because she is *still* seven...

she stands so close to me,

our forearms touching.


her hands are absentmindedly playing with her dress.


and she asks if she can sit on my lap.


she's seven and when did she become so tall?

when did she grow to the point that she no longer folds herself into me?


it's all moving so fast.


too fast.


and she laughs at me when i whisper it,

when i ask her to stop growing.

when i ask her to make time stop,

or at least put an encyclopedia on top of her head.


her gap-tooth smile stretches wide across her face,

her freckles, all sprinkled, stand out against her fair skin -

and i want to cup these moments

and find a way to dam up the spilling of seconds that just keep ticking by.


but instead, she's one more day closer to eight,

one more day lived and passed through

and i'm not going to get those moments back.


i want those moments back,

if just to live them out better.


if just to remember to kiss the tip of her nose one. more. time.


tomorrow, i want to laugh with her more,

to read just one more chapter,

to pull her onto my lap,


before she doesn't fit anymore...

to know...{letters to my four}

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

it's been a long, slow thaw.


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

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


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

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

my arms aren't strong enough for that.

nothing about me is strong enough for that.

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

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

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


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

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

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

how can the broken lead?

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

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


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

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

because that is Who He is.

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

(John 1:1-5 ESV)


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

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

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

love,
mama

when you turn seven...

i held your baby sister last night, snuggled her close and looked up at the moon.

she reminds me so much of you.

from her dark hair to her quiet personality; her big eyes that take everything in...

she takes me back to all of those firsts with you.

and i remember when you turning seven years old seemed so. very. far. away.


it still doesn't even seem possible...


i feel as though i'm still all the way back there, and i guess i am a bit, cradling a newborn close - maybe that's a bit why being here, seven years later feels so shocking.


i've said it before - that you were a gift unexpected...

conceived while i was still grieving the sudden loss of my first little one.  i didn't even fathom that those lines would turn pink again so quickly.


you have changed my life - in so many good ways and opened my eyes to all the areas that still are in such desperate need of the tender healing touch of Jesus.

i write words to you every year on your birthday - words that i know you will read and understand someday, but as i write you today, the words typed down on this keyboard in front of me feel heavier somehow...you are no longer the little one cradled with one hand, the toddler running pell-mell in every direction, the preschooler trying to figure everything out...


you sat on the bathroom counter yesterday and watched me as i got ready - the words coming out of your mouth were deep and quiet and thoughtful.  i had to pause and step back a bit - because the face that i cup in my hands holds a mind that is growing and maturing.

and yes, you are seven, but even at seven you have experienced such loss...

i watch you at the mission - how you search out the ones who are maybe a bit different, a little bit sad, have experienced losses of their own.  and you stand by them, you run with them, you laugh deep belly laughs and draw out laughter of their own.

you are beautiful, sweet daughter of mine.


i sit back and watch you sit by your baby sister, the one 6 years and 28 days younger than you. i watch your hands that are so gentle as you slowly touch her cheek - content to be near her so that she knows she isn't alone...

you trust Jesus like that.  your faith in Him is just as quiet - just a gentle - but it's sure. you know He is there, even if you don't always understand.


it feels a bit like trying to grasp at running water - time that seems to move so slowly at the very beginning is actually speeding by just as quickly and my heart still hasn't caught up to the fact that you are seven...

but no matter how fast or how slow or whatever rate time is really moving at - i'm thankful for each moment that He has given me to be your mama.


happy birthday, my lovely, darling lyla.  you are so much more than i ever dreamed of.

i love you.  always, always, always...

~mama

when a year needs a name...

i've spent most of this past year in a state of expecting.  my body changing, my belly rounding, this small life inside of me growing and stretching and hearing the beat of my heart...

