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.

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...

in everything...

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

wasted.

useless.


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


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

with his eyes close, he said my name,

talk to me, kimberley.


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

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

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

he knows.


and we sit there, together, in the silence.


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

(photo credit: becky frame)

and his own burdens come out, story by story,

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

of the children with no running water...

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


brokenness is everywhere.

everywhere.

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

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


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

that thought.

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


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

she made a comment,

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

can our pain be a balm for another hurting heart?


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


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

most especially in the pain-filled-everything.

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

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

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

1 samuel 3:18

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

He is good.

we can trust that.

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

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


how can i not praise Him?

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

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

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

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

be praised" (job 1:21).

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

rebellion.

~hannah whitall smith

in the wrapping around...

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

i leave the windows open to let fall sneak in.


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

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

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

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

but i kept standing there.


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


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

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

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

i wanted to fight the pain inside.


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

she asked if she could go home with us too.

she didn't chase the van,

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


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

himself.

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

and it can easily overwhelm.

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

no...

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


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

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

the only way...


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

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

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

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

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

1520. a long awaited cup of coffee

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

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

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

in the water...

it's the sound of that splash that keeps haunting me.

the one that made us both pause and look at one another before he sprang into action and raced around that pool.

it's that splash that pulled me from my chair as i watched her struggle to stay above water that was too deep, clothes that were too heavy and reach for something, anything only to find thin air.


it's the picture of that struggle, as short as it was...before his strong arms reached in and pulled her out and held her close.  it's watching my girl struggle and begin to go under that leaves me cold with how short, how fragile, it all is.

and my mind goes to that moment, the one calm and serene, dressed in a white robe and stepping down into the water and waiting for the moment to die.

i was 12 and i wanted to be identified as His and with my arms crossed and my eyes closed, i was laid under that cold, clear water and lifted back up to a life called to be different.


i wish i had understood more all those years ago, what all of that meant.

i wonder if it would have saved me a world of trouble and grief.



because no one tells you, once you've been plunged beneath baptisms water that the real struggle, the thrashing and the fight, happens as soon as the water begins to evaporate.


as though that old nature, the one that so easily entangles and snares tries to drown a person standing on dry ground...


it comes in all shapes and sizes, the memories of wrongs done can come flooding back and that pain can sneak in, try and wrap it's ugliness around a heart made new and a life marked as His.

it becomes hard to breathe.


when choices are made beyond your control and everything falls apart and suddenly you are told that you no longer look good,

it becomes hard to breathe.


when your soul is already weary from what you are carrying and you find yourself at odds with your daughters all day and your tongue is filled with words that will silence them but will break their hearts,

it becomes hard to breathe...



and the smallest one?

the one nestled deep inside of me...

this one dances.


this one dances in water and gives into the warmth, the dark that surrounds him or her without knowing the day we will meet face to face, without having any knowledge of anything outside the sound of my heartbeat and the woosh of my blood.

this one has no fear held secure in my body and dances with trust in a moment marked with oblivion. and while everything else is going on around this sweet baby, the only thing he or she is really learning, the one thing that is truly leaving an imprint, is the sound of this heart.


and He teaches me gently, reaching into my mess and pulls me, thrashing and desperate, close to His Heartbeat that pulses out a rhythm that i am coming to know, learning to trust.


reminding me that the life i took on, when i became His own, isn't one that will always make me look right or religious or good.

if that has become my focus, then my master is no longer my Lord.


but will i trust Him enough to take whatever He allows, and live a life of faith that grabs hold of His Goodness and believe that He works it all out for our good when we love Him?


that can mean surrender in Him when everything else seems dark.

because sometimes when it's the darkest,

we can hear His Love the loudest...

what to expect...

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

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


i thought He was referencing my circumstances.

i should have known He was looking at my heart.

and it came after those 10 long months of wondering,

those 2 months of deciding it was all done,

finished,

complete.


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

hushed,

overwhelmed,

and a tiny bit scared.


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

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

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

and i don't want to mess them up.

