dear elias...

it started with a phone call yesterday morning.

you were humming quietly while the voice on the other end sounded measured and calm.

too calm.


she told me of a family member who had passed away. a family member who i had last talked with when you were small and fit so neatly in the crook of my arm...

we hung up and i sat there quietly, looking at you rubbing that lemon half on the top of your head...


i don't know what your life will hold.


and it's your birthday and i want to remember those first moments,

those exhausted moments,

the ones that blurred my vision and filled my heart up so full.


but elias,

you have to know,


there. is. more.


our life here is nothing more than a wisp of a moment.


and you are four and your only thought right now is probably one that involves cars and trucks and how to add to your growing collection,

but sweet son, it will all go so fast.


and as it whirls by, it will be easy to forget how quickly it spins. you could miss that life really is more than getting that one more thing.


it's taken me almost 34 years to know that, and still, i sit here with my almost-birthday latte on the table top beside me...

i am the first to admit i don't live this out perfectly.



i don't know how many years that God has planned out for you,

i don't know what paths your feet will find to follow,

where He will come near to meet you and reveal Himself as sure.


but the years that you have?

live them for Him.


if you are going to spend yourself on anything,

spend them on Him.


if you are going to fall down exhausted at the end of the day,

fall down because you have poured out everything to love Him.


your soul will keep on living after your body has turned to dust,

but while you are here,

while your blood is pumping and your heart is beating and your lungs fill up with air,

let the very dust that holds you together hold together a life that has eternity and Christ Jesus in focus.


i think of my grandma today on your birthday, i think of this woman who will be burying her second son in more than a decade...


i don't know, elias, which one of us will see the face of Jesus first.

i sat in front of your baby sister this morning as i spooned food into her mouth.

her eyes were so trusting and i began to think of her in her later years - how i won't be here to hold her close and whisper how loved she is...and i began to pray.

i began to pray for the hands that will soothe her, comfort her in the moments before she is no more,

and elias, i'm not trying to be morbid.

i'm not trying to focus sad on what should be a joy-filled day...


but i want more for you than a life that is only focused on now.

your soul will only grow shriveled and selfish and voracious for a never ending supply of what is never going to satisfy.

only Jesus will.


today, you are four.

four.


i still remember your sweet scowly face all crumpled and gasping for air in those first moments of your life.

i still remember that first moment you whispered you loved me back.

moments that are forever embedded into my heart.


i am so thankful that you are my son.


you have a heart that already knows who Jesus is,

and the prayer we pray over you every day is that your heart would become one that desires Him only.


becoming a man after the heart of God, sweet son, is nothing to laugh at, but something to respect deeply.


and when that moment of decision comes, pursue Him...


we'll be cheering you on all the way.


i love you, more than words can ever say...


~ your mama

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 the one who hides behind *the fine*...chapter 4 {the grace series}

even in laughter the heart may ache,

and joy may end in grief.  proverbs 14:13

it's okay to not be fine.

it's okay to stand and say, i'm a mess. it's a mess...*life* is a mess.

it's okay to come out from behind the facade and sit bare and broken and bruised.

i know - it doesn't feel like it.

the last thing that anyone freely embraces is vulnerability - it's scary and open and intimate.

you have that reputation to uphold and that strength everyone seems to rely on and aren't you the one who always seems to keep the peace? make everything better?

make everyone laugh?

yeah...

that's you.

and her.

and me.

i sit surrounded most days, by the most vulnerable among us. 

my own children and other mothers children.

more often than not, there is laughter.

lots of laughter...

but there are the days when the veneer cracks just a little and you are let in to the broken places and there is nothing you can do but reach out a hand and try and cup around that hurt with the little you have and trust the God Who is big enough to be enough.

my own little girl,

her veneer cracked wide open this afternoon - the fine she was trying so bravely to hide behind wasn't strong enough anymore and she just needed to hear, needed to know that the heart she grew under would always beat strong for her - would never stop loving her. would never stop pulsing to the rhythm of her mama's love for her.

she needed to know that who she was behind her fine had worth.

i pulled her close onto my lap, wiped those tears away and she leaned her ear over this heart and she listened.