He promised at the beginning of this past year to do something new and He has...He has done so. much.

 but i enter into the last evening of 2012 still expecting,

still waiting,

and there are times and moments when it feels as though it will never, ever end.


i just want to see her face.


i want to hold her in my arms and pull her close.

i want my four children to surround me and i want my oldest to know that one more child doesn't make her any less special...

oh, a mama's heart.

it can hurt.

sometimes expectations can do that.


and it was about a week ago, as i was reading about my wild God, the One Who isn't safe and Who calls us out of the places we hide behind that the word for this year came near.


it starts with a small handful of verses, ones i've heard since the time i was small.

they were these:

where can i go from Your Spirit?

where can i flee from Your Presence?

if i go up to the heavens, You are there;

if i make my bed in the depths, You are there.

if i rise on the wings of the dawn,

if i settle on the far side of the sea,

even there Your Hand will guide me,

your right hand will hold me fast.

psalm 139:7-10

in the book, practicing the presence of God, the author writes this,

brother lawrence insisted that it is necessary to always be aware of 

God's presence by talking with Him through the day. to think that you must abandon 

conversation with Him in order to deal with the world is erroneous.

instead, as we nourish our souls by seeing God in His exaltation,

we will derive a great joy at being His.

this last month has found me wrestling with fears.  fears of becoming a mama to four, fears of homeschooling with a newborn while we try and find our footing as a family of six.  fears that the house will fall apart, that i will fall apart and how will everything get done?

And Jesus is here, always here, but i can so easily forget that when i take my eyes off of Him.

i live in a state of expecting as i wait to meet my baby, i place huge expectations on myself that i have no hope of fulfilling, i live with the knowing that no matter what i do, 

i. will. fail.

but it's there, in the book of Colossians that i find my footing once again:

whatever you do, work heartily for the Lord and not for men.

colossians 3:23

and then this:

our lives should be lived with expectancy. not necessarily with expectation,

because expectation tends to dictate terms. the pharisees

lived with expectation and rejected Christ when He did not fit

the rigid narrowness of their expectations. often i wonder if we, waiting for

Christ's return do it more with expectation that expectancy. expectancy is the belief

that God will do something. expectation insists He do it just. this. way. expectation

blinds us to the God who is here right now than outright disbelief does.

but imagine a life buoyed by expectancy, by the conviction that the Lord will

show Himself. how, where, when - we don't know that. we don't dictate the terms...

but by living with biblically girded expectancy, our lives stir to vibrant wakefulness.

mark  buchanan

your God is too safe

i want to see Him in this year. my expectations that have fed into my fear is that this year ahead of me will be one of chaos and craziness and crashing...and without drawing near to His presence, it more than likely could be.


but like my belly swollen and stretched, there is life in the midst of my waiting. as i search for that day when she will show her face, i have hope that the ache and the weariness and the anxiousness will end at some point.

so this year, this year ahead is the year of expectancy - of living in a space of seeing Him.  in the mundane and in the grand. of coming to know and embrace that His presence is everywhere, and that my role, whether it be one of teacher, wife, mama, friend...it's all done under His watchful eye and becomes a catalyst to know Him more.

and oh. i want to know Him more...


join me?

earth is crammed with heaven

and every common bush afire with God;

but only he who sees takes off his shoes.

the rest sit around it and

pluck blackberries.

elizabeth barrett browning

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...

in the last days...

i had wanted to document these days better. they are the last ones and i don't want to forget...

i don't want to forget how different this act of carrying has been,

how much more emotional and pain-full and how so very aware i have become of each movement, each flutter...

the heaviness that has begun.


and lyla, the first one i carried through the dark of advent days, she stands in front of me in the late of this evening and asks me to come and sit with her before she sleeps.


i lay my head on the pillow next to hers and we talk.

about nothing and about everything and i remember, and maybe it's because my dark is filled again with the movements of a sweet baby girl, but i remember so strongly that first christmas where i began to understand
the agony of waiting...

 the beauty of waiting...

the desperate wanting for the waiting to end...


she says it with a wonder in her eyes,  this will be my sixth christmas! and as it sinks in, she fingers the edging on the sweater i'm wearing.

mama, why are you wearing this sweater?

~ because i was cold, baby girl.

where did you get your sweater?

