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

when we call for Him...

it always starts with a call for Him,

a crying out for Emmanuel to come and save, to draw near...

and as i stood in the back row in a crowded sanctuary this evening, i couldn't hold back the tears.  my own cry for His presence to come close.


o come, o come Emmanuel...


and He has, but do i always see it?  do i always recognize it?


my feet pass over a rectangular mat in the early hours this morning, the timing and pain seemed such that it was time to head to the hospital.  my bag was packed, his was too, the friends tag-teaming so that my 3 would be taken care of until they could see the face of their littlest sister...
i passed over it and i forgot.

i forgot what it said...

right outside my front door is the reminder that i hold in my life the Good News and it is filled with Great Joy...for all who take it in...

i forgot because i was scared of what lay ahead.


and i think of those moments when i forget that He has already made a way to draw near to Him, to allow my life to live out His Good News and it's right there, plain as day, right in front of my nose.  change my posture, change my view and i see it...I see Him.


they send us home after a couple of hours - everything slowing down and nothing progressing. and yes, i still have a week or so before she's due, but this carrying, this stretching and growing...it has been different...harder...and i wonder when i will finally see her face.

this was the year i wanted to start traditions, to grab hold of Him in the middle of the craziness of this season...i want to not just give Him lip service, but to actually see Jesus and so we begin to enter into the practice of advent...

i need His Light in my dark...


week after week we light each candle,

day after day we turn each page,

and we see Him a bit clearer,

we know Him a bit deeper,

and Who He is becomes so much dearer...

and it's right there, on december 22...before that last advent candle is lit, the reminder that He chose us...in the middle of all our sin and all our dark, we are chosen, appointed...His.

and i can do this,

you can do this,

whatever He has asked you and i to do...we can, because we are His.


and this evening, in the back of a crowded sanctuary, the Christ Candle was lit.

the center one,

the pure white one,

and one by one, the dark space around me became aflame because of that one solitary flicker.


i held in my hand a burning wick and all i could think of was Him...


and that ancient call, the one that sings out a plea for His presence,  He answered it.

Very God, Creator of the vast universe and the minute cell...He entered into the dark...

and when we draw near, when we bow in wonder at His Holiness and mercy, our own hearts ignite within us.

and it spreads...

sets those around us on fire...

i was given the beautiful door mat and table top devotional from Dayspring for the purpose of this review...

and as my pregnant brain and clumsy fingers would have it, i've accidently pushed some button that isn't allowing me to embed links to these products...so, please click on these links below to see these and other decorations that celebrate the beauty of Jesus this season...

table top devotional:

http://www.dayspring.com/themed_collections/redeemed/redeemed_christmas/redeemed_christmas_the_heart_of_jesus_advent_tabletop_devotional/?F_All=Y

Good News door mat:

http://www.dayspring.com/themed_collections/redeemed/redeemed_christmas/redeemed_christmas_good_news_doormat/

when they walk away...

i don't think it matters.

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

i don't think it matters...

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

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

and then you said it,

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

i don't think it matters...

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

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

nothing compares to that ache.

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

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

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

i knew you were inside,

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

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

even i heard the desperation in my voice.


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


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

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

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

you stayed behind...

 and where can it go but at Jesus' feet?

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

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

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

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

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

our children have experienced their own deep losses,

we wrestle with our own questions and bewilderment.

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

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

and i know.  i know, tony.


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

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

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

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

 to lay what hurts down at His feet.

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


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

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

happy birthday, my tony.

i love you.

bending low...

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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


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

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

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

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


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

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

and His promise:

praise to the Lord, the Almighty

the King of Creation

o my soul praise Him for

He is thy help and salvation

all ye who hear, now to His temple draw near

praise Him in glad adoration

praise to the Lord 

Who o'er all things so wonderfully reigneth

shelters thee under His wings

yea, so gladly sustaineth

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

granted in what He ordaineth

praise to the Lord 

Who doth prosper thy work and defend thee

surely His goodness and mercy here daily attend thee

ponder anew what the Almighty can do

if with His love He befriend thee

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

all that have life and breath

come now with praises before Him

let thy 'amen' sound from His people again

gladly for aye we adore Him

hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah

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

yes, o my soul, praise Him.

in everything...

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

wasted.

useless.


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


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

with his eyes close, he said my name,

talk to me, kimberley.


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

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

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

he knows.


and we sit there, together, in the silence.


