

1321. 4 extra children in this house
1322. playdough-making-helpers
1323. the laughter in this house

1324. that amaryllis shoot
1325. the green flecks in tony's eyes
1326. the hope of spring

1327. those tears she cries
1328. freshly bathed children
1329.the smell of fresh baking in my hair

1330. little sleep
1331. whispering i'm sorry in the early hours
1332. those tears that release grief

1333. the bottom of the laundry pile
1334. that smile at the end of the millionth time-out
1335. quiet moments of starbucks - just me and that chai

1336. those dry and brittle leaves
1337. those goldfish scattered across the floor
1338. the love of a father for a daughter

 

when he's yelling of fireflies...

it happens every morning between 9 and 10.

doesn't seem to matter where i'm standing, his voice finds me before his little feet do.


his hand fits into mine and as he drags me from whatever point in the house i'm at, he's yelling about fireflies.


sweet boy.

every morning, he drags me to the same place.

every morning he throws his head back,

points that pudgy finger of his left hand

and breathes out wonder.


and i focus on him.


oh, i know what he is looking at,

i know that a reflection from that south facing window has cradled the sun and thrown all of it's glory 5 feet above my head.

i know that it twinkles and shimmers and dances across that cream-coloured wall.

i know that the wonder of it all holds my little one captivated.


and we stand there, we two;

one with his sweet little face raised up,

thrown way back...

and me.

head bowed,

eyes wide open to the wonder barely contained in his own.


sunlight captures the son grown in my dark.

always has.


as though seeking the other out, he is drawn to the warmth of that glow thrown down.

and oh.

oh.


how he longs to hold it in his hands.

and his beautiful innocence breaks through my indifference

and shimmering light named firefly reminds me to open my eyes...


to open my eyes and my mouth and speak out thanks.


because wasn't His presence found in that fire that didn't bring harm to that bush?




because the Light of the Son seeks me out  every. single. day.


and His Love, His Gifts are not something that elusively dance through my fingers.

oh no.

each one is fully given so i can fully grasp and hold the weight of Such Love close.



even in the hard times.

the harsh times.


the times where everything lays dying and broken.


it may not seem like it.

and that's okay.


He never expects one to flippantly pass through pain.


but the gift in those moments?

it's Him.
His Presence.

His Love that still arcs over and binds it all up from beginning to end.



and whether one is caught on the floor, trying to capture sunlight in hands that seem too weighed down with life,

or with eyes lifted up to the ceiling, lost in glimpses of the Holy...


He is there.

and we can give thanks...

through it all.

1211. his baby blanket
1212. the sky above me
1213. that sippy cup i can never find

1214. that old picnic basket
1215. the found - lost sippy cup
1216. gramma's bible

1217. their laughter in their bedroom
1218. a good school day
1219. those words every night

1220. each friendship here and there
1221. the deepening of our marriage
1222. this life we are making together

1223. laughter
1224. understanding
1225. hearts that are places of safety

1226. It Feels Like Home - because someday it will.
1227. the way he reminds me to breathe
1228. the life of my gramma

1229. that she is 6
1230. that sweet small baby i can still see in her face
1231. that she still snuggles up in my arms

1232. the truth found in colossians
1233. tony's laughter
1234. the stars He formed and that He knows their names too.

and i was asked about my numbers each week...


the ones that build on one another.


fall of 2010 i began my list of 1000 gifts in the middle of a season of painful loss.  you can read the first post here.


i reached 1000 here, in the middle of a blueberry patch and the heat of the summer, but afterwards the list writing continued without the same fervor.

the beginning of january of this present year, i read of this joy dare and decided to pick up my pen once more and plant the habit deeper...because He says that in everything we are to rejoice.

and i've learned that we can.


even in the ugly.


even in the dark.


even in the hurt.

and so i try...


maybe you would like to as well?  click here to find out more.

and you can follow the journey a bit more, if you care to, in the 1000 tab at the top of this screen.

sometimes...

there are times

and days

and moments

where the words become

small

and hushed

and few.

where moments gain momentum

and He keeps that door open

and ushers in something new.



it's those moments,

the ones where fear crowds in

and insecurities are laid bare for all to see...

when there is nothing else to do

in those waiting moments

but to become like daniel

and praise out the fear...

now when daniel learned that the decree had been published,

 he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward jerusalem.  

three times a day he got down on his knees

and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before.

daniel  6:10-11

so, with trembling hands,

i do...