~ it was a christmas gift from your daddy...3 years ago now.

i was three, wasn't i?


and it all comes flooding back, that christmas morning where we all sat together - before everything shattered and he was still here...


and this sweater i pulled from my closet in the chill of this morning, it comes from a time when so much was still whole.


and his son, the one who has captured my heart so completely, he pulls me close in the quiet of this evening and we don't have to say anything...he just sits and he holds me as he listens to the song i can't seem to let go of....


and maybe that is why i've been holding on so tightly to the tradition of advent this season, why as it comes closer to the coming of my own baby girl, i so desperately look to the fulfillment of His.

because He came. entered into our messy and the mixed up and the this-isn't-how-it-was-supposed-to turn-out world.  He wrapped Himself up in the womb of a woman and put on this skin that kept Him bound and tied to us...

and there is so much beauty wrapped around the ache...

He came. and even if everyone and everything else all falls apart and walks away...He is here. here and so very present with us.


this is my thirty-third christmas, my fourth little one nestled in my deep...this life of mine that has been planned out before i even existed, His Hand has been on me throughout all of my days.

yes, He is here.


and there is so much joy wrapped around all that i've been given and all that's been taken away...

and tonight, i can rest in that.

a letter for my three...

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

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


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

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

i've looked forward,

no...

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


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

but until then, we wait,


expectantly.


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

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

i understand those moments.

each one of us needs them.


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

expectantly.


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

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

yet...

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

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

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

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

expectantly.


i love you...

~mama

1537. brushing their hair in the early morning

1538. the light of a full moon

1539. feeling her foot against my ribs

1540. the way Tchaikovsky makes my heart thunder

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

1542. jonah and what he reveals

1543. expecting fall

1544. expecting Him

1545. a call to place Him first...

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

1547. victories, no matter how small

1548. tony

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

1550. that i breathe for 2

1551. that i eat and drink for two

1552. that my heart beats for 2

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

1554. that He orchestrates our lives

1555. none of it is out of His control

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

1557. the dog hair everywhere

1558. for the calming that mercy brings

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

when it's fading...

he stops the van and opens the doors in the shade of those trees that stand tall in the heat of the afternoon and i lean my head back as the bedlam pours outside into the quiet of the space around us.

he looks at me with a question in his eyes and a hand outstretched and i pause for a moment before putting my feet on the ground.


he knows me - stopping here shows this.


i watch the girls run and elias try to keep up while falling down on the soft grass.  i listen to them call out for us to read names to them - to give word to the ones who used to be here but are now long forgotten.

the lack of flowers shows this.

words like pioneer and gettysburg and lynchburg and other places where great wars were fought and dates like 1881 etched in stone grounds me somehow.  as though this new life growing inside of me and life long gone underneath my feet reminds me of how small i am and how unfathomable He is.


he brings me to a cemetery in the midst of a period of waiting and i can breathe deeply again.


his dad, reduced to ash and scattered over an ocean and on the top of a mountain, and there is no place to go and lay down flowers...i've been longing for this lately.  for some place to go.

instead, we walk through stone faded by sun and rain...dates that are worn down and barely discernible and i read aloud names i don't recognize and wonder when the last time someone knelt down beside their final resting place and truly remembered who they were.


we give them their final warning...the oldest and youngest get 5 mintues, olivia gets 4. but really, they all get 5 mintues, liv is just convinced that 4 is the best number in the world and with a longer time frame than any other number we can call out.

and it's as we turn left that i notice that tree and we walk towards it and i say to him that something looks funny, out of place and we come closer when i see,

and i stop, can't really move. not because i recognize the name;  the tree has already begun to swallow it up. i stop because i recognize something and i'm not sure what. and so i wait.

the last date, the only date that i can read, is 1912.  100 years ago this man was mourned and could this tree have been planted then?  i wonder who loved him and who came faithfully to lay down bits of colour to as a tribute to loss?

did they see the trunk grow closer, the bark open up and start to grow around?



it's not until later, when the three are finally quiet and tony is sleeping beside me that i realized what i had recognized in the cool of the tree that was swallowing up a memory.


you, me? we are all dead men and women walking, sin is eating us alive and because of how it is woven in and around our very dna, we don't always see how it is slowly killing us.

but Jesus.

and here is what my soul responded to...