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

(photo credit: becky frame)

and his own burdens come out, story by story,

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

of the children with no running water...

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


brokenness is everywhere.

everywhere.

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

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


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

that thought.

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


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

she made a comment,

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

can our pain be a balm for another hurting heart?


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


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

most especially in the pain-filled-everything.

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

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

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

1 samuel 3:18

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

He is good.

we can trust that.

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

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


how can i not praise Him?

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

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

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

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

be praised" (job 1:21).

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

rebellion.

~hannah whitall smith

when 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...

when it tilts...

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

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


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


because even when everything changes,

He doesn't.


He doesn't change.

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


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

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

as we sing about this day that He has made,

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


He's unchangeable,

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


He's an anchor that can hold us steady.


anything else that i cling to,

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

nothing is sure but Him.


can i trust that?

can i really trust that?


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

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

is taken with Him.

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


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

walls may give way,


but i wonder,

when everything crumbles around us,

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


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


so, let Him move what is underneath you,

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


and trust Him,

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

the sparrow and a giveaway... {updated}

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


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

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


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


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

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


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


and i felt so very lost.

but like that sparrow that He has His eye on,

He had His eye on me,

on us...


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

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

the path that has so many twists and turns,

detours

and brokenness...


but i have never been out of His sight.


there are moments when that thought is hard to grasp,

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

or easier to overlook...


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

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

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

before i find myself at a table,

a park,

around our dinner table,

and see Him open my heart and theirs.


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

by Him.

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

i am cherished,

provided for,

known,

seen.

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

when circumstances overwhelm,

or loss threatens to topple new found confidence in Him.


but it's true, regardless...

He loves because i am His.


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

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

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

and a heart that has been given much


can't help but overflow.




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

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

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

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


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

*********

 


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


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

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

when the temperature drops...

they stand tall and graceful on our kitchen table,

lost in sun and shadow, this gift unexpected calls for little hands to reach out and touch them.



she gives, because that is who she is.

even in the cold of a winter wind,

she gives.


and i pull the bundle of pussy willow sticks close,

arrange them in a mason jar and we sit in a circle around them.


have they never really ever seen them before?


i mean, they must have,

but they  look at them with a wonder that amazes me

and they each ask if they can hold a branch.


and i watch tiny hands pet those grey, tiny buds

and i watch what is dead being cradled in the hands of the living.

and it happens, as we sit all gilded and golden in the sun,

that moment that helps me see those other moments just a tad bit clearer...


it can all seem so dead;

that hope, that desire, that wish for a different outcome.


it can all have been packed up and moved away and find you sitting there wondering where in the world your life went.

it can all change so very quickly.


and the snow flies again

and the temperature drops

and you stand at the window watching it all be buried again.


but could what seems like an ending,

be only a beginning?


doesn't new life always comes from a dead seed buried deep in the dirt?


sometimes you just have to lay it down for Him to raise up new life in you.


and in those in between moments ~

the ones that leave you feeling lost and forgotten and maybe slightly disoriented;

maybe they are ones meant to strengthen and remind that He is there - always, always there,

and in the dark, you find He lets you hold the hope of spring in your hands...

~ But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you...Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.~     

2 corinthians 4:7-12, 16-18 

lessons in the messy...

he comes home to find me a mess.

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


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

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

and my last nerve

was

being

stretched

very

thin.


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


or maybe,

if i'm to be honest,

not holding it together at all.


he walks into the kitchen and stands in my way.

on purpose.

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

exhaling loudly

and sighing impatiently

and biting my lip so i don't cry.


he knows this.

because he knows me.

and he keeps standing there.




he knows why i'm about to fall apart.


the microwave beeps

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

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

and set them all into the oven.


and that's when he says something,


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


just like us.


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

because it's true.


in this year hollowed out and named new

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


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

can still apply in the chaos of the second.


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

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


it's safe to trust Him...

even when you are scared to.

even when you have been hurt before.