1169. moments where lyla and i both learn to learn together

1170. olivia learning close

1171. the way tony tells me he loves me

1172. my gift of yellow daisies

1173. elias' favorite dump truck

1174. my little ones sitting in the lamp light's glow

1175. that beautiful, beautiful sky

1176. the floor of this house He gave

1177. the left arm rest of this couch i snuggle up to every night

1178. voices of 10 children playing within these walls

1179. voices of their mamas

1180. his key in the door lock

1181. the forgiveness of a child

1182. this city that has become home

1183. the way He loves us through others here

1184. those old comfy shoes

1185. an apology that mends what's broken

1186. an unexpected dinner delivered by the dearest of hearts

1187. a fire in the fireplace just because

1188. lyla discovering I'll Love You Forever

1189. that smile on her face as i whispered it over her sleepy head,

i'll love you forever

i'll like you for always

as long as i'm living

my baby, you'll be...

on your knees...

it's on the eve of epiphany when i enter his room,

in the silence and the hush of a house gone quiet i notice a light shining in that space beneath his door.


i take the first step in and sink gently to my knees,

i move forward in the way every person should when they enter into a moment marked holy.


i move past the boy-joy that has strewn toys all over this room.

the room that i had straightened up before i tucked him in.

i move past it all until i'm knelt before him.


i don't even think of those three.


i am completely captured by my son.

it isn't until late this morning that i realize the meaning that marked the dawn,

of the journey that those three wise men made,

the star that lit their way,

the Child they came to see.


they sat on my counter the whole christmas season long,

frozen in silent wonder.

turned towards the Christ child.

and i get i t - i do,

because it's my own child that brings me to my knees,

caught frozen in the wonder of His creation.


i wonder what they thought as they made that long journey,

i wonder what they expected to see...

i wonder if the scene that greeted their eyes left them lost in a moment of confusion.


but i can understand why they still came forward,

offered the gifts they came to bring.

i can understand the pull of a child

and the way and why the knees can bend...


it's a child that draws our perspective from what this adult mind deems important...

changes this posture,

bends the knees

so that these eyes can find what is hidden.


sometimes the journey is long,

the way only seen by the light of a star...

and maybe it's so that when we find Him there,

finally see His Hand,

the setting that surrounds won't matter,

all that does in that moment is Him...


and our knees will bow low in worship.

and it's a portion of a prayer that i read through this evening...

one that fills my heart and pours out into my home,

words that seem so fitting to end on this day that began in the hours before...

finding me on my knees.

O God, Lord of all that exists, you revealed your only-begotten Son to every nation by the guidance of a star. Bless this house and all who inhabit it. Fill each of us with the light of Christ, that our concern for others may reflect your love. We ask this through Christ our Lord.  

(source)

when someone gives...

i sit all nervous in the comfy chair placed discreetly by the door.

i'm noticed and motioned to choose a table, any table and make it my own.


i pick the one just out of the way, tucked into a corner near the window all sunny and i wait.

my fingers fidget with themselves,

they play with the menu,

i watch the cars drive by.


and i remember that sunday, how many months ago now?  when we dropped off the little ones in the nursery down that hall.

how the woman who loves all the little ones who walk in that door had held elias close as she took him to his class...

and her voice drifted out of the doorway i just walked through, into that hallway and it caught on the edges of my heart the way she spoke truth into his life,

did you know elias?  Jesus loves you!


and in the same way that she speaks truth into them,

she sat across and spoke His love and His truth into me.


because sometimes a mama feels tired,

exasperated,

defeated.