His death on that tree conquered the sin that was destroying me - the moment i whispered those words that i believed that He was the Son of God, i became His.


and those words i have heard over and over throughout my life took on a whole new meaning when i stood there at the grave of a man i didn't know,

for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

colossians 3:3

someday, when my body has been laid beneath the ground and i am standing fully alive in the presence of my Savior, my life that was hidden in Him will no longer show any markings of the sin that died when i trusted in Him.

someday, it will all be swallowed up and i will be whole and complete

with Him.

when 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.

when they fly...

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

and it waits.


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


like them, all three of them.

unexpected.

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

they waited in my dark...


and now they fly.

He gives them for just a few short years,

years that feel long and never ending.

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

when really,

they fly.



i sense it,

i do.

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

chat with a friend while all the children whir by;

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

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


and it's that small little package ~

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

as he waits as i tear into the dark

and light comes flooding in.


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


time will move.

and they will move on.


someday,

someday soon,

my walls will be clean.

my floors, uncluttered.

the air around me, quiet.


but wrapped up in the love of their mama,

they can always,

always

find home.


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

made by talented hands of a sister's friend,

placed in that mailbox halfway down the street...

it slowed the pace for a moment or two,

and i held it,

and it graced me...


all that beauty in this time that is spinning away.

home...

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

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


tonight, my heart is heavy.


again.


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


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


there is a family member who is passing away,

over that pass.

i don't know her well,

but i love the ones who do.


and i have been here one year today.

one year.


and it's never ending,

this losing and filling;


this feeling of being completely lost

and completely found.


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

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


i look at them,

listen to them,

and wonder...


we all end up losing everything here,

everything that's under our feet.


but when we know Him,

we gain everything.


but it's those in between spaces that ache,

when who and where you are is Known,

but not.


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

because i miss what was

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


that town, those friends...

i miss them.

this town, these friends...

are home.




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


i know The One Who led us here.

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


He sees what i can't,

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



and maybe...

He allows this ache in the in between

to keep us longing for Him...


longing for Home...

for when the prayers are broken...

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

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

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

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

i saw the slump in olivia's shoulders,

lyla's tears,

elias' disgruntled sigh.

and He saw it too.


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

kimberley is patient,
kimberley is kind...

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

dust dusts dust,

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

my heart grows heavier.


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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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


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

the foolish become wise,

the broken are held together,


and as their small tummies are filled,

my heart begins to overflow...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

when the reminder needs to be revisited...

and it's been a whole year since we left our yellow house, 


and our life 


behind.

packed it all up and stepped out into the complete and open unknown.


it's been a whole year and a little bit more and still, in a sunny room in the early hours of this morning, she grieves.


and it takes me back to that night, the one 12 months and 9 days ago and as i hold her close, i remind her of where her tears are kept until He can wipe them all away...


all three had been tucked in and prayed over.  lights had been turned out and night-lights had been switched on.  lullabies had been sung and kisses pressed against sleepy-sweet skin.

i walked out of the last room and headed up the stairs.


an hour later, she was still whimpering, still trying not to cry...

tony came near and asked me to go in and talk with her..