...so often, the idea that we have to keep it together no matter what is what keeps
good girls from coming out from behind our sweet, smiling exteriors. we believe 
that any amount of broken mess disqualifies us from useful activity for God, so
we determine to stay decidedly broken.  

grace for the good girl (pg. 51)

and being broken begins to take many forms,

conforming you to the ideals and ideas of the people around you until you either become hopeless or angry or both and then you spiral downward again because the good always take the middle - doesn't everyone know that leaning to the right or to the left, even just a little, is bad.

feeling scared meant i needed more faith. feeling anger

meant i needed more control. feeling confused meant i 

needed to get it together and figure things out. in theory, i knew

i was supposed to cast my fear, anger, confusion on the Lord.

but after "trusting" Him with my circumstances, i thought

it was my responsibility to change the emotions and keep

myself from experiencing them again.

gftgg (pg. 55)

around and around it goes and the cycle, it never is unbroken because the only thing truly broken

is you.

but you keep clinging to what left you broken, because that is the thing that defines you. that is what you keep coming back to, because that is tangible. and sometimes, even what is ugly can feel safe because it is what feels familiar...

it might be time to let go.

let go of the broken shards that leave you bloody and weak and instead cling tightly to the wild and unpredictable God Whose grace is pure and gentle enough to love you whole.

honesty before God is the only safe place, and i believe He is

wise enough and loving enough and intuitive enough to usher us

into honesty with people...only as i depend on and trust in and fully

disclose to the One Who knows anyway will i be able to discern when

i'm fine-ing someone who deserves genuine...

gftgg (pg. 56)

i've learned it the hard way - 

i've lived believing that in order to be truly authentic, truly vulnerable, one has to fully disclose to everyone.

i wish that i had known better sooner...

i've also learned, through the hard way, that Jesus - the One Who knit me together and ordained all my days - He is trustworthy. and as i've learned to trust Him more, He brings the safe and the trustworthy ones to love me in the middle of my mess.

and it is good.

and it is safe.

and He takes the fine and makes it healed.

or healing...

it depends on the day.

step out from behind the lie of the fine.

yes - there will be those that walk away, there even may be those that will make fun of your risk.

but you will find that it is good - really. it is.

you just have to take that first step...

our fluctuating humanness is there on purpose, to remind

us of our need and draw us to the One Who can meet it. we

don't have to figure out the whys and the origins of every

swinging emotion. but it is so important that we admit they

are there. to embrace the color and fullness of our emotional,

un-fine state is to open wide enough to receive compassion

and grace. only then will we be able to offer that same com-

passion and grace to others in honest and authentic ways.

gftgg (pg. 58)

His overwhelming Grace is waiting...

for when it happens... {letters to my four}

there are some things i've learned as i come to the mid point of my life,  and should i be given another 37, almost 36 years, i'm sure i will learn a lot more.

i could come to this place in my life and focus on the one thing that seems to dog my every step,

you will mess up.

not if.

not maybe.

but when.

there will be a myriad of reasons, sweet ones. there will be circumstances beyond your control and there will be details that are very much a part of you and the action you take.  

it's just how it is.

and you can take a look at your mess and feel hopeless.

like you have messed up so badly that there is no way to fix it.

i think i was there.

no, that's not true.

i know i was there.

you may know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God has placed a call on your life.  made it clearer than anything and you keep taking the next step forward each day because you know, eventually, you are going to get there.

and then, you trip. 

you land flat on your face.

you drip with the mess you landed yourself in.

and the one who deceives, he comes close and he whispers those words that sink deep and your heart will sink deeper still.

failure

worthless

un-usable

and you may think that all you are good for is to be placed high up on that shelf of the broken,

the useless,

the screw-ups.

and that focus? the one that zeros in on the mess? 

it will keep you there.

my bible study leader, miss sue, the one who keeps placing me at her table each session, she finds me and tells me to come again for the next one. who cares that i have a newborn! didn't i know how many arms would hold her?  

so i go, and i soak it in. i soak in the message of mercy and i let God get to the tender places that fester with hurt and pain and, dare i say it, anger.

but still i believed, no matter how wrongly, that sure, He can get to those places, heal them and clean them up, but now i'll just be a cleaned up, healed up, broken and useless screw-up saint high up there on the shelf.

