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...

in the quiet...

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

i feel like she could come any day.


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


and i feel quiet.

even in spaces loud and crowded, i feel quiet.

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

i walked into a blanket of peace.

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

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


all those moments that have been so empty,

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

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


He fills them.

quietly and simply.


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

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


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

it's okay that it's messy.

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


only two came home with him...

at first.

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

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


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

i know some of the brokenness that accompanies each one.

we are all broken to some extent.


and i sat with a home filled to bursting,

laughter and teasing happening all around us,

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


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


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


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


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

and we love.

and we tease.

and we laugh.

and we cry.

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

my belly tightens with each contraction.

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


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


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

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

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...

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...

the beauty of Home...

they have been on my mind, these last few weeks...more so these last few days.

unsure why, the memory of them sweep over me as i bend down and pick up, straighten and sweep, vacuum and put away.

i've been going back and visiting, walking through rooms no longer ours and allowed the emotion of each space to fill my memory with bittersweet emotion and i wonder,

really wonder,

where is home?

in almost-eleven years of marriage, there have been 8 different addresses.

i remember, in the months before i became his missus that i said,

i don't want to stay in any one place for long. let's move every 2 years. let's be adventurous and see as much as we can...




and for the first little bit? it's what we did, kept moving, kept seeing, kept discovering together...

and then i thought i was home.


has this space heard enough of that little yellow house? the one with the saw dust insulation all settled near the foundation; the cracks in the windows that let in the -40 winds straight from the north...has my heart heard enough?

i find myself lost there and longing for there, reaching for something no longer mine.

and i grieve.

again.


and i pick up.

again.


and sit down in front of the window that looks towards the hills, the ones that lift my eyes up and remind me where my Help comes from.

because He is there...

here...


always.

i remember saying, when we first moved here, that home isn't the space that we put our feet on, it's the hearts that surround me, no matter where we are.


so we move, once again, this time into a home that bears our name, the one that as we first pulled up to, i looked at and laughed and said,

well, that's easy. we can cross this one off the list before we ever go inside.


but then we go inside and all i want to do is hug these walls and make it our own, cozy down in front of the woodstove with a good book and a blanket and a hot cup of coffee.  i want to bake bread here and grow friendships here and encourage dreams here and i want to live.


i want to live here and make it home.


i want to live again.

i buy flowers and plant them and watch them wither and die in the heat of this valley, despite the water and the hope i keep pouring over them, except for that dahlia right there in the corner.  she grows strong.

and i place markers of His Presence, right there on our home.  the one that shelters the ones i love most and i plunk it right there by the plant that smells of jasmine, stake a claim, an anchor of belief in Him that everything beautiful, begins with God.

and i read it, in the dark and with tears streaming down, of bonhoeffer, the man who found deep joy in the darkest of prisons,

bonhoeffer...{was} all humility and sweetness, he always seemed to diffuse an atmosphere

of happiness, of joy in every smallest event in life, and of deep gratitude for the mere

fact that he was alive...he was one of the very few men that i have ever met

to whom his God was real and ever close to him.

~p. best

and the truth of it is, the very base truth is found in those words nailed right there near that red door of mine that welcomes you in,

in His presence is fullness of joy,

and His presence is everywhere.

no matter how long these walls are our own, it will always be temporary...

home is waiting for me,

being prepared for me...

home is where Jesus is and all this waiting, all this life is just the road that leads me there.

but until then, until that moment when i finally see His Face,

i will mark us as His Own here, i'll surround us with the truth that we are His,

and we will find joy in these moments because every one of them, no matter how held-together or broken,

each one can find beauty in Him..

disclaimer: 

i received these beautiful products from dayspring free of charge in exchange for my honest review...all photos, thoughts and opinions are my own.

marked...

i wade through my days on waves of nausea.

everything is tinged a little green.


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


we make an offer and we wait.

and wait.

and wait...