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

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

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


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


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



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

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

and no matter how tiny,

hope is dancing in the dark...

happy mother's day...

in the morning...

it's in the early hours that she crawls in under the covers and presses her warm little body up next to me.

i often wake up pressed on both sides by two sleepy bodies wrestling this third one for a space in this bed and i lay there fighting to breathe but not daring to move because i don't want to wake either one up.

(though, i suspect, with his body half on and half off his edge of the mattress, that husband of mine isn't sleeping too well either.)

and while i feel the darkness and heat and lack of personal space press in, olivia sleeps on in peace...she's found what she was missing and slumber comes easy.

either the darkness presses in and we find hope fading, or we press in close to Jesus and find ourselves wrapped up in peace.


i thought of this as the sun flickered across my eyes in the early morning hours and she still slept.


two of my youngest robbed me of my sleep in those late and early hours as i laboured through the night.  those pangs that started slow and easy, ones that i could breathe through and nap through suddenly raged and it was all i could do to barely catch onto my next breath.

i remember the sunrises of both of those mornings - as a new day emerged and i held new life in my arms.  there was relief from those dark hours that i thought would kill me.


this morning's sunrise was no different as her sleepy breath brushed across my cheek.


i think, sometimes, He lets the darkness press in close...

allows it to build in intensity in order to break through the complacency that can so easily hold us rapt until the need to fill our lungs with oxygen forces us to push back and cry out for Him.


worst-case scenarios and all those what-ifs can make a mind spin all crazy.  can oh-so-subtly take eyes trained on Jesus and turn them inward.

and without Him, there's nothing good to focus on in these inward parts.


and it's only Jesus Who can bring relief to a soul dragged through a season, no matter how small, meant to birth new life in her.


it's in the middle of all the questioning and wondering and all the circles my mind would go, spiraling lower and lower until my worry had taken on a frenzied dance of its own...it's when His Truth - the very first one i had ever planted deep - began to whisper Its way in and around and through the lies that were screaming loud and i heard Him:

trust in the Lord 

with all your heart

and lean not

on your own understanding.

proverbs 3:5

fourteen sunrises have blazed by that window by my bed...thirteen of them have seemed glaringly cruel, even on the most rainy of days.

this morning, though, with her sturdy little body nestled against my own, her eyelids closed over those chocolate depths i find mesmerizing, i felt the weary relief of new life wrestled and birthed...

and hope.

because always, always, always, our days and the moments that fill them and the worries and joys that seep into those spaces - they are all about Jesus.

without Him as the One my eyes, my heart, my soul anchors to, i'm so easily distracted, tossed about by every thought and whim.

but that second Truth i planted deep when i was still so small, before the innocence i can't remember was taken away?

it stakes His claim on my life He's never let go of and my heart is a bell that Unrelenting Love rings loud...

in all your ways

acknowledge Him

and He will make your paths straight.

proverbs 3:6

when he sings...

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

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


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

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


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

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

he sings me to sleep.


we still can't find him.

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

but that isn't why he sings.

he doesn't sing for praise or recognition,

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


he sings because he was made to sing.

and his song gives glory to his Creator.



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

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

it's easy to quiet in those moments.

to become still and silent

and hide away.


but that beautiful soul that He placed inside,

the one that He redeemed and made new,

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


it was made to sing.


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

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

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


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

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

but he sings.


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

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

open and waiting...

my life is marked by brokenness.

as, i am sure, every person is to some extent whether the pain is large or small.


this jar of clay,

like that pitcher of clay that sat out in the hot sun all summer...

we both share our scars.

i remember, as a young bride-to-be, holding the smooth and cool vessel on that hot september evening surrounded by women celebrating this new stage i was entering into.

i remember imagining the thirst it would quench,

the table it would grace,

the beauty it would add...


10 years later,

weakened by the elements

and little clumsy hands,

that mouth gapes wide

as the lip gives way

and i bend down to pick up the broken pieces.


it's still salvageable.

still usable,

only now?


it's a little scarred.


water drips and dribbles out where it shouldn't,

but it still sits open, waiting to be filled.


open and waiting...

is that what He asks us to be?

and it's lent and i've committed to letting things go

while adding one thing in.

and every morning i read them

these words from paul that make this heart of mine pound...


and it's this one in particular that hits hard as i sit beside what is cracked and glued back together,

as the fragrance of those flowers fill what is open,

what is waiting,

and settles around me,

but we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.