right?

that's how it works, isn't it?

oh - i pray that i show you differently.

i pray that you all see it differently than i ever saw it.

because He is becoming what i crave - i can't get enough of Him. this Jesus who continually takes your mama-who-messes-up every. day. and He keeps bending down in the sand and writing out that plan.  He does.  He really does. 

and this is what i learned in that study on james: 

 he was one of the Lord's brothers who mocked Him and called Him mad. 

he was the half-brother of Jesus who didn't believe, but became the head of the Early Church in Jerusalem.

he messed up.

all those years, growing up with Jesus, living life with Creator God and he didn't see. he didn't see His Savior standing shoulder to shoulder with him.

instead, he called Jesus crazy.

but even then, God had a call on his life.

even then.

it never changed.

it never wavered.

"for I know the plans I have for you", declares the Lord, "plans for welfare 

and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. then you will call upon Me 

and come and pray to Me, and I will hear you. you will seek Me and find Me 

when you seek Me with all your heart."

jeremiah 29:11-13

you aren't going to take Him by surprise when you mess up.

He already knows.

His plan covers all that.

no, it probably would have been best if you don't make the choices that you will, that maybe you should have looked a bit closer at the path before you tripped and fell, but where you can only see a bit of the road ahead,  He sees the whole world held in His Hands.

if you find yourself dusty and hidden high up on a saintly shelf, know this - Jesus didn't put you there.

you did.

so climb down - wrestle with Him if you have to, let Him work out in you what needs to be worked out. you may find yourself limping afterwards a bit, but keep walking, little one.

keep walking.

the path ahead of you is all part of His plan...

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

fifteen days...

do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation,

by prayer and petition,

with thanksgiving,

make your requests known to God.

philippians 4:6

this big old world has spun through fifteen days and i hold her close with one hand.

monday found me in tears at 4 in the morning as the last piece that connected us fell off sometime during the dark of the night...

and this small one, this baby girl who squeaks throughout the moments i should be sleeping,

she holds me captivated.


i was so scared of all the changes she would bring, what it meant for each one of us, the late nights.  i know the darkness of depression that seemed to settle after each little one entered our family and the more i tried to prepare myself, the more afraid i became...


a balm can be described as a soothing, healing or comforting agent. and this is what she has been.  i whisper her name over her soft, downy head and i call her for what she is, our balm from God.


there have been moments that have dipped low, tears come easily, messes can overwhelm, 2 am can echo loud, but i am learning, finally, after the fourth newborn has been placed in my arms that moving slow isn't the worst that can happen.

she fusses with a tummy sore and i can feel my heart rate speed up, the older three press in close as she fights against my arms and i want to flail my hands in any direction that can lead us all to peace, that can make it all right again, but the agitation in all of us becomes worse...


until i breathe deep and close my eyes so that my heart can find Jesus and when i slow, they settle and the pressing in no longer pushes me away; instead, it finds me grounded.


she finds my heartbeat to fall asleep - presses her dark head against my chest.  her skin is no longer wrapped up within my own, our bodies no longer connected with that pulsating cord...but she settles when i whisper her name.  she recognizes me.

and in the moments i slow, i try and whisper thanksgivings - a lifeline that keeps me attached to Jesus...

what if in stead of discounting the current moment, the uncontrollable, the simply given - what if i counted it - and on the God who controls it all?

what if all our running around is only our trying to run away from God - the great I AM, present in the present moment?

what if i woke to now and refused to hurry because i didn't want to refuse God?

what if i didn't discount this moment but counted it for what it is - God here?

it is only the present moment alone that holds the possibility  of coming into the presence of God. look around, breathe deep, enter into this one moment.

now could be an altar. this time could be a tabernacle.

in God, there is no time, only eternity - or more simply, only now. His name is I AM. here - wherever my feet are - is where i can love Him.

ann voskamp

3 gifts heard

1788. olivia's bless you me when she sneezes

1789. lyla's need for reassurance

1790. elias' belly laugh

a gift outside, inside, on a plate

1791. my newborn baby girl - straight from the womb

1792. the prayer my midwife said

1793. a long awaited lunch!