.she needed me.

i climbed onto her bed, the one cocooned under another and brought my face close to hers.


mama, what's wrong with me?  




i looked down at my girl, the one who would be one whole hand in 3 short days and i felt it, the bracing against the question...


mama, what is wrong with my heart?  why is it hurting?

olivia climbed up too, curled herself into my lap, reached out her hand to stroke lyla's face like i was.  unsure of the why but knowing that comfort was needed.


oh baby...you heart is hurting because you miss home. your heart misses your friends and your pink and orange and brown room and everything that felt familiar.  




the wail that followed the explanation was unexpected, but needed.  she needed to get the feelings out.

so we held her, olivia and i.  we held her and wiped her tears and let her cry and cry and cry...


she looked into my eyes, several long moments later...like she did the first time i held her in my arms. when she blinked up at me, unfazed by the bright hospital lights that greeted her entrance.  that first moment when she experienced her first separation...


and i knew, He wanted me to speak words of life into her.

and so i grasped at the only ones my mind held ready,

You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears

in Your bottle. are they not in Your book?

psalm 56:7

and her eyes, the ones i have loved since the moment i first gazed into them, grew big and full of wonder,

is it a big bottle?

she placed her ear over my heart, relaxing to the cadence of a steady beat that whispers out a rhythm of love for her as i spoke the words over her sleepy head...words that every hurting heart desperately needs to hear,

the Lord is close to the brokenhearted

and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

psalm 34:18

and her eyelids grew heavy and olivia sagged in my arms and i brought blankets up around chins and kissed noses and rested my hands on curled backs and prayed.  

thankful that childish tears and pain are so easily soothed by a tender word, a soft kiss and gentle back-rub.  thankful that we still have each other, that comfort is still sought and so easily given.  thankful for hearts that love strong and deep.

and i wonder why and when does pain become too big and too much to be soothed by the tender word from a loving God.  when did i lose that child-like trust that i can take all of my hurts to the Creator of the world He placed me in and believe and know that He would take care of it...of me?

so, i turn my ear to find His heartbeat.  the Heart that loved me enough to stop beating for three days so that mine could beat full for Him...

(edited repost)

when she turns six...

it's in the moment that he wraps his arms around me,

pulls me close against his chest,

 and reminds me to breathe

that the water inside breaks 

and i gasp in air to constricted lungs.


and on the eve of your birthday

i wrestle against pressure like i did those six years ago,

struggle to comply with the pain that ushers in release.

i cling tightly to your daddy

and as he brushes back my hair

and wipes the tears from my face

he whispers over and over,

just breathe.  

just breathe...

and it begins with a breaking.

always does it seems.


elias, curious and all boy, he pushes those plates from the table to the floor and

i'm running out of dishes...

and as i get ready for church this morning,

this day that you were due those 6 years ago,

those first pangs start all over again.

and that's where he finds me, that man who has cradled you since you were moments old,

finds me fighting against waves of pain that really have nothing to do with plates that have broken.


he holds me 

and like he did all those years ago in that space of time that was just him and i,

before we became three.

he reminds me how to breathe with him.

reminds me of what is truly important.

and the pain rolls over a cupboard that only hold 5 dinner plates and a silverware tray that cradles different amounts of forks and knives and spoons,

it builds over families broken and changes and moves and a life that sometimes, still, seems unrecognizable.

and the water breaks over a daughter tall and beautiful and tomboy and princess and when did those pages on that calendar turn so quickly?


and he reminds me of your great-gramma,

the one whose bible rests on my nightstand,

the one who left one country for the one of her husband,

the one whose life was not defined by her brokenness

but defined by the One Who restores.


and as it all burns, these moments that build and threaten to seem like too much,

your daddy points me to the One Who holds new life in His scarred Hands.


six years ago, my lyla mae,

you were placed in my arms,

alert and quiet,

hands and feet tinged blue,

and tiny black ringlets all over your head.

you sit now beside me,

lost in sunlight and a living testament that He can bring someone beautiful

from someone so completely broken -

this life of mine, by all accounts,  that should be reduced to ash.


and instead,

you are my picture of hope.

of joy.

a reflection of His Beauty.


you turn six years old today,

and sleep through that moment that finds you leaving five behind.

but i captured it as i knelt by your bed.

as you move from holding up only one hand to two,

i knelt close and held that moment even closer.


and i pray, my sweet baby girl,

that you will learn to breathe through the moments meant to bring you into a new life with Him.


that you will learn to see that He uses all things to open your eyes to the new life that He longs for you to have.