(2 corinthians 4:7 ESV)

our mouths gape open in pain and shock and fear,

as what shatters around us leaves us grasping to pull all those shards in close.

but in our clumsy hands, those shards draw blood,

sink the pain in deeper.


but when He, with Those Hands that bear Their own scars of Love,

when They reach down and gather up and bind together 

and make what is broken

full of worth again,

those fissures?

they only add to the beauty of a life filled with Him.

they give testament to His Power that is made perfect in our fragile weakness.

yes, we have been given a treasure...

miry clay filled up with Him.

when you wait for the blooming...

he hung himself on that tree and died there.

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

so many other things died too.


i have thought, however naively,

that time and distance could ease and heal,

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


i stood outside this evening, in the dark.

i threw that trash in the bin and closed the lid

and looked up...


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


tonight, grief sinks deep.


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

i find myself asking why?.


i brought out the amaryllis bulb late,

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

 i wondered if it would survive.


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

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


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

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


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

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

where more than just a man died;

love died,

dreams died,

plans died,

hope died,

a father died,

who we were died,


and it hurt.




and moving on,

watching the old split open to let the new come through

is painful.




and yet...


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

not content to allow us to grow bent over and bitter

He allows that which leaves us feeling dizzy

and confused

and lost

and grieving

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


how He loves!

my world can be shaken,

but rooted in Him, i am not moved.

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

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


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

but so was something new.

and while it appears ugly at times,

He has promised life,

abundant and full.


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

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


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

ephesians 3:16-21

when the temperature drops...

they stand tall and graceful on our kitchen table,

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



she gives, because that is who she is.

even in the cold of a winter wind,

she gives.


and i pull the bundle of pussy willow sticks close,

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


have they never really ever seen them before?


i mean, they must have,

but they  look at them with a wonder that amazes me

and they each ask if they can hold a branch.


and i watch tiny hands pet those grey, tiny buds

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

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

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


it can all seem so dead;

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


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

it can all change so very quickly.


and the snow flies again

and the temperature drops

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


but could what seems like an ending,

be only a beginning?


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


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


and in those in between moments ~

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

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

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

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

2 corinthians 4:7-12, 16-18 

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)

for when you find yourself wandering...

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


the snow is already beginning to melt outside.


he asks the needed questions

and i supply the answers

and then we wait for the paperwork to print.


i'm startled when he asks a personal question,

when he leans forward like he genuinely wants to know.

he asks me how i like it here.

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

and drove away.


how i looked out across the prairies that i love,

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

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


i look this man in the eye,

the one who fought in a war,

 lived here for 40 years,

 buried a son,

coached basketball,

and waits for my papers to print...


and i smile wide as the words come tumbling out,


i love it here.

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

the one that sees 144 inches of rainfall each year

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


this place that the summer sun beats down on,

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


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


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


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


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

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

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


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

it all looked so bleak and empty.


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

He waters what is dry


and provides a way where there is none,

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



and what by all accounts should look like a desert,

is incomprehensibly spilling over with Life.

when one needs to take note...

i sit in my chair at the kitchen table,

bent over a form needing to be filled in,

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


i should know what day it is...


instead, i move from the spot where i am

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

when it hits me...

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

one year ago the boxes were just beginning to pile,

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


and today felt so...

ordinary.