3 graces you overheard

1794. my older three meeting my younger one

1795. the way he tells me he loves me

1796. listening to her breathe in the dark stillness of night

a gift old, new, blue

1797. to be a mama again

1798. zeruiah

1799. a new journal and nest placed in my hands

something you're reading, making, seeing

1800. your God is too safe

1801. our family of six!  SIX!

1802. his mama and sister and our nephews - a full, full home.

one thing in your bag, your fridge, your heart

1803. the Bible he gave me

1804. the meal graciously given

1805. the peace only He can give

3 graces from people you love

1806. miles traveled

1807. a sister, a niece, a nephew

1808. knowing and loving for 17 years

dusky light, surprising reflection, lovely shadow

1809. my youngest nestled close in the early morning

1810. my body, no longer filled

1811. days slowly getting longer

a gift held, passed by, sat with

1812. her head, just over my heart

1813. a heap of cousins playing

1814. elias, curled up on my lap

a gift sour, sweet, just right

1815. tiny upset tummies

1816. the way he unconditionally love sme

1817. a house full and bursting

3 yellow gifts of fresh mercy

1818. unexpected flashes of sun

1819. the many diapers of a newborn

1820. patch of sun on elias' face

something above, below, beside 

1821. that blue, blue sky above us

1822. zeruiah's silky hair beneath my chin

1823. a visit with tabitha

3 things about yourself you are grateful for

1824. my body that cradles and nourishes

1825. that i was made just for tony

1826. my arms that can hold all four of my babies close

before...

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

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

there was her.


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

and maybe like me

if even a little.


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


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


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

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

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


but now, they have all left.


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

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


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

and there are so many voices willing to share -

willing to pull in so many different directions.


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


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

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


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


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



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

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

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

she is going to need one, someday.

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

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

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

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


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

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.

letting go...{day 28}

i'm entering into the last few days where he'll be my youngest...my baby boy.

only, he hasn't been a baby for quite some time and yet, there are those moments when he climbs up on my lap, curls his body around my belly and buries his face in the curve of my neck.

these are the moments that i long to hold onto...


he sits beside me the other day, his plate full of his lunch - my mug full of my coffee and he reaches out that little boy-hand, the one that will someday grow large and strong, and he rests it on my shoulder and with his other he reaches for another slice of banana and he says all quiet and soft,

i sit by my friend, i sit by my mama, and i not go anywhere. ever.


he may not realize it, but this mama does, that someday he will go somewhere, whether near or far, and the hand that i hold, the small boy that i snuggle, the sleepyhead i sing over will be precious memories that i will long for.


and these hands of mine - the ones dry and rough from the washing and wiping, Jesus created them to open and close.  and they do one or the other or even both for whatever season i find myself in...


and these little ones that He is filling our home with - they come near and press in close because they long for these hands to close around them in comfort and safety.  they don't understand the selfish-mama-heart that in the chaotic (and yes, my more childish) moments longs for order and quiet and space and why at times i cross my hands blocking them from coming so close... they don't understand because that's not what these hands have been created for.

but my hands, the ones that try to clutch close the moments that fly by too quickly, the ones with joints and bones and muscles that all work together to peel back these fingers one by one, no matter how much the opening hurts this heart...

keeping them open, and positioned towards Him, is the only way i'll know how to walk this fine balance of keeping them close and letting them fly...


and it always, always comes back to Jesus.  how in the letting go of ourselves, our agendas and what weighs us down, we are really lifting empty hands, waiting to be filled with Him...


because it is then that we love well,

friend well,

mama well,

wife well,

do life well.


and i wonder then, if that is when the  present moments because sweeter and the memories become dearer, because He is truly apart of it all...

letting go...{day 12}

one of the saddest days of my life was when my mother told me "superman" did not exist. 

cause even in the depths of the ghetto you just thought he was coming...

she thought i was crying because it's like santa claus is not real. i was crying

because no one was coming with enough power to save us.

geoffrey canada, waiting for superman

it's that quote that has stuck with me all weekend long - read in the pages of a book that i thought would help me understand a bit more of what our kids down at the mission face everyday.  i thought it would help me understand a culture that seemed so foreign...