that when the pain becomes more than you think you can bear, 

that you will cling to Him tighter,

relax into Him deeper,

and allow Him to take what is messy and form it into something breathtaking.

you have been more than i ever expected,

you have changed me in ways i never dreamed possible.

and today you turn six years old.

happy birthday, sweet lyla mae.

i love you more than i can ever say, but will spend my lifetime showing you just how much.


all of my love,

mama.

when she carries a bit of me...

she'll turn six in a week and is about to lose her third tooth.

she wiggles it every day and asks me to do the same.

i still remember when her first two came in, side by side.


she was two months old.


how her mouth opened wide in that aisle in target,

her face is caught in my memory and my heart still echos with her gentle cooing.


and those two teeth,

they were peeking through.


and her whole smile changed.


i find myself lost tonight in looking at the wedding photos talented photographers have taken.

lost in the beauty of those first holy moments as husband and wife,

but the ones that make my breath catch?


it's the faces of the fathers as they give their daughters away.


a holy moment, in and of itself, i think.

a tender ache in letting go...


my heart is struggling tonight a bit.

for so many reasons and not enough of them worth sharing...


but it's that third tooth of hers that stops me still.


her mouth is letting go of the old to make room for the new.

and she won't let me pull it...


she's scared.


sweet child,

wrapped up in her mama's skin for those 9 months,

she carries a bit of me with her.


i understand that fear - the wanting to hold on just a bit longer...

feeling the hope that one can hold the old and the new in one hand

and expect that they will make room for the other.


but they can't.

and therein lies the struggle.


He is making a way for me,

my soul that aches hot with tears i won't let fall, is cooled by the stream of mercy He provides...


He is a Father Who never lets go,

never turns away...


but when these feet of mine grow tired,

when i feel the weight of this sad and this sin-sick skin,

He is gentle and tender,

and gives me moments to grieve away the old...


to make room for the new.


and even in this, i give thanks...



1190. naomi
1191. the way God's people surround and pray and love
1192. a chance to step into healing

1193. etham
1194. wilderness journeys
1195. He is always there

1196. a picnic basket full of food and love
1197. snow
1198. the life He has given us here

1199. leftover-summer sprinkled across lyla's nose
1200. a father's love
1201. the fierce love and protection of my husband

1202. bright blue sky cradling dark grey clouds
1203. the way my hand is cradled in tony's
1204. my past

1205. harsh words turned gentle
1206. olivia and her laugh
1207.  the way they tumble out of my arms

1208. that even in my dry and wasted places, He creates something new
1209. He accepts what i have to offer
1210.  this

sometimes...

there are times

and days

and moments

where the words become

small

and hushed

and few.

where moments gain momentum

and He keeps that door open

and ushers in something new.



it's those moments,

the ones where fear crowds in

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

when there is nothing else to do

in those waiting moments

but to become like daniel

and praise out the fear...

now when daniel learned that the decree had been published,

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

three times a day he got down on his knees

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

daniel  6:10-11

so, with trembling hands,

i do...

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

1170. olivia learning close

1171. the way tony tells me he loves me

1172. my gift of yellow daisies

1173. elias' favorite dump truck

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

1175. that beautiful, beautiful sky

1176. the floor of this house He gave

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

1178. voices of 10 children playing within these walls

1179. voices of their mamas

1180. his key in the door lock

1181. the forgiveness of a child

1182. this city that has become home

1183. the way He loves us through others here

1184. those old comfy shoes

1185. an apology that mends what's broken

1186. an unexpected dinner delivered by the dearest of hearts

1187. a fire in the fireplace just because

1188. lyla discovering I'll Love You Forever

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

i'll love you forever

i'll like you for always

as long as i'm living

my baby, you'll be...

when you wonder where He is...

