to the woman-who-thinks-she's-a-failure...

i get it.

i really do.


and that one moment of failure?

it can have you locked still with your eyes on what's burning down behind you.


i sometimes wonder if that's why she was told to not look back -

that maybe it was because she'd never be able to look forward again.


and eyes that could see vibrant colours, a mouth that could laugh joyful, ears that heard the sweet voices of her children...

all crumbled to a salty dust.


and what all lay before her was no more,

what was behind her was drifting away in ash,

and the woman only known as lot's wife?

she stood frozen in the space between.



failure has this way of bringing out the worst in us - we either turn a blind eye and inwardly rot, or we remain glued to what was and become the hardened living and either way,

either way,

we crumble.


i get it.


moving forward, placing that one dragging foot in front of the other seems wrong.

that moving forward doesn't seem right, because you chose the foolish way and living out your faith seems a mockery because a christian should be better than you have been...


i've heard it,

i've cupped that poison in my own frozen hands and felt my hope and my failures drain me all away.



and there is a death that happens on the road from sodom to zoar, a death that happens in that broken place between what was and where you are heading to.


and that could be the end.

it could be.


except for Jesus.


please wait, because yes, it does seem too simple,

and yes,  you did mess up

and yes, you could have made a different choice...

but just stop for a minute,

you're already standing there frozen anyways...


Jesus.

let Him near?

let Him breathe over you, stirring your heart and that hope you let go of and fill your lungs up again.


breathe deeply,

because you are not defined by what you have done - you are defined by Whose you are and you,

woman-who-thinks-she's failed,

you are His.


and when you are His, with failures and brokenness and sin splattered all over you,

He only sees Jesus.

He sees the Holy One Who boldly took your place.


so take that step - that frozen, halting step.

move your foot forward and then move the other one too,

let the wind blow the dust of death off of you, because you are not some shell of a woman lifeless and without use...


you are His and He will use even the salt that caked your face dry to cause a thirst in some other parched heart

and you will find that what left you frozen will lead you to His water that never runs low.


you are not a failure.

you don't have to be stuck between what has been and the elusive what-could-be...


His heart is there, thrumming deep inside you -

it's time to start moving forward again.

come and hear, all you who fear God,

and i will tell what He has done for my soul.

psalm 66:16

3 gifts found in Christ
2118. sitting in the hot sun with a sister-in-Jesus, sharing our hearts over His Word
2119. relationships deepened
2120. when we have been with Him, others can see (acts 4:13)

3 gifts close
2121. his kisses in the warm sun
2122. teaching the girls to read all pressed in close
2123. the younger 3 tackling me in bed

3 gifts reflecting
2124. sleepy mornings in front of the fridge
2125. moonlight on grass
2126. remembering lyla small

3 gifts fragile
2127. gramma's ring
2128. lyla's heart
2129. the smallness of zeruiah

a gift cloth, steel, wood
2130. those dish cloths
2131. his commitment to us
2132. cherry trees all in a line

3 gifts moving
2133. that crazy strong wind
2134. her hand on my cheek
2135. days that speed by

3 gifts "ugly beautiful"
2136. a back that seizes - move slow
2137. a "from scratch yard" - endless possibilities
2138. sibling conflict - learning to work out the hard things

3 gifts orange
2139. deeauna
2140. robin
2141. those shoes on my feet. :)

3 gifts in dirt
2142. candy tuft. lots. of. candy. tuft.
2143. that one purple tulip
2144. new grass coming up

a gift given, made, sacrificed
2145. tony's promise
2146. our babies
2147. saying not to what i really wanted

3 gifts tasted
2148. the second cup of coffee - with a friend
2149. blueberry yogurt
2150. home-canned peaches

3 gifts flat
2151. fedex parcels arriving right on time
2152. made up songs by sisters in the back seat
2153. the folded laundry pile

3 gifts found in difficult people
2154. a strengthening in my spirit
2155. tony and i drawing closer
2156. to realize it's not a competition

3 gifts before 9am
2157. sunrise sightings
2158. early morning coffee
2159. the start of a journey

a gift in a sign, a smile, a snack
2160. that hidden inn on the mountain
2161. that they had intense children too
2162. strawberry icecream-on-a-stick