but the reality is, those words could be said in the depths of the ghetto or in the safest, most secure community on the far side of town. aren't we all looking for a superman with enough power to save us?  

what it all boils down to was found in the pages of another book that i'm reading - me with my nightstand piled high and precariously with all sorts of books - 

it is vital for a healthy church and an effective witness that we understand aright the core of God's revelation as the Holy One. i fear that many are quick to make God in their image rather than understand we are made in His...many people's vision of God owe little to scripture

and much to their psychology. at worst our imaginary conception of God 

is little more than an idol with a few proof texts to clothe it.

simon ponsonby, the pursuit of the the holy

could this process of letting go actually begin with this step - letting go of what i have imagined God to be and to dig deeper to discover Who He Is?

letting go seems to be stripping me of what i held dear - my ideals, my perceptions, even the *good things* that seemed to be so right. 

it's disconcerting, really.

and yet, i want to know Him - not the superman i imagine, or even want Him to be.  

i want to have answers for my little ones when they ask Who God is,

i want to be able to explain who we are in comparison and why it is that we so desperately need Him.

in letting go, i want to let go of everything that hinders my relationship with Him - not to appear pious or "religious" but because i want my life to glorify Him.  

no matter how many years He gives me to live, they are nothing more than a vapor in light of the expanse of eternity...

letting go is letting go of the false and grabbing on to what is holy and true - 

it's only and always about Jesus...

from their yard...

i hear them before i see them, that brother and sister with their hands intertwined and something clutched between all twenty fingers.

i hear their laughter before i see their smiles and as they come around that corner, their bright faces light up my own.

it takes me a moment to realize that what's held so tightly is for me.

we picked this for you. it's from our yard...

and suddenly my hands are full of bright pink petals and they are gone before i can say thank you.


i sit across from another mama and her sweet friend this afternoon - cups of hot coffee between all of us and i watch their faces soften as they share...

and this mama, she was up all night with her sick little boy and i hear her heart, see the tiredness in her eyes...

i was eighteen when she was born.

she was fourteen when her arms were filled with her small son and i look at both girls and i want to cup their faces and tell them how beautiful they are, how strong they are...

and how much Jesus loves them.


i want a cup of coffee to be strong enough to fix everything broken and wrong.

i want it to be strong enough to heal broken families and keep kids out of gangs and bring back runaway mothers and keep daddies out of jail.

an hour of time doesn't seem long enough...


and it never will be.


it never will be long enough until He is invited into each moment and i choose to be emptied...

i think of that little boy, the one with the five loaves and two fish who allowed his hands to be emptied of what would fill him, placed it all in the Hands of the Creator and watched Jesus feed over five thousand hungry bellies.

aren't our hearts more ravenous than our stomachs that need to be continually filled? aren't they starved for Him?


it's as I'm sitting outside while the playground is swirling in chaos around me, as my three get lost in the bedlam and my fourth nestles in close under my heart, it's there that i open up my hand and catch the full picture of the gift i've been given ~

broken and imperfect and lovely and achingly beautiful, it's a picture of each one of us.  we can choose to remain hidden away, clutched close because of what we lack and what's missing, but i am learning that those places that are gaping and wounded deep in us are the ones He tenderly offers to those who walk gaping and wounded around us.


each petal missing, each loaf of bread that seems to be lacking, that fish that seems to be too small, those sixty minutes that fly by too quickly - He uses it all.

He uses us ~ 

miracle in and of itself...


and in the middle of it all, when i find myself up in the dark of the early morning because my heart is heavy with the knowing. when what i have carried on my thirty three year old shoulders feels like it will break me and how do fifteen year old shoulders bear up under it all? when He hears and makes sense of what i can't even voice and holds each tear that falls over children that have filled my heart with love straight from His Own - i can sense it, how in the unfurling of my fingers over wounds clenched tight to protect, He intertwines the pain and beauty and cups it all together with joy...