He catches my attention at a red light a couple miles from home.

my mind has wandered and my ears have tuned out the chatter...

 but my eyes?

they see it.

they see the air painted all rosy and pink around me.

and it's as the day is dying that i look up

and my breath catches

and i beg Him to stop time for just 5 minutes.


long enough to grab my camera and catch the masterpiece He has created.

the sun, however, keeps sinking

despite my pleas.

but the lower it falls

the more stunning the beauty.

i race inside the house like a mad woman.

he looks up at me with a question in his eyes...

the sun!! tony! the sun!  the way it's sinking...it's beautiful!

and my incoherent rant follows me back out the door.


i stand in the driveway as neighbours pull in weary from their long day at work.

some smile.

some shake their heads.

some stop to look too.

and i turn in a circle and keep snapping.

keep trying to keep up with my God Who creates such beauty out of thin air.



they run around me, those 2 girls who glow in the fighting light.

ethereal in the fading of an aging sun, they giggle out their wonder of The One Who loves them so.

and he says it to me tonight, in the moments before he falls asleep.  

how he read of lazarus and The One who raised him from the dead and the sisters 2 who were devastated by the slowness of their Lord's timing.

when their brother lay dead in that grave and there was no hope left.

how Jesus, knowing so much more than they did, says to sweet martha, all bowed over with grief,

"...did I not tell you that if you believe

you will see the glory of God?"

john 11:40

do you find yourself facing a moment, a circumstance, that no longer breathes hope?

have you watched what you have treasured, die?

tenderly wrapped it up

and gently tucked it away?


have you wondered where He is

while knowing full well that if He had come in time,

what is dead 

could be filled with life?


as you question like martha, 

i would stand beside you as mary.


because the questions find rest on the tip of my tongue.


but with feet planted on cement on a mild january day,

my heart hears His whisper...

the Lord wraps Himself in light as with a garment;

He stretches out the heavens like a tent...

He makes the clouds His chariot

and rides on the wings of the wind.

psalm 104: 2-3

the night may be closing in around you.

circumstances may be threatening to steal your joy...

your peace...

your hope.


but He's coming, dear one.

He is coming.

just keep your eyes on the clouds...

when someone gives...

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

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


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

my fingers fidget with themselves,

they play with the menu,

i watch the cars drive by.


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

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

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

did you know elias?  Jesus loves you!


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

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


because sometimes a mama feels tired,

exasperated,

defeated.


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


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

reaches in

and gives you Hope to grab onto,

fans new oxygen into lungs all constricted and tight.


reminds of all the basics;

consistency

grace

joy

and most of all love...


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


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

to His, all new and untried...


but as i hold them close in my arms,

as i look at them with eyes refreshed

and a heart renewed...


i know certain and true

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

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

when there are still more questions than answers 2 years later...

it's when i turn the wheel left that her question drifts up from behind me.

as her face is lifted up and peering through the glass the keeps her inside,

mama?  it's really cloudy today.


and i murmur agreement because my eyes are trained on the curving road.


but it's as i straighten out the van and press on the gas that she sees it,

that break in the clouds.

mama!!  i see it!! i see the light coming through!  mama!!  i see heaven!



and suddenly i can't see through the tears that have been threatening all day,

the ones that show that i'm not done missing his dad,

the ones that remind this heart of all the unanswerable questions still there but i listen because she still has more to say,


mama?  it's heaven, right?  i'm looking at heaven?  does that mean i'll get to see papa and Jesus too if i look hard enough at the clouds?


and soon i'm laughing and crying because the innocence of a child is a beautiful thing to be near and i remember wondering those same thoughts.


i woke up this morning and thought back to this day lost in memories and time.

2 years worth of days and moments that no longer have him in them.


and sometimes, the years that stretch out ahead of us seem overwhelming

and sad

because he could have made the choice to still be here.


but he didn't.


and two years ago this evening, we didn't even know he was gone.

and that still breaks my heart.


but then the eyes of a little girl lift up,

they look beyond the clouds and the sun and the physical world of what is


and look to where He is...

where her papa is.


and hope shines into our darkest days,

and laughter mingles with the ache when her wistful fills the space,


mama?  do you think papa and Jesus are getting a big old party ready for us too?