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

our front stoop,

is a moment of welcome.

in bright pink.

and i can't help but cry.


and then the help comes in waves,

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

how does one say thank you?


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

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


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

i could be wrong though.


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

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

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

your baby is crying, mama.  i kiss it.




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

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

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


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

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

this shirt of mine bears testimony...

when it's dark you can hear it...

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

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

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

i wasn't ready.


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

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


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

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

we weren't going back.

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

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

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


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

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

until two nights ago.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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


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

the making of a home, a family...

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

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

and they returned.

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

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

the exterminator had been called last fall,

he had sprayed them all dead,

and now it's all buzzing with life again.


they are a nuisance.

they are aggressive.

but they are making a home.


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

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


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

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


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

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


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

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

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

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

i hear the sound of family.

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

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

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


could that be the point?


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

and it's His journey i'm following,

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

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

it's a moving towards Jesus.


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


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

i looked into his eyes and said yes.


i didn't know what He had mapped out,

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


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

and He led us both to here.


here where the air is hot in april,

here where i feel lost and found,


here where He provides the family,

and here where we are finally home.

when he sings...

i sit in the dark and listen to his song, the one sung out in the night.

it's the same song, the same longing, the same tune that fills the quiet and has been for the last month or so.


we tried to find him the other morning, the five of us knelt around that rose bush out in front of our house.

we lifted rocks and winter debris and as pajama clad legs got all tangled in and around each other, he became quiet...


i worried that he had hidden himself beneath a rock and an errant footstep had maybe ended his song in a rather permanent way, but when we all became still, barely breathing, he croaked out a few tentative notes one by one until his song began to echo out into the space around us again.

when i first heard him, i didn't quite understand - surely the frost and the chill should keep his song silent. but it didn't. he sang strong and loud, night after night after night, under a moon full and under the blackest sky.

he sings me to sleep.


we still can't find him.

oh, we sit still on that step with only the smallest of toes wiggling in anticipation. we wait to see if maybe he'll make an appearance so we can clap and cheer and call for an encore.

but that isn't why he sings.

he doesn't sing for praise or recognition,

i'm sure he doesn't even realize that he has been heard by these human ears that can't comprehend.


he sings because he was made to sing.

and his song gives glory to his Creator.



do you find yourself in a season where the moon has hidden her face?

where even the stars appear to have been extinguished and the sky is void of light and heavy with dread?

it's easy to quiet in those moments.

to become still and silent

and hide away.


but that beautiful soul that He placed inside,

the one that He redeemed and made new,

the place where His Spirit dwells and is now His very own...


it was made to sing.


the blackest of nights catches each note and holds fast to that melody and it lifts each trembling song, the one broken with tears and it catches the ear of God.

and even i may never understand the song He has placed deep inside, the one that He longs for me to sing out to Him.

but it is a song meant to give Him praise and to bring Him glory in the middle of a dark world that doesn't know Him.


there is a little amphibian huddled beneath my front step, lost somewhere in the rocks and winter debris.

he sings each night and early in the morning a song with no purpose that i can see.

but he sings.


and his song that croaks loud and steady and calls out in the night,

it winds around this heart and lifts my eyes to Jesus.

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...

when it's meant to be more than pretty...

they sit on either side of me when that sermon has been preached and the last song has been sung;

those two who are married to brothers,

those two who are so good for my heart.


we chat quickly because there are babies to be picked up and fed,

but for a few moments, hearts connect

and before we all go in separate directions, the one places a small gift in my hands.


and i don't know if she knows the depth of the gift...

that small square of yarn crocheted into knots.

the one formed in the late hours,

that rainbow of colours whispering peace into pain.

and it's in that moment,

the one where the water is squeezed out of the fibers so i can wipe down the counter, the colours all darkened by the moisture they hold, that i think of the dear ones in my life; the ones who i have been so privileged to call friend.

and it's a dish cloth,

and they aren't...

