the long road home...

eugene and wilma moved out this past week.

they unloaded their house and hitched up their 5th wheel and sold their home to a young family whose u-haul is parked right outside their front door tonight.

we've got ourselves some brand new neighbours.

some of my walls still stand bare - we moved into these four walls 372 days ago and there are spaces that still baffle me.

it will come...

maybe.


and maybe home is close to my heart tonight because i don't necessarily know what the plan is anymore.


i think of all the times when i've demanded my own way of God. fighting Him at every turn - thinking that four walls meant stability and putting down roots meant being comfortable and safe and when i glance back at the road behind me, i can see the claw marks in the ground - the places marked with a desperation for control.

and they were bloody.

and they are still raw.

but if the scars have taught me anything, they've taught me to trust in a kind and tender Saviour.


what happens when the road to home doesn't lead to comfort and safety and tidy and clean? what happens if the road to home leads you deeper and darker into what pushes against everything that make sense?

we live on a quiet street with quiet neighbours and crickets that sing in the flowerbeds below our bedroom window. until this past week, our 4 were the only children on this road and the occasional grandchild who comes to spend the weekend at a grandparents house...

but then he takes that job on the street formally known as "the hole". where drugs and gangs and violence and drive-bys are the norm.

the year before? there was an opportunity to go down there, before tony ever took the position he has now, for a harvest party in "that" part of town and i shook my head - there was no way. no way i was taking my children into an area that unsafe.


i don't know what happened...when that shift occurred. when i no longer felt scared.  we go down almost everyday and most days down there are just like our days here in the middle.


there's a sign at one of the main intersections in town that splits *that side* from *this side* and each time i drive by it i feel torn...


it's a sign that is supposed to make you think, but what it does is make me sad -

which road are you going on? it asks:

the road to heaven - which apparently follows the road leading back towards mansions and comfort and the safe part of town,

or - 

and i always look at those words as i reach for the blinker that signals which direction i'm turning:

or are you on the road to hell?


well then,

i guess i'm on the road that leads to hell everyday.


and instead of wanting to escape back here at the end of a long day, i find myself longing to be down there. down in the hellish nightmare of a world i still don't completely understand. and both of us? we agree - it's where we are feeling led, but the timing? it seems so slow but our hearts are burning and if we are saying to Him that our lives are His...that where He leads is where we will go, then we wait with open hands until He clears the way.


and so my walls remain bare.


but the restlessness - it rubs my soul raw and i look around at closets that need to be sorted and baby clothes that need to be switched out...baseboards that should be dusted and light switches that should be wiped down and i get overwhelmed with the everyday...

and after a long week of doing i begin to feel overwhelmed with the list that shouts out the needing to be done.

saturdays have turned into a chaotic heart scramble and the day off we have as a family finds me twisted up in a knot taut and ready to snap.

before we left for the green of vacation last month i began to pray about our saturdays - about the heart messes that find their way into a schedule already heavy with the housework that needs to get done and as we drove further away and closer to rest it's what i kept sensing...

sundays are a day for sabbath - a ceasing of work and allowing our bodies to rest;

but could saturdays become a day for sanctuary? a space hollowed out to become hallowed - as i clean the nooks and crannies around me, could my spirit find a place to breathe in His Peace? could the day before the day of rest be redeemed and made holy too?


i'm tired of the striving.

to be honest, my soul is weary...His call to find solace and rest in Him? i wonder if i can really settle down long enough to see if it's possible - but i'm willing to try.


this saturday will find me bent over in a simple, most basic step...


i'll be lighting a candle - one in each room. a reminder that He is the True Light - the One Who shines brightly in the darkness that surrounds..

.the One Who is really and always my True Home...

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.

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...

in the wrapping around...

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

i leave the windows open to let fall sneak in.


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

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

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

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

but i kept standing there.


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


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

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

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

i wanted to fight the pain inside.


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

she asked if she could go home with us too.

she didn't chase the van,

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


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

himself.

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

and it can easily overwhelm.

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

no...

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


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

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

the only way...


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

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

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

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

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

1520. a long awaited cup of coffee

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

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

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

dear dad, when you need to know...

the wind has been blowing outside these windows,

the leaves are beginning to fall.


this small baby inside of me is tumbling in my dark

and you...


you are moving in the presence of God.


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

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

we had 10 more months with you.


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

you were here.

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

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

you were here to hear the news.

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

all my babies have known you,

they've heard your voice,

they have fallen asleep against you.


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


but i want you to know.

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

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

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

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

we can trust that.

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


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


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

i love you, dad.

and i miss you...

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

endings and beginnings and hope...

ending moments are always the hardest, the most difficult.

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


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

we had coffee.

we had almost instant community.


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

it was familiar when i had lost almost everything.


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

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

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


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

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

we both felt it...

that urging to look closer.

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

closer to what didn't feel safe.

closer to a desperate need.


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

He's serious.


and that sometimes our sacrifices are bathed in tears.


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

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

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


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

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

the truth?