sometimes a mama finds it hard to see past everything that is going wrong and feels as though she is drowning in the noise.


until someone, who has walked these paths before reaches out,

reaches in

and gives you Hope to grab onto,

fans new oxygen into lungs all constricted and tight.


reminds of all the basics;

consistency

grace

joy

and most of all love...


and in those moments of connecting, He makes a way in a soul burning hot like a desert,
pours in refreshment in a heart parched dry and thirsty.


it's not easy turning from a way old and worn

to His, all new and untried...


but as i hold them close in my arms,

as i look at them with eyes refreshed

and a heart renewed...


i know certain and true

that they are worth all of the pain that comes from stretching and breaking away from old patterns and habits.

His love and His purposes for this family, this life, are worth everything it takes to be made new...

believing in the middle...

it fell in great white flakes that new year's eve

2 years ago.


he pulled me up out of our fresh grief

out into the cold...

into the white.


he didn't say much,

but i don't think i did either...


too numb by the reality that now happened to be ours.



and the hour is early on this new year's eve.


finds me unable to close my eyes.


closing my eyes means opening my ears to memories of the sounds of grief falling and surrounding;

of that door opening and his voice calling my  name,

the sound of my coffee being set down,

the sound of the wailing,

the shock,

his sobs in the night,

the hush in the magnitude of what we now knew.


but two years ago,

on this very same day,

as the body of his dad was found and cut down,

as our world fell apart

and everything tilted...


the cry of a baby boy was heard.



and i didn't know it, until months after i met them,

the ones who have becomes such dear friends,

of the birthday of this little boy who elias calls out for.


that as death ushered out,

life ushered in


and even as He allowed something horrific,

He allowed something beautiful.


and how can i not say that He is good?


He is.


and i write that with tears pouring down and a heart completely broken because sometimes life seems

anything

but

good.


because sometimes the choices that another person makes are

anything

but

good.


but God is.



God

is

good.


and His goodness can be found in the wail of a newborn

or in the wail of a widow.


this season, this year is coming to a close as the evening draws near...

but His Name will never lose it's strength - it stands strong always.




and i will write it again, because i need to,




Emmanuel.

God with us.


God with you...

and with me.


and whatever this coming year holds,

whether there is more trial

or more joy,

He is there.



ringing out in the middle of memories of pain and loss and questioning,

is the joy of a little boy who has stolen my heart and reminded me that there is such beauty to be found in the midst of the sad.

so we'll walk through the grief, each moment, each step...ask Him to come near to our hurt and our sorrow and trust that He will never leave us alone.

believing that He will continue to pour life in to what suicide hollowed out

 with what started in the cry of a newborn over 2000 years ago...



happy birthday, sweet luke...

when you need to look beyond what happened...

he has a friend from college that he loves like a brother.

the one who stood as best man at our wedding,


this same friend? he has a wife who is beautiful and fabulous

and who i love like a sister


and over the years...


over the miles of separation...

our families have grown.


and we move to a city where we have no roots,

and they come to visit and make this house feel a bit more like home.


and months pass

and they have another sweet baby

bringing our grand combined total to 7,

when she posts a picture of our two who were born third

and he says it again, like he has before...


how each boy looks so much like their daddies dads.


and it's true.


it's written all over their sweet little faces,

the imprints of genes from the men who have come before.



the last time elias was held by his papa,

he was 6 months old.


i have the picture,

but i don't need it...

the image is emblazoned on my heart.


and my son,

the one who looks like his papa,

 and carries his papa's name,

buries his face in my neck tonight.


and i feel it,

the grief bubbling up.

the fighting against the coming of the next few days...


it's in the hardest moments, though,

when i look back at that picture,

see his dad's smile captured in the smile of our son

that He gives such comfort.


this season is difficult because suicide is difficult.

because i still can't understand why he hung himself on that tree...

why three of his sons had to find him that way.


and the legacy that he lived to leave could so easily become wrapped up

in a blanket of death.


until,

i look at the smile of my son.


one decision made in a moment clouded and dark

can't extinguish the man that he was.


and that picture that captured the faces of  two sweet souls that i love

remind me that there is hope,

even in the moments of grief...

and that someday,

i'll see the fullness of His promise...