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


He is trustworthy.


and even if you have lost it all

but you still have Him...


you have Everything.

and those new roads through those new places?

they lead closer to Him...

indeed i count everything as loss because of the surpassing

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

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

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

philippians 3:8-9a

when it's faint and fading...

i was thirteen the first time i met her.

i walked down the hallway that seemed to go on forever,

walked on wood floors that creaked with each step,

passed rooms filled with files and files and files of black notes on white paper...

as music swirled out in the air above and below me from rooms with doors closed 

and voices hushed.


her studio was at the very end of the hall.

and with an old sofa pushed up against that plaster covered wall,

i waited there for my lessons to begin.


small,

diminutive,

reserved, 

a spinster...

she terrified me.


i read of dietrich in the evenings,

in the quiet moments that appear throughout the day...

and maybe it is reading of the setting of germany,

of the beauty under all that pain that has me pulling out schumann.

his music from his Album fur die Jugend, Opus 68  fills our home and as my fingers find their way over those keys i've known most of my life,

elias races his cars

 in 

and around

and through

my moving fingers.

and it's as i look up for that next measure when i see those words in pencil;

the ones that she would lean over my shoulder to jot down,

the ones placed to remind me of how the music was supposed to sound.


and now,

even now,

she reminds me...

that woman who had dedicated her life to Jesus and her music,

the one whose piano i haven't sat at since i turned 17,

she still teaches me to play pianissimo,

to shape a piece of music that draws out the emotion behind each note,

and to count when i lose my way.

i hold the very Word of God in hands made of dust,

words jotted down by men whom He used to show us His Heart,

His Way.


He teaches me how to live in the words that i read,

that sink deep and change my heart if i let it...

through words written thousands of years ago,

He shows me how to return when i've lost my way.

and it's in the markings of a pencil,

faint and fading with time,

that she teaches me to still...

and to live out my life with the beauty of what The Composer intended...

breathing...

she writes words on a 3x5 card that weave together a prayer for us

and sends me the picture.


i find it in my inbox in the early morning hours that find me searching for a glimpse of Him.

and i need a glimpse of Him

desperately.

i walk down the hall on shaky legs 

and reach up trembling hands to the top of that cupboard

and pull down a 3x5 card of my own.


and her prayer becomes my prayer that i can't voice and the card becomes crinkled between my hands as i hold it close throughout the day...


and when i couldn't even utter the words,

He knew.

He heard.


and He called.


seven days later,

i sit across the table from a dear friend who heard my whispered plea to pray as i ushered my three out of that loud and chaotic room

and she shares how He wouldn't let her go that day.

wouldn't let her not pray all day

and so she did.


it's not lost on me,

the unfathomable grandness of my God.

how so very large He is and how very small i am.


and when lungs struggle to fill with the very oxygen of communion between God and man,

He calls on others to breathe for them.

and the air exhaled from the hearts and mouths of those in His Body reaches Him as a fragrance  

and He responds...

it's just a small blue dot caught in the beam of a ball of fire,

(source)

and it's a life that speeds by and is over in the mere blink of an eye.

but to Him,

each moment that seems to slip out of hands trying to grasp and understand the meaning of it all...

they have worth

and weight

and they move Him to action

and He calls us to breathe for each other.

for when you find yourself wandering...

i sit across from a man i've never met before and give him my name.


the snow is already beginning to melt outside.


he asks the needed questions

and i supply the answers

and then we wait for the paperwork to print.


i'm startled when he asks a personal question,

when he leans forward like he genuinely wants to know.

he asks me how i like it here.

and i want to laugh, because he couldn't know that a year ago today i buckled my three babies into their seats, closed the door on my little yellow house, cried in the kitchen of my best friend, held the hand of my husband

and drove away.


how i looked out across the prairies that i love,

blanketed in snow as though tucked in for the long and cold winter

and entered into a season of not knowing where we were going to land.


i look this man in the eye,

the one who fought in a war,

 lived here for 40 years,

 buried a son,

coached basketball,

and waits for my papers to print...


and i smile wide as the words come tumbling out,


i love it here.

and as the printer whirs he begins to share of the valley he moved from,

the one that sees 144 inches of rainfall each year

to this one that barely sees even a fraction of that amount.


this place that the summer sun beats down on,

the one that sagebrush dries up in and tumbles across...


when he says the words that have pierced deep and stayed with me all day,


but this place that by all accounts should look like a desert, is greener than anything i ever saw back home.


maybe because i am learning about them every monday, how the study of those freed hebrew slaves fills up my thoughts; but i understand, maybe a little, of that moment of looking out across a vast dry and dusty space and questioning the plans of the Almighty.


they stopped at Etham and saw the easier route up to the Promised Land to the north

and the hot, looming desert to the south...

and that Pillar of Cloud beckoned them to follow Him into the latter.


one year ago today, with tears on my face, i took that first step out of my Etham and into a journey held together only by trust and a very shaky faith.

it all looked so bleak and empty.


but i'm learning this about my Jesus Who loves;

He waters what is dry


and provides a way where there is none,

even while you still find yourself in the middle of a barren wilderness...



and what by all accounts should look like a desert,

is incomprehensibly spilling over with Life.