3 gifts found in Christ
2163. that i am found in Him
2164. i may know Him and the power of His resurrection
2165. my righteousness comes from faith in Jesus Christ

3 gifts about your home
2166. the light
2167. the improved kitchen
2168. that we are all together under this roof

3 gifts inside a closet
2169. a mess of hand-me-downs
2170. organized jackets
2171. all those canned peaches

3 gifts found in the dark
2172. soul-changing prayer
2173. cricket song
2174. cool breezes

a gift outside, inside, upside down
2175. a mowed lawn
2176. my kitchen ceiling
2177. that we are here

3 gifts about your parents
2178. married 40 years
2179. all those years of piano lessons despite my complaining
2180. raised me to love a wide-open alberta sky

3 gifts held in hand today
2181. 7 week old barney
2182. all of their hands at some point
2183. that rose - thorns and all

3 gifts found in your mother
2184. passed on her love of reading
2185. taught me how to iron a man's shirt the right way
2186. that her birthday was yesterday...

when it's hard to be still...

"be still, and know that I Am God,

I will be exalted among the nations,

I will be exalted in the earth!"

psalm 46:10

in light of tragedies and loss and and bombs and fear and all those unknowns...


sometimes it's okay to quiet.

to slow.

i don't think you have to know the answers,

though we would like them.

sometimes restlessness rages in because there must be *something* you can do...

and there are times for that.

but sometimes,

maybe the better thing

is just to sit in His presence.

to allow Him to quiet your heart from all those fears and from all the unknowns.


and maybe it's naive -

that mama and i talked in that playground last week,

we talked of those "what ifs",

what if, as we sat there on that green, a bullet flew and one of us died,

if one our children were struck,

what then?

and she said it quiet,

i would still trust Him.  i would. because i know where we are going and i know Who is in control.  but maybe that's foolish.  a lot of my friends think so...

and i looked at her and i shared what we've lost. i shared of that horrid new year's eve and the life we lost in the softly falling snow.  i looked at her and i told her that it's faith. it's trusting in a good God when everything else falls apart.

because when it all seems good, when everything seems to be going our way, that is precisely when we need to plant those seeds of faith...

so that when it all falls apart, when everything around us explodes in chaos and all those unknowns fly in the air around us, we can rest in His presence,

maybe not knowing the whys, but knowing, so very deep down, that He is good. 

3 gifts round
2058. mug of coffee
2059. crispy apple
2060. that dimple under her lip

3 gifts white
2061. clean teeth
2062. lazy, hazy clouds
2063. apple blossoms in those orchards

3 gifts surprisingly found
2064. kindred spirits
2065. matching socks
2066. common ground

3 gifts in His Word
2067. luke 10:22 - my name is in heaven
2068. romans 1:12 It is a gift to be encouraged by another's faith
2069. acts 2:28 - He shows us the path to life - being with Him is joy

3 gifts @ 11AM, 2PM, 6PM
2070. school chaos
2071. nap snuggles with zeruiah
2072. laughter at MH

3 gifts nailed together
2073. this house
2074. the fence the  neighbour fixed
2075. my desk

3 gifts waited for
2076. that abused dog we adopted - her tail finally wagged when she saw us!
2077. vacation plans finalized
2078. those cherry trees to bloom

3 gifts raising up
2079. 8 hours of sleep uninterrupted
2080. seeing beauty in our ashes
2081. watching the sun come up in the early nursing hours

a gift hiding, held, heard
2082. elias under his blanket
2083. zeruiah snuggled up in that ergo
2084. lyla singing

3 gifts opened up
2085. yellow tulips
2086. jar of salsa
2087. a book avoided too long

3 gifts budding/blooming
2088. our japenese weeping willow
2089. hyacinths
2090. those flowers hanging over our fence

3 gifts worn
2091. that circle of gold and diamonds on my finger
2092. skin stretched, changed
2093. zeruiah's tears

3 gifts bright
2094. date night
2095. all their smiles
2096. 6 AM morning light

3 gifts found looking up
2097. dark rain clouds
2098. the cross that points to hope
2099. tony's hope beyond circumstances

and it's in the little ways,

the small thanks that keep me quiet before Him.