but it's more,

and they are deeper...


but He has woven, and is still weaving, into my life other lives that add colour and intricate beauty that only He could form.

like that cloth held in my hands,

friendship is meant for more than a pretty showing,

it's meant for going to those deep places that are hard,

it means absorbing the pain, the tears of another and holding tightly together to the One Who watches over it all.


it's a verse that's used often, but i can't help but feel it in my soul as i look at each knot layered on top of the other,

though one may be overpowered,

two can defend themselves.

a cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

ecclesiastes  4:12

and a friendship wrapped around the Truest Friend can remain intact regardless of distance or circumstances because it finds itself wrapped up in Him.

i stand in my kitchen, pressed up against that counter

and He touches this heart through the gift of a friend...



and i am joining in and giving thanks today...

1142* patience

1143* hands that show love

1144* ears to hear laughter

1145* grey cloud cover

1146* a kitchen all straightened up

1147* a brunch delivered

1148* "i got to help daddy today!"

1149* "mama? i was *brave*!"

1150* "you're beautiful to me"
1151*  my gramma's bible

1152* this pink sweater

1153* his blue blanket he holds close

1154* the life inside these walls

1155* busy, glorious chaos

1156* crip, cold artichoke hearts
1157* the family He keeps growing

1158* words that greet me every morning

1159* my notebook

1160* the life of dietrich bonhoeffer

1161* an unexpected hot cup of coffee

1162* sweet, sticky kisses pressed against my cheek

1163* the way the sun wraps around my kitchen

1164* the moon reflection on the windshield

1165* the shadow across elias' face caused by my hair as i hold him in the late hours

1166* a rainbow of colours knitted together

1167* yellow daises that bloomed those two weeks long

1168* women who pray for one another

on your knees...

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

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


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

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


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

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

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


i don't even think of those three.


i am completely captured by my son.

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

of the journey that those three wise men made,

the star that lit their way,

the Child they came to see.


they sat on my counter the whole christmas season long,

frozen in silent wonder.

turned towards the Christ child.

and i get i t - i do,

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

caught frozen in the wonder of His creation.


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

i wonder what they expected to see...

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


but i can understand why they still came forward,

offered the gifts they came to bring.

i can understand the pull of a child

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


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

changes this posture,

bends the knees

so that these eyes can find what is hidden.


sometimes the journey is long,

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

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

finally see His Hand,

the setting that surrounds won't matter,

all that does in that moment is Him...


and our knees will bow low in worship.

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

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

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

finding me on my knees.

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

(source)

it's in the pages..

we had talked long,

 that icy winter night, one year ago.

dinner was getting cold and so were my words.


he gently pulled the blanket up around my shoulders and whispered for me to rest.

quietly, he closed the door.

and i sat up.


reaching into the depths of my closet, i began removing items, searching for that which my heart finds priceless.


small and not much to look at, i clutched the worn, brown leather book to my chest and let the tears come.


i didn't open it at first, sometimes all one needs is to hold the very Word of God close and know that He is present.

i moved from my perch on that hope chest lovingly crafted by the hands of my grandfather...the one that he lost a finger in the making...to tony's side of the bed and laid down.

i gingerly opened the cover of my gramma's bible and was instantly enfolded in the scent of her perfume.


it had been 8 years since her eyes closed for the last time...8 years since she went home to Jesus and still, still the pages that bear the marks of tea, tears and years of use clung to the scent of the woman who had held it close.

underneath her distinct signature were the words,

the Will of God will never lead you

where the Grace of God cannot keep you

yes, gramma.  the words you had placed so carefully underneath your name still ring with truth.  a truth that i am learning to believe.

one year ago i had stood under a starry sky.


 i stood with his mama and his brother who have experienced such horrific loss and  under the expanse of black ink, i looked up to a moon that was being covered...hidden by the shadow of earth.

but not completely.

made to reflect the light of the sun, even at the point where the moon was covered fully, the reflection still shone brighter than the dark circle that had taken over.

pain, fear, uncertainty; while big and scary and at times overwhelming... they can't snuff out His light when we keep our faces turned to Him.

so i continue to look up.  continue to keep my face raised to Him.  continue to believe that He is bigger, He is brighter, He is present in every circumstance.

and that as i cling to Him, His fragrance will so encompass my life that it will permeate every chapter that i move through.