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


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

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

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

the children who haven't yet heard His Hope,

a dark place that so desperately needs His Light,

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


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

but it was only the start.


the endings are always the hardest,

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


but that beginning ahead of us?

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

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.

what to expect...

He spoke it in the quiet of the new year.  that promise of a new thing;

of a way in the wilderness and rivers in a desert.


i thought He was referencing my circumstances.

i should have known He was looking at my heart.

and it came after those 10 long months of wondering,

those 2 months of deciding it was all done,

finished,

complete.


it came in the form of that unexpected extra pink line and i sat down,

hushed,

overwhelmed,

and a tiny bit scared.


because that day had been filled with all of my failures as a mother,

frustrations and impatience coming to a head and they saw the worst of me, those 3 that want to be so close,

and that smallest one, the one whose body is deep within but whose presence i can't feel except for the green tinged moments and the overwhelming cravings for salt,

and i don't want to mess them up.

all week i've been carrying the burden of that recording playing over and over and over,

you're a failure. you're a failure as a mama. 

over and over it played until He stopped it in the dark of last night.


i walked out of the sanctuary of our church and straight into moments only He could have orchestrated ~ five women who reached out and spoke life and hope into a heart that felt as dry and wasted as it has ever felt.  and in those words, as the tears started falling and the hope started filling, i felt it ~ i felt those rivers start rushing into the places parched and dying.


when we love Him,we carry Life within us, whether we are mothers or not.  we carry the ability to speak Life into the heart of another and who knows if that is the moment that the river is released, if that new thing sparks into being.



this mother's day holds more than i expected or dreamed,

but it is filled with Life, no matter how small.

and no matter how tiny,

hope is dancing in the dark...

happy mother's day...

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.

in the sun...

i stay wrapped up in blankets this morning;

the sun pours in and i open up those curtains.


while the little ones sleep, i sneak into the kitchen and grab those plants that sit by the sink...

i carry that green in my hands and sit them in the sun.

and i watch them.

for an hour, maybe a little bit more, i watch them strain and straighten,

reach for the light beyond the glass.


i think of two cemeteries visited today ~

two different cities,

for two different reasons.


one grave filled,

the other being filled,


both surrounded by ones who love.



he talked of his dad on the way home from getting food for the fridge,

talked of what he learned from the one who raised him

and i got quiet sitting beside him.


he turned to me when i didn't respond,

asked me what i was thinking

and the words quivered out,


sometimes i wish he had made a different choice.



and it's those plants i think of for most of the day,

as graves and memories and tears run all together,

that it's here in the waiting,

in all of this waiting ~

we are striving,

straining,

reaching

for the Light Who is Home.


the tears that fall, fall because our hearts have loved.

they still love.


but i am learning, in small and simple ways,

that the way to find hope and joy in grief

is to turn my face towards the Son...


and someday,

some glorious, wonderful, amazing day,

there will be no more separation between Him and i.


all the striving and straining and reaching and turning that fills up this life,

this life that longs for Him but seems to always hit hard against the immovable unseen,


the barrier will be lifted and this path that leads up to that moment,

the one paved with tears and confusion and questions,


it will become the altar that i offer my thanksgiving on,

because all of this that this life is,

is leading me Home to Him...


and that which separates the seen from the unseen,

what allows these eyes to catch fleeting glimpses of His glory?

it only builds the anticipation...

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...

the sparrow and a giveaway... {updated}

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


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

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


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


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

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


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


and i felt so very lost.

but like that sparrow that He has His eye on,

He had His eye on me,

on us...


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

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

the path that has so many twists and turns,

detours

and brokenness...


but i have never been out of His sight.


there are moments when that thought is hard to grasp,

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

or easier to overlook...


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

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

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

before i find myself at a table,

a park,

around our dinner table,

and see Him open my heart and theirs.


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

by Him.

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

i am cherished,

provided for,

known,

seen.

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

when circumstances overwhelm,

or loss threatens to topple new found confidence in Him.


but it's true, regardless...

He loves because i am His.


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

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

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

and a heart that has been given much


can't help but overflow.




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

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

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

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


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

*********

 


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


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

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

when you wait for the blooming...

he hung himself on that tree and died there.

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

so many other things died too.


i have thought, however naively,

that time and distance could ease and heal,

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


i stood outside this evening, in the dark.

i threw that trash in the bin and closed the lid

and looked up...


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


tonight, grief sinks deep.


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

i find myself asking why?.


i brought out the amaryllis bulb late,

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

 i wondered if it would survive.


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

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


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

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


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

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

where more than just a man died;

love died,

dreams died,

plans died,

hope died,

a father died,

who we were died,


and it hurt.




and moving on,

watching the old split open to let the new come through

is painful.




and yet...


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

not content to allow us to grow bent over and bitter

He allows that which leaves us feeling dizzy

and confused

and lost

and grieving

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


how He loves!

my world can be shaken,

but rooted in Him, i am not moved.

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

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


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

but so was something new.

and while it appears ugly at times,

He has promised life,

abundant and full.


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

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


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

ephesians 3:16-21

when 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.