He is here - even when it's chaos,

even when it's scary and we don't understand.

Jesus is here and i quiet my heart before Him...

(and huge thank you to Gravrock Photography for including our little family in the pictures at Madison House...a gift treasured.)

before...

before the husband and the vows and our two lives becoming one and all of the trails that our one life has taken us on,

before i knew what it meant to become a mama and all that breaking and the changing and the transforming that this name change has brought,

there was her.


born in the full bloom of august i remember taking her in my unpracticed arms and trying to hold her so that she would stop crying

and maybe like me

if even a little.


she is the one who changed me from who i was and made me something more.


she is now the only one who i willingly let call me by the name i detest, because when it comes from her, aunty kimmy doesn't sound so bad.


her mama, she's known me since i was 16 - she's known me in my crazy days and in my rebellious days and in my broken days and in the joy-filled ones too. sometimes sisterhood doesn't need blood to bond.  sometimes all it needs is two hearts that fit - because He formed them to.

she comes with my niece and nephew after his mama and sister and our two nephews leave.  a mama and sister who sacrificed many days because i thought zeruiah's day was near and they wait and they clean and they encourage and they stay even though my older three are so sick. they come during the hard days of grief and we get through them together...

and i find myself surrounded by women whose dna doesn't match mine, but whose hearts love beyond scientific things like that.


but now, they have all left.


there is a bit more room in these walls, but the extra space is loud and empty...

and if i'm honest, i may have cried in the shower this morning.


there is something so needed in the life of a mama -

and there are so many voices willing to share -

willing to pull in so many different directions.


where are those voices that pull a mama's heart straight to the Heart of God?


before zeruiah's coming and before my home became a bit more full, before the laundry was caught up and my kitchen was scrubbed, i received a book in my inbox and i loaded it onto my kindle.

i settled down to read in the quiet spaces and i found two voices that ushered me straight into the throne room of God.


circumstances can shift and change and lead you away from everyone you know. you can find yourself making a space not only for yourself, but for your family, for your little ones and it can all become overwhelming and maybe a little bit tiring.


but like the ones that come and love and then need to leave, or like the ones who He gives as friends in the unknown places - the ones who become as loved as family, or even those found in the pages of a book, the ones who have walked this road and who have gasped for air in the hard mama-moments and survived and turn around to point you back to the Source of all Strength, they trace the face of Jesus for you when you can barely lift your hands, He provides His Hope everywhere, can i just be willing to look?



she sits on my couch, the one who 11 years ago filled my arms and now the one, the last one, who filled my belly lies curled up on her lap.

time flies and i can't even imagine where all those years have gone.

and the question resonates loud, the one that seems to be whispered all around me, where are the older women? where are the older women to gently guide the young mamas to the feet of Jesus? 

she is going to need one, someday.

walking this road, this sometimes desperate road is in a sense more than walking it for myself...

it means walking it for my daughters, for my nieces, for the younger women He may bring along the way.

because it's not about turning out well-mannered, well-behaved, well-adjusted children. that could happen, and it could not...

it's about Him - about taking the joy-filled and the hard-fought and the completely shattered moments and letting Him use it all for His glory.


so, let's not do this alone, let's fight in the trenches together - let's speak words to each other that are full of grace and life and point us always and pull us in all ways straight in to the very heart of Jesus.

letting go...{day 23}

it's in the last few days leading up to the busyness of the coming season that we've been talking a lot about what it means to die to ourselves.  he and i, we aren't naive anymore about the tactics that satan takes to destroy families and marriages and friendships and testimonies.

no, we have walked through those waters.


so, it was when i came across this post that i started digging a bit deeper and began to focus on what all i needed to let go of...