Emmanuel.

He will never lead us where His Grace cannot keep us.


and i'm learning there is no greater Truth...

praise You, Jesus...

an edited repost...
photo credit: jeremy and jo ferris

landing places...

he gathered me up in his arms this evening,

cradled me like a small child

and rocked me while i sobbed.


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


i stood at our front door this evening,

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

rested my forehead against it and let the tears come.


so much grief,

so many hurts

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


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

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

and whispers of love...


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

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

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

He came to welcome us in.


The One Who already had His chosen people

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

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

 first cradled in a feeding trough,

so that the unwanted could know


they had worth to Him.


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

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


 my eyes catch the subtle gleam...

His love that came to save

also came to provide worth.


dignity.


a place.




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

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

in His Love, He gives me a place.


a place where i can freely come

freely receive

and always,

always ~


regardless if it is all taken away

and home is no longer where it once was ~

in Him i always have a place to land.

keep playing...

it stands against the wall silent most days,

my companion of 25 years.

a little beat up,

very out of tune,

and carries a fine layer of tiny fingerprints all over its face.


i remember the first time i sat down on that bench,

i was 7.

i placed my fingers on those shiny black and whites and my life changed forever.


i'm not very good,

mediocre at best,

but always, when life has loomed large,

i've found a safe place lost in the notes that ring out.


they ran around me today, loud and chaotic;

the little ones

and my thoughts.


so i did what i always do when everyone is a little distracted,

i pulled down my hymnbook

and began to sing.

and the three of them never slowed down,

not once.

kept chasing each other in a game of tag...


but my fingers pulled each note out one by one

and soon i was lost in the Beauty of Him.


and yes, life looms large.

questions and decisions and all the what-if?'s


memories and grief get mixed in with the happy.


in my rush to fill my home with music, i become tempted to play any song in the key of C.

devoid of any sharps or flats, my fingers can find their own way through a song.


but there is no contrast in a song with no black keys...

nothing to draw out the ache of a melody.


there is beauty to be found in the dark,

even if it takes a little more time to find.


is that why He keeps drawing me back to that beautiful Name of His?

the One that stands out as Light in the dark?

everywhere i look,

whether in the dark of the night as we drive in the country looking for christmas lights to dazzle and awe,

in the dark of my memories, my longings for the days before the days without began,

He always brings my thoughts back to Himself

reminding me of those words long ago said,

when Jesus spoke again to the people, He said, 

"I am the Light of the world..."
john 8:12a

there are moments i wish for a life in C major,

one without those keys that are black...


but without them,

without those moments that draw my notice and force my attention,

i wouldn't have seen the way His Light can push through what seems utterly dark.


so i keep playing in the light of a tree heralding His Birth, keep trusting that He will always Light my way...

when sorrow begins to turn...

they sizzle and pop in that pot on my stove,

those onions all translucent in butter.

and i reach for that old wooden spoon,

the one that he gave to his gramma that year.


and i don't really remember what year that it was, only that it was given on a shoestring budget and a mama who got all creative.

i can picture him, with his eyes all bright and his mouth held just-that-way, holding that tool in his hand.

and he engraves his name,

burns it into the wood all soft

and over the years and the washing and the time...

he is still there.



i hold time in my hands as i cook food that nourishes,

and his name embedded in wood is embedded on my heart.


we decorate the tree and name it george,

little ones run and pull off the ornaments and cry when they can't put them back on just so.

and i think of their papa

and the christmas tree he searched out that very last year,

the second of two because the first one wasn't just right.