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

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


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

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


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

it's my heart, you see,

and how scared i am to trust Him completely.


two years of uncertainty behind me,

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

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


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


i slip out for a while this evening,

meet a sweet friend for a cup of coffee,

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

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

set up road signs;

put up guideposts.

take note of the highway,

the road that you take...

jeremiah 31:21

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

stop wandering and watch Him do a new thing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

and after the looking, 

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


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

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

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

when it is dark...

it plays beside me as i sit in the quiet of lights strung onto a tree.

the haunting melody of a crying out for Him,

and it leaves me undone.

o come, o come, Emmanuel
and ransom captive israel,

that mourns in lonely exile here

until the Son of God appear.

the tree that glows near me gives off the heady scent of Christmas and i close my eyes for a moment,

i try to search for the joy.

but my heart is heavy.

there is my story that i share with words that sometimes tremble on the screen in front of me.  i bring them up out of memories and moments and i leave them here.

but there are your stories too.

ones of loss,

ones of hope,

ones of triumph

and ones of exceptional pain.

and i hear woven in through your words, the call for Emmanuel...

come Lord Jesus, come...

and maybe in the dark of the night, the call for Him rings clearer...


your story is worth sharing,

worth fighting for.


but more importantly,

you are worth fighting for.

do you know that?


in the middle of words stretched tight with pain, 

a story that lays bare and open,

lays open before Him.


and He has come.

because you are worth the fighting He did,

you are worth the dying He died.

you are worth the life He conquered death to give.


can i speak this to you tonight?


can i speak the words to you that i wish i could have spoken to the one who chose to leave 2 years ago?


every life that bends over and hemorrhages grief,

every life that stands tall in praise and triumph,

every life that feels caught in the middle... unexceptional and ordinary,

each one needs to know,

you. need. to. know,

you are worth everything that He gave up and suffered to give.

He has come.


He has come so that the chains that leave you shackled can be shattered.


and you are right...

right now?  it's probably too much to believe it.

too much to see it...

our eyes can be blinded by a myriad of circumstances...

but it doesn't change Who He is and What He has to offer you.

and bit by bit, it will come if you press forward.

if you choose to believe in the dark,

in the light,

in the grey,

the truth that He loves you.


yes.  you.

He loves you.

and He came in the dark for you.


He died in the dark for you.

and He offers life out of the dark of death He conquered for you.

and as you believe, as you cling to what He promises,

you will find that in time, in the stillness of where you find yourself,

you will find the Strength to,

rejoice!  rejoice! 

Emmanuel shall come to thee

o israel...

don't give up...

He gave you a beautiful story to share...

when you don't want to...

she stands there behind that register.

she shifts from foot to foot.

her shoulders are slumped as though she feels defeated...

as though she is just going through the motions.


and i stand there, behind my fully loaded cart, waiting my turn to lay my items on that moving black.


that item,

the very last one,

is the only one without a sku.


the line is long behind me.


she begins to make small talk.


and in this cold and sterile space, her hurt comes spilling out.


the concern of a mother whose little ones long for christmas presents.

presents that she can't afford because she just recently became a single mom.


and i stand there, with my fully loaded cart, with my husband beside me and my little ones shouting loud and i hear Him, deep in my spirit...

look into her eyes.


and i don't want to

i don't want to look into raw and real pain.


my heart already feels broken,

hers will shatter me even further.


she leans down and brings herself to nose level with my girls,

saying sweet somethings to make bellies laugh.


she straightens when an extra number is brought,

she types it in and says our total out loud...

but i don't hear it.

all i hear is her pain and i want to do something,

but what?


tony pays and gathers everyone together and as he starts walking away i take that extra minute and look.

really look,

into the eyes of a fellow mama.

a mama who carries more than she should.

whose burden slumps her shoulders at the end of a long work day.


and i whisper that i am sorry and i hold her gaze long.

i want her to know that He sees.

He sees.

and it can't be a coincidence that this season is celebrated during the darkest time of the year.

when the sun sets early and the cold settles deep.


when it is easy to lose hope.


He became flesh in the dark of a womb,

to be birthed into our dark,

to shine a light into our raw pain.

she said it to me, early this morning,

mama, God will never let us go, right?  He's got us all in His Hands?


could that be the key?  a way through the pain that lines this season?


could it be willing to be His Hands?

willing to look into the eyes of someone barely hanging on?

is it willing to see that this season is more than the lights and the presents and the scent of evergreen?


is it being willing to share *The Light* and the hope that He came to give?


o come all ye faithful...

come and look.

come and love...