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...

what they forgot to tell me...

he greets me, whenever we happen to be there at the same time with the same words spilling from his lips.

those words said in thickly accented and broken english that my ears struggle to decipher,  he says it slow because he knows - this white lady can barely keep up.

it is not a house. not. a. house, yes?

and he pauses because he wants me to understand.  wants it to sink deep and so i nod my head and wait for those words i already know are about to fill the space around us,

it is a palace, kimberley. a palace.  you understand?

and yes, i do. i understand that what bears the marks of tagging and the places worn and crumbling because of age and use is so much more here in the the hardened edges around us.

he laughs at my attempt to say his name; me, the canadian with no ability to roll my r's with the flair and passion of his spanish, but i try and he applauds and tells me i can say his name in english.

i want to learn how to say his name in spanish.

the children too - seem to delight in the fact that this white woman who sits in the hot sun at the playground completely and utterly butchers the beauty of their language, but they are determined it seems to teach me the basics, even if it sounds awful and makes bellies hurt from laughing so hard.

i was warned about which colours to avoid wearing when we came to spend time at this place. i made a mental note and double check us all before we walk out our door, but they forgot to warn me about the most important thing...

they never warned me that my heart would break.

i remember saying to him, in the days leading up to his final days at starbucks, i said that maybe i would stay away, not because i was scared of gangs and violence and drugs...i was scared of becoming attached again.  scared of opening up my heart. maybe, i reasoned, staying away would help his ministry if i stayed in the background.

he paused, like he always does before he says something hard but needed,

you can stay away, kimberley, and i would understand. but that would be the most selfish thing you could do.  Jesus asks us to lay down our lives and lose them for Him.  to hide in the corner would feel safer, but you'd be missing out on everything He has for you there.

i didn't know what to expect, that first day or two that we were there, but what i didn't expect was the warmth, the joy, the shy smiles. i didn't expect to fall in love with their names. 

 he was asked, in his interview, how he would point out Hope to those who came because sometimes, in the darkest places, Hope seems so hard to find...

but it's there...in the names of the children.  when those mamas first held those newborn babies and breathed out a name over brand new skin, they named with a longing for Hope.

it's all around me.

it's as they sit close at the dinner table, as they yell out, hey lady! your belly got big! it's when they ask what time they have to go and it's written all over their faces that they don't want to.

it's in the wiping down of tables together and the sitting close on the playground together and watching my three run and play with no idea whatsoever that their skin colour doesn't match those of their playmates.  of that little boy with the big chocolate brown eyes who comes up to me and throws his arms around my neck before he ever says hey.

it's the 13 year old boy, shyly sharing his poetry with me as he waits for his brothers and cousins to finish playing.

i didn't expect my heart to break wide open and find myself with tears streaming down my face as i leave that part of town for mine. which honestly, neither is really that different from the other. aren't we all broken? aren't we all hurting in some way, trying to dull the ache with whatever we can hold on to?  oh, the houses may look shabbier if you cross the tracks, or they may gleam and sparkle if you drive further up the valley road, but without Hope, without Jesus, aren't we all desperate? 

i stood in the dark this evening as i waited for our dog to finish running around the yard, finish sniffing out the last of this day when i looked up.

today had been particularly hard, for many reasons, and at the end of the day a perfect storm brewed and i spoke harsh words to a strong willed daughter and we were both left split wide open and in pain. 

sin permeates both sides of the tracks.

but it was that wordless prayer that groped and grasped for words i couldn't seem to form that He answered on that back porch in the inky black...

because when i looked up in desperation He had already pasted it there at eye level, perfectly level and still...

the big dipper.

i can love and i can fail within moments of each other and i can mess up in a hundred thousand different ways, but His love is always sure, always steady and it cups around my failings and He offers that perfect love for me to dip from, to immerse myself in so that i can become a channel that He can flow through.

and i wonder, does He allow our hearts to break, to shatter, not so that we will hurt and experience pain, but so that His Perfect Love pours out freely from the broken...

to the broken.

dear dad, when you need to know...

the wind has been blowing outside these windows,

the leaves are beginning to fall.


this small baby inside of me is tumbling in my dark

and you...


you are moving in the presence of God.


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

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

we had 10 more months with you.


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

you were here.

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

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

you were here to hear the news.

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

all my babies have known you,

they've heard your voice,

they have fallen asleep against you.


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


but i want you to know.

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

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

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

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

we can trust that.

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


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


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

i love you, dad.

and i miss you...

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