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

Colossians 3:5-10 ESV

...before i could be filled up with all that is from Him and Him alone.

and we get up early yesterday morning while it is still dark and little ones are buckled in while still wrapped up in blankies and jammies and sleep. and we drive through the mountains and a bit of snow and clouds and green and we talk quiet and we pray and we focus on Jesus, because only He can take what we so desperately need to let go of.

and we arrive and walk into warmth and we sit back in couches and watch football and we visit and cousins get reacquainted and daddies get sleepy and obscene amounts of pie get consumed and it's relaxed. and the ones who are missing are missed, but it feels a bit different this year, somehow.

but it's as we leave, as we wrap arms around each other and say our goodbyes and i love yous that one by one, the women who are part of this family i married into, they place their hands on my belly to feel this baby move...

 i looked down in that moment, and i'll never forget the overlapping of hands and fingers over my filling.  a silent blessing over this little one who tumbles in my dark. 

because those few minutes, where we all held our breath waiting to feel her, i felt Him move...when we reach out, with hands emptied out, Jesus fills us with life.


and i am thankful.

letting go...{day 3}

 

so we buy a home and move in officially on the very first of june and i remember how i woke up to the sound of rain on the roof while the sky was still dark that night.

it seemed like a blessing of sorts, because He knows how much i love the rain.


and then the sky seemed to dry up. didn't let go of one drop for four long months and we finally let our yard go because i couldn't keep up and he was changing jobs and this little one changing the shape of me kept me in a state of green and i'm sure whatever colour that lawn lost was somehow permanently transferred to my face.


temperatures climbing up past 100 and the lack of moisture quickly turn what was thriving and growing into something brittle and bleached and it hurt to look at.

he heard that fall is a good time to seed, just before the cold of winter comes and spring is still so far away and i stand at the kitchen window and watch as he walks around the yard scattering grass seed while the rain is coming down in sheets.

he keeps sowing while the rain keeps pouring and by the time he looks up at me and catches my eye, that hood pulled up over his head isn't really needed anymore.


our lives can look a bit like that.

or...more accurately, mine can at least.


life can seem so full of blessing until suddenly that sky above is void of any moisture, any relief from the unrelenting heat of the sun.

death sneaks in and steals someone we love...

families are broken apart and that breech lays open, aching for someone to cross over...

words are spoken that can never be taken back...

friendships drift apart and no one knows how to close that gap...

misunderstandings spark an anger that can rage for a lifetime...


and suddenly, all that is left is a shell dry and brittle with patches here and there that are worn down to dirt by feet that carelessly run over.


it can hurt to look at,

hurt to be near,

and it can seem like irreparable damage has been done and what once was green with life will always be this dark and dull and you can either rip it all up,

give up hope and accept that this is how it will always look,


or you can fill your hands with a hope barely breathing in the waiting and release it into ground parched and hardened when the heat is done scalding and the cold winds begin to blow in...


because this whole summer?  while my body has been swelling with a girl-baby that is now stretching and climbing up my ribs deep in the dark of me, i have been desperately waiting for autumn.

i  knew the rain would come back.


i knew that to walk through each hot, dry day would bring the relief of cooler weather and the beauty of jeweled leaves and cozy blankets and warm fires to sip hot cocoa by.

the last two months, He has been asking me to let go of a number of things...


my wish for family has been one of them.


that part of my heart has been dry and brittle and bleached fragile for a while.

and it seems that whenever my heart would lift up my broken to Him, the heat would come even stronger and soon, it felt that there was nothing left to do but let it all go...

let the hot winds blow and ride it all out

and keep my eyes on that sky wide and blue and void of any clouds.


and I see Him now, sowing the hope that i let go of in all those worn and dirt-filled places.


the landscape doesn't look the same,

i don't think that what will grow up in those places will look like what i expected,


but in lifting open hands to Him, and allowing Him to take what i had clenched so tightly, He is using those bruised and broken prayers to raise something beautiful up.



and the rain?

i stand with hands outstretched under clouds that are letting go and leaving me drenched...

o God, You are my God,

earnestly i seek You;

my soul thirsts for you

my body longs for you,

in a dry and weary land 

where there is no water.

i have seen You in the sanctuary

and beheld Your power

and Your glory.

because Your love is better than life,

my lips will glorify You.

psalm 63:1-3

we could all be one...

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

my heart stopped a little.


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

i find myself wondering what she looks like.


and this baby, this unexpected little one,

she already opens doors.


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


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

and yes.

yes

i find myself fading into the monotony at times.


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

but

He has drawn me out in this season as well.

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

and a mother?

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

every mother's heart needs to be spoken into.


every woman has the potential to be a mother.

each one.


and every woman needs a mother.


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

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

why do we shy away from each other?