and how quickly it came down when he was finally found and how the passage of time doesn't diminish the mark that he left on this heart.


and tonight, mingled with the sadness is a small measure of joy...

joy that i knew him,

that i was given the chance to love him,

joy that i will see him once again.


hope.

a precious word.

a word that continues to give.


and in this season of quiet dark, where sadness could be so easy to get lost in,

His people shine like the stars around us,

drawing us into a family that share dna bought by His blood.

and our family of 5 that found ourselves here,

alone and unknown,

is growing...

and the hearts that didn't have to,

 do.


what was broken that dark december morning almost 2 years ago,

what was uprooted and displaced a little less than 11 months ago...

is finding us home,

finding us healing,

finding us trying to love well

while being found loved well.

and a season that bears the mark of great sorrow,

 continues to point me to the One Who bears the marks of Great Sacrifice...

{all family photos were taken by our mr. bob...}

when it's all wrapped up in cinnamon...

i couldn't find my mittens as i rushed out the door this evening.

the happy grey ones that keep these fingers toasty.


and while my fingers can barely bend to type out these words,

i wouldn't have traded that conversation in chilled night air for anything.



they crowded around me this morning, those three little ones with the big, big eyes...

as soon as i opened that large jar of cinnamon they were there, tangled up around my legs.

tongues start licking lips and eyes begin to twinkle and small hands clap with glee at the thought of warm cookies to fill small tummies and  pretty soon three little bottoms are plunked right on that mat laid down in front of the oven door.


His gifts are like that,

once you begin to catch a glimpse.


in the beginning moments, when life feels like it is being whipped within an inch of itself, none of it makes sense.

and sometimes, there are parts that never will this side of what we will someday know...

but He has Hands that can take every moment, every pain and joy and make something fantastic.


i think that's why i love the smell of cinnamon.

why i love watching those three press their young faces up against that glass window.

why i love standing and visiting in a backyard while the little ones run.

why i love standing out in the freezing cold and catching up with a friend who i've missed.


why i love to tap out these words with fingers just beginning to warm up...

because 23 months and 3 weeks ago my world completely shattered.

because 11 months and 3 1/2 weeks ago my life was completely uprooted.

and when i couldn't see outside of what i thought had been secure,, 


He was so faithful.


when my life became so unrecognizable that it hurt to even look at,

He remained constant.

He remained sure.


and when He said, I know in the quiet of changes emerging,

He was also asking me to trust.

they finish baking up, those snickerdoodles that make me laugh.

the smell of cinnamon wraps itself around this home.


and we give them away,

because that is what Hope, what Love, does.

and when we have given it all,

He fills us up again...

the month of here {day 31}...when He adds one more day

He had one last gift to give me,

as though to touch that place in my heart that wished for the impossible.

as though to prove that He created the art of humor too.


the little ones bounded out of bed this morning, surrounded me as i served them their breakfast and ate happily as i wandered back to bed.

i didn't feel well.

exhausted, really, from too many tears cried through the night.


they pounced on me 30 minutes later and we got up and started our day.


i quietly tore down the month of november and took a deep breath as my eyes automatically found the 29th.

the one square that i won't acknowledge with my pen.


and i've closed off a part of my heart without even realizing it,

thinking that it had no use or purpose anymore.


i was a daughter to tony's father and i am no longer a daughter anymore.


closing that part off closed off a bit of the pain.

but not really.


and here...today, where i have least expected it, where i just expected that the hope i had was impossibly gone,  Jesus opens up the heart of a father here who sees me and calls me daughter.

this month has the potential to be difficult...if i let it.

it has the potential to dim the joy that used to be so easy to find...if i let it.


but the hope i've been given today?  that He is a Father to the fatherless and that He will use the heart of a father here to show how much He loves?