You turned my wailing into dancing;

You removed my sackcloth and clothe me with joy.

psalm 30:11

when you find yourself on the wrong side of town...

it's on the wrong side of town,

and the wrong side of the tracks

that i find my heart completely ruined and busted open.


it's at that fenced in playground

near that old school converted into hope

that i find my 3 little ones playing with abandon.


he leans out the window from that top story floor,

tells me he loves me,

keeps me in his sight.


he knows what i didn't admit when i walked back outside,

what i was too ashamed to verbalize...


that i was scared.


they stayed up on the third floor to hand out gifts,

to fill hands that don't have much with a bit of christmas this year.


the halls were crowded

and my three wanted to run,

so i went outside and felt like i had really been no help at all.


i sit with my back against a chain-link fence,

keenly aware of my 3 and of the dangers that lurked all around...

when i noticed him


and his eyes that were trained on me.


no more than 11, he looked at me boldly,

didn't look away when i held his gaze.

unsure what to do, i smiled...

and he stepped a foot or so closer

and smiled in return.


hey lady, wanna see what i can do?


his tender voice trying to sound all tough and strong,

as he proceeded to show me his acrobatic abilities.

and my voice that had been praising my own small three couldn't resist cheering for him too.

because who can resist pain that stares straight into you?

who boldly challenges you to not look away?


they had sat on the other side of the fence,

those two with that colour showing beneath their jackets -

they had slipped in a few moments after i got outside,

moved to where they could go unnoticed.


and i heard it before i saw it - that big old 4 by 4 coming down the alley,

watched it pull up onto the grass,

drive closer to the where all the children were playing.


and i stood up and moved closer to my own

as one very large man, dressed in a shirt of the opposite hue, stepped out of the truck and faced the two.


i began to mentally count the ones who were near,

the ones who had listened in the dark to my heart, to my breath, to my voice for those nine months deep inside me...

when my mind automatically counted a 4th presence come close.


and the boy from the wrong side of town,

the wrong side of the tracks,

stands close to the woman who is obviously out of her element

and obviously frozen in fear.


and the mama inside of me wants to pull him in close,

to shelter him from whatever has placed that pain in his gaze.

to keep him safe from whatever happens on the street he calls home...


and he drifts back to play while the two against the fence slowly get up and walk away,

as that big old truck eases into reverse and drives back down that alley.


i watch him pull livie into a game of tag,

race lyla down the slides,

give elias a high-five as they pass on the stairs,

as his shoulders straighten when i thank him for playing with my 3...


and i wonder where he will end up,

this boy with the sad eyes and the hopeful smile.

the one who just wants to be noticed

and praised

and protected.


and it doesn't really matter what side of the tracks we come from,

none of us are immune to pain,

to loss,

to horrors that hide behind closed doors.


He took on flesh and dwelt among us...


unafraid to look deep into our pain,

to step into our broken

and touch what was...what is... festering with death.


and the radio croons out songs of coming home,

of holidays full of cheer and warmth...

of families and reindeer and farmer grey...

and christmas is shellacked in a veneer of impossible expectations.


how easy to forget, in the lights and the ribbons and the presents stacked high,

He was born into a mess.

willingly.




and as i looked into the face of a boy whose eyes wouldn't look away,

i thought of Jesus

and His bold calling on my life,

on all of our lives who belong to Him.


and this season that i am finding so hard to navigate through

pulls back the curtain i had hid behind for so long.

lifts past the pretty to the broken


and begs me to find Him there...


can i love the unlovely?

can i hold close the broken?

can i let my life be used for Him?


and can i wrap it all up with the thread woven with His very own sacrifice?


it means a change in posture,

a change in view point,

a change in vocabulary.


when all one hears this time of year is,

give me, give me, give me...




let the one word out of my own mouth be small

and simple.


let me be

willing.