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

i think of the legacy that we all could leave.

us who are seemingly small,

seemingly insignificant,

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

us.


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

maybe.

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

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

i want to know what that looks like...

when they walk away...

i don't think it matters.

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

i don't think it matters...

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

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

and then you said it,

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

i don't think it matters...

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

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

nothing compares to that ache.

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

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

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

i knew you were inside,

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

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

even i heard the desperation in my voice.


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


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

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

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

you stayed behind...

 and where can it go but at Jesus' feet?

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

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

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

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

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

our children have experienced their own deep losses,

we wrestle with our own questions and bewilderment.

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

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

and i know.  i know, tony.


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

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

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

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

 to lay what hurts down at His feet.

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


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

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

happy birthday, my tony.

i love you.

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...

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 dark you can hear it...

the house was silent and everyone sleeping, except me and this keyboard sitting on top of my lap.  the tapping of keys pressed down rings out loud and i'm sure someone, someone small, will awaken to all the quiet noise echoing out in that 1AM dark. but they sleep - all three of them and that man beside me.

they breathe deeply of the cool night air from a window cracked open and it's a quiet i don't want to let go of.

because when something changes, turns, shifts or breaks, the slightest movement only seems to emphasize the shock.

i wasn't ready.


so i sat typing words in the quiet of the dark.

there is comfort there in the repetition of verses where only the fingers dance while a soul fights to still.


because it's on the grass outside that school where she finally broke down.

where she screamed low and guttural and all the pain and hope and anguish and dreams collided into one another when she realized,

we weren't going back.

that here really did mean home and roots and there was a chapter closed.

i think she thought, when that offer was put on that house clear across town that those four yellow walls complete with that white trim that used to bear the name home would actually be ours again.

the air was crisp that night too - and her face was flushed with grief.


and each night since then, sleep has been hard to come by.

and i sit up, after each one is finally breathing slow and soft and listen to the silence that only the dark can bring.

until two nights ago.

frogs, crickets, even those dogs all howling like crazy - they were quiet and the air seemed heavy with silence only broken by the soft click of my lamp being turned off for the night.

cocooned in my blankets i waited for sleep when i heard it soft and sweet.

starting out as though timid, the notes were stilted and slow until she picked up a tune, a rhythm, and that lonely bird warbled out a  lullaby wrapped up in the black of a midnight sky.

He wasn't lost on me, in that moment small yet holy ~ 

everything else can give way: the comfort, the light, the hope we cling to so tightly.  it can vanish in the blink of an eye and we are left stunned.  shocked.  unable to really even think.

He says that we are the light of the world, a city on a hill that cannot be hidden - that in the darkest moments we are to shine most brightly for Him because He, The Very Light of this World we find ourselves in, dwells in our very own darkness that He has redeemed.

the darkness, though heavy and confusing is the most beautiful contrast to the Life giving Light that He is because He cannot be hidden, regardless of the circumstances.  There is hope - always there is hope - our eyes just need to be opened to see.


and this i am learning, that the ones that can move my heart the most and lift my eyes to Jesus, are the notes that hover suspended in the pitch of the night.

so sing, even if what comes out of your mouth is broken, bathed in tears and cracking with pain.


He hears it - that love song of the brokenhearted that refuse to let go of His Hand.

the making of a home, a family...

they came back this spring, as slowly as this season appeared.

one by one they began buzzing circles around small bodies and little ones would cry and i watched those wasps to see where they would go...

and they returned.

they returned to that crack in the eave of the garage...just below the peak i watched them hover around that opening.

the one that opens up into a nest so large it cracked the beams of the joists in the framing of the roof.

the exterminator had been called last fall,

he had sprayed them all dead,

and now it's all buzzing with life again.


they are a nuisance.

they are aggressive.

but they are making a home.


and maybe it's because we are waiting for that closing date, waiting to unfold boxes and fill them up full.  pack up that moving van one last time, put down roots, claim our space and make a home.

maybe it's for a million reasons that i feel slightly lost in the middle.


for all those months before we left what was, i begged Him to let us put down roots there. begged Him to change the course that seemed to be heading in only one direction and when i finally surrendered, submitted to His will, i began to ask if He would allow us to put down roots somewhere else...