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...

it's in the air...

the grass outside my front door is a faded sort of crunchy green.

it's been a while since a winter hasn't found me surrounded by snow.


seems odd in a silly sort of way.


all around me i have been hearing snippets of snowfall sightings,

but nowhere close to here.


you can hear the excitement,

the wonder,

the joy

that a simple snowflake can bring.


and i can close my eyes and imagine the softness of swirling night air,

and it's enough...

almost.


today, i read of manna

and how it covered the hot, dusty desert ground in the cool of the night.

rested, along with the dew, to feed hungry bellies.


for 40 years, the night air swirled with bread from heaven

and for 40 years, those freed hebrew slaves gathered it up and ate.


i sat, pondering for a moment or two the sameness of it all.

40 years of manna,

being filled on a question 

when i read...

the simplicity and singleness of the manna in the wilderness symbolized 

the Christ Who was to come. When presenting Himself as the true Messiah

to the jews, Jesus clearly said, "I am the bread of life" (john 6:35). while the

manna of the wilderness could not provide eternal life, Christ did

and will to anyone who will receive it.

priscilla shirer

for 40 years the hebrews wandered,

but for 40 years, a glimpse of Christ swirled in the air around them in the quiet of the dark.

each morning as they gathered to fill, they unknowingly held in their hands a Shadow of Hope...

i think, of how the coming days can appear like that grass outside my door.

fear can make the moments ahead brittle and faded, as though the summer lush is only a distant memory.


but He whispered it, that promise...the hope of something new.

and He, my Jesus, The One Who can make a way in the wilderness,

Who can makes streams flow in a desert,

Who can make the bread of heaven float down each morning...

He can cover each dry and dusty place,

each fear that trembles,

each sliver of hope brittle and faded...

and whether or not a winter snow falls in this place,

i am fully covered by His grace.

when one needs to take note...

i sit in my chair at the kitchen table,

bent over a form needing to be filled in,

i get to the boxes that need to hold the day's date and my mind draws a blank.


i should know what day it is...


instead, i move from the spot where i am

to the spot near the fridge and look at the calendar hanging there

when it hits me...

two years ago today, we gathered together in that church to say goodbye to him.

one year ago the boxes were just beginning to pile,

just beginning to be filled with my life that felt so shattered.


and today felt so...

ordinary.


until we pile in that van and grab coffee and hot chocolate and sit and watch the kids be kids...

until we start up that road in the dark that leads to home and as the little ones behind us sing and tell jokes, we begin to share from our hearts.


and it's then, in those following moments when i feel my shoulders tightening,

hear my voice rising in that panicked strangle that seems to creep in when i don't want it to.


and the words my ears are hearing aren't really the cause of my reaction, because they are good words, kind words...words so full of Jesus.

it's my heart, you see,

and how scared i am to trust Him completely.


two years of uncertainty behind me,

two years of love and life being placed in a box held in hands not wanting to let go.

and the old doesn't want to give way to the new...


fear has a death-grip on this heart and the last thing it wants to do is let go.


i slip out for a while this evening,

meet a sweet friend for a cup of coffee,

we share from our hearts and the tension slips away with the laughter.

but it's when i am headed back in the direction of home that the verse learned long ago curls around the edges of my memory,

set up road signs;

put up guideposts.

take note of the highway,

the road that you take...

jeremiah 31:21

He calls out for that faithless daughter of His to return.

stop wandering and watch Him do a new thing.

and the old clings tight to a soul trying to shake it off,

but the plea of my Saviour doesn't ask me to fight,

instead He asks me to walk and to watch how i use my eyes.

and maybe a year named new is only found by looking for...

road signs to give warning, to remind to slow down...to take a moment to breathe deep and pray. stop moving faster than the One Who is there right beside me.

guideposts to know what direction to take...do i slip back into the ruts pressed deep from too many passes on the same old road, or do i forge a new path, a straighter one made True?

and after the looking, 

taking note of the difference, of the landmarks and plot out a new way of following, obeying and loving Him...taking and memorizing and walking a new path, no matter how hard because it's the only way this year will live up it its name.


it takes a day turned ordinary for these eyes to see that fork in the road,

it takes the memories burned deep for the choice to be made clear.

and i feel my heart begin to move forward...