He reminds me again and again that He hasn't forgotten.  that even though He allows us to walk through seasons of pain and grief, He walks through it with us and through the dearest of people around us.

and sometimes He adds one extra day on that calendar page torn down...

and i give thanks on this thirty-first day of this month (yes.  i am acknowledging this day) that finds me here...and for the heart of a father who didn't have to.

the month of here {day30}...when you can't find Him

can you join me for a bit?

will you sit with me one last time as i gather up the very last of this month and enjoy it in all it's broken beauty?

i wondered this morning, as my eyes slowly opened, why november couldn't have a couple more days.

i'm not ready to enter into december.

but, i am guessing, should november 32 suddenly appear on that calendar on my wall, i still wouldn't be ready to tear off the sheet then either.

sometimes we just have to push through.


i have slowly begun to go through boxes, placing bits of christmas here and there throughout our home.

but i can't find Him.

the wise men three stand perplexed and mary seems adrift near the space that should hold the Christ child.

i can't find Him.


except for {day22} that somehow slipped through my fingers, i have gathered up the blessings that He has given and treasured them through words.


this month has opened my eyes to the Wonder of His Love in ways i couldn't have imagined...but i stand on the edge of the coming season and i feel confused.


i thought this year would be easier than the last.

instead, i fill up this air around us with the songs of Christmas and Good Cheer and i feel as though i can barely stand.

i come to the last day of this month and the one who sets out to kill, steal and destroy has been working hard this long morning, trying to wreak havoc on the joy that i've found.

he mocks the gifts that God has given me, belittles me for being so naive.


and when i turn my ear from His Voice to the lies,

i can't find Him.

i know that we are not alone in feeling great loss during the holiday season.

songs that drift out longings for home and hearth and family leave so many others barely able to breathe.


at times, the celebration of His birth can seem like a cruel mockery to those who find themselves alone during the dark nights of winter.


i line up my window sill with the yellow daises that give me hope,  as though to defy the one who tries to break my faith.

i won't let him.


i can't let him.


i read the words in that old book of prayers...the one i clutched tightly in my hands as we drove from there to here.

o God, the Father of the forsaken, the Help of the weak,

the Supplier of the needy, Who has diffused and proportioned

Thy gifts to body and soul, in such sort that all may acknowledge

and perform the joyous duty of mutual service; Who teachest us that love

towards the race of man is the bond of perfectness,

and the imitation of  Thy blessed self; open our eyes and touch our hearts,

that we may see and do, both for this world and for that

which is to come, the things which belong unto our peace.

strengthen me in the work i have undertaken; give me counsel

and wisdom, perseverance, faith and zeal,

and in Thine own good time and according to Thy pleasure, prosper

the issue. pour into me a spirit of humility; 

let nothing be done but in devout obedience to Thy will,

thankfulness for Thine unspeakable mercies and love

to Thine adorable Son Christ Jesus. 

amen.

~ antony ashley cooper, earl of shaftesbury (1801-1885)

He gives because that is Who He is.

He gives because He is love,

but each gift is meant for more than our filling...


i stand on the edge of a season that leaves me fighting overwhelming feelings of grief.

i don't want to move forward because it means reliving each horrible moment.

but He has given hope in the days since...given not just for my benefit, but so that i would learn how to share His Hope with others.


i piled them up on our front stoop this afternoon with the little ones; 30 stones to be exact.

i needed to touch something tangible, to feel that weight of it in my hands.


and the tears poured down as the strains of O Holy Night followed us out that door,

as i piled stone on top of stone and placed the reminder of His Love behind.

His Love is there to grasp hold of,

to anchor us when we feel as though we don't understand His reasons.


hold on tightly to the way He Loves you, dear one.

don't. let. go.


let Him use your hurt and your pain,

let Him turn those tears of ache and brokenness into jewels of hope.


don't let it be stolen away.

and i give thanks on this thirtieth and last day of this month that finds me here...and for the thirty, tangible ways He Loves.

i won't let go.