and i find myself trying to reconcile the loss of one dream and the realization of another while at the same time trying to figure out where home for us is...


it hits me, as i drive in the heat of summer that has decided to arrive in april - hits me that his home and mine are no longer ours to go to...home is where we will make it, where we will choose to dig deep and grow them all up...and it ached, that thought; as families travel towards each other, plans realized and memories made and lyla sobs before bedtime prayers and i feel helpless because it all fell apart before she turned 5 and i am her mother and aren't mamas supposed to fix everything and make it all better?

where are those wounds that can be eased with a kiss?


but it's in the middle of all that chaos that has graced our home for the last 3 days, chaos of 7 children 6 years old and under.  as we open that door and welcome them in - the friend that stood beside him at our wedding 10 years ago, the friend who was his best friend before me and willingly gave up that place.  his amazing wife who has become more than his wife, but a sister to me and an aunty to my three...

and when the air here becomes a little too noisy and we all pile in and drive across town and spill out into a yard of the house that has become a home all because of the one who cares for us like a father would,

this home that has become a place to land...

it's there, when i can barely hear myself think that i hear it,

i hear the sound of family.

it doesn't look like the landscape of what we left behind at all,

barely recognizable, i can understand why i would feel lost at times...

because this?  it isn't what i had planned out for my life.


could that be the point?


my life isn't my own - it's His, fully.  completely.

and it's His journey i'm following,

what i see as detours, He sees as part of His perfect plan for my life He established since before the foundation of the world was set in place.

and this journey is just that - a moving forward towards where my real Home will be.

it's a moving towards Jesus.


that house with the closing dates and the mortgage payments and the lawn to mow?  it's a place to rest until i'm done here...i can't lose sight of that, because that is what will keep a restless heart settled.  we are always moving towards something - so let me be moving towards Him.


11 years ago today, he got down on one knee and asked me to be his wife. me - the canadian girl used to the wide and open of the prairies, and there, with him, surrounded by the mountains of idaho with snow still on the ground and us all still intact ~

i looked into his eyes and said yes.


i didn't know what He had mapped out,

i didn't know how how deeply entwined joy and pain would become.


but i did know that i would love him until i drew my last breath and follow him anywhere

and He led us both to here.


here where the air is hot in april,

here where i feel lost and found,


here where He provides the family,

and here where we are finally home.

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.

her name...

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

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

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

olivia - my peaceful one.

 

her life has been anything but.


her middle name was added in very purposefully

because i would meet her in the home of my midwife

with nothing to ease the pain to come.

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

grace - goodwill and favor.


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

and i was right

in a sense.


we've wrestled, she and i,

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

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


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

battling a will that grows stronger than my own,

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


i have felt hopeless.

i have felt scared.

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


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

of how she should obey.

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


oh, olivia.


i am so sorry.


he holds me in the night,

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

everything she is doing,

everything that seems to be going wrong.


and he prays to Him Who created our sweet girl,

prays for wisdom for this mama and

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


and i know,

deep down,

i know...

she needs to know she's loved.

 

more than a nuisance,

more than a problem


more than a will that can't be tamed.


i read the words in the dark of the night,

as tears run down and the prayers seem weak,

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

~a. voskamp

and i know,

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

she hears more thunder of disapproval

and the lightening that flashes my frustration

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


it's awkward at first,

and i am ashamed to write it,

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

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

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

why did you smile at me?

why?

she should never have to ask why,

but she needs to hear it.

she needs to know it deep down in her marrow 

because i don't want her left wanting.

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

i walk into the room all breathless this morning,

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

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

but it is in the closing of one lesson,

before the beginning of the next,

that my heart starts to pound.

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

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

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

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

and i break wide open.


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

fighting to win this battle between us,

prove that i am in charge

and that she was created to bend to my standards.

what arrogance,

what stupidity.

because with that simple line filled in,

my whole view changed:

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

when we named her

before we even saw her,

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

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

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

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

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

in spite of who i am.


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

i won't break it.

to break it would shatter her.

to break it would shatter us.

but to soften,

with the warmth of a small smile,

all full of the Grace of His Son...

we are made whole.

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

grace.  the gift i never, ever deserved.

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