nothing is wasted...

you have been grace to me.

from the moment we sat for those three hours and talked away that class i didn't really want to go to anyways until i stood up 6 months later in cool mountain air,

and you remained kneeling,


you have been His grace.


i just didn't always see it.



i don't know if you can ever truly know how you have cupped this heart of mine and protected and nurtured and loved me into the woman i am today.

there aren't enough words to say how thankful i am to you

for packing that picnic basket

12 years ago today -

for finding the perfect spot at the base of that mountain,

with snow still on the ground,

and for taking that chance on the girl so broken

and loving her into the half of us i am.


oh tony, i love you.


for every road we've walked together, for every detour and dead end that we thought would shatter us, i have learned with you that nothing is wasted when we trust in the One Who takes our broken places and causes beauty, His beauty, to bloom.


thank you.  thank you for asking and for being so very confident i would say yes.

i love you.


love,
me



(the grace series will begin quietly tomorrow...)

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.

when they walk away...

i don't think it matters.

i think i'm becoming bold enough to say those words.

i don't think it matters...

you came home this evening and fell onto the bed beside me, as though the day after turning 38 had felt the need to add some extra weight onto your shoulders.

you began saying their names quietly, one after the other. i felt overwhelmed by the number...i hadn't realized they were all related.

and then you said it,

their dad decided that he was done this weekend.  he left. up and walked away...

i don't think it matters...

whether you are six years old or edging closer to forty,

when a parent up and decides you are no longer worth being there for,

nothing compares to that ache.

i didn't hear the gunshots this evening, i only heard the sirens...i saw them all crowding on the front steps and huddled close together.

i was trying to find our three because it was time to go home and i still had one more stop to make.

i got to the door and it was repeated to me, gunshots had been fired, i needed to stay inside.

i knew you were inside,

but the last i had heard, our three were out in that playground.

my kids!! are my kids in the playground??

even i heard the desperation in my voice.


and i felt them all press in close, those children who deal with situations like these on a regular basis i'm sure, as though pressing in close presses in comfort and i was moved back into safety while another went out to search for my own...


they were inside, near you. at least, they knew where you were and they felt safe.  we got out to our van while the police lights were still flashing, while streets were blocked off and i drove away and you stayed behind.

you stayed behind and learned of one more family who has been rejected by a parent and you carry it home.

you stayed behind and listened to the brokenness and filled hands with food to get them through the next few days.

you stayed behind...

 and where can it go but at Jesus' feet?

because it can't go anywhere else. it can't. 

we can't make the parents around us fight for their children,

we can't make dead daddies come back to life,

we can't make mamas stop wandering to circle around and come back home.

you lay beside me in the bed we share and we aren't immune,

our children have experienced their own deep losses,

we wrestle with our own questions and bewilderment.

and in the silence you turn towards me and you say with an intensity i know is stamped with your integrity,

i'm not going anywhere.  do you know that?  i. am. not. going. anywhere.

and i know.  i know, tony.


because you could have walked away at any point. you asked if you could pursue me 2 weeks before you turned 26 and i know what you have faced choosing to stay with me. 

walking away would have been the easy and understandable thing to do.

you turned 38 yesterday and gunshots were fired today and i know that nothing short of death would ever cause you to leave.

and yet there is loss all around us and this is what your life is teaching me every day:  death can be walking alive among us because bitterness eats the living whole and when i begin to turn inward to what hurts, you cup my face and you turn my eyes back to Jesus and remind me that they only way i can walk as one living is to walk with my eyes focused on Him. 

 to lay what hurts down at His feet.

to press in close ~ to each other, to Jesus ~ because to press in close presses in comfort and pushes out what will kill our souls.


i could have celebrated you yesterday and lost you today and yet He gives us one more day together. one more day to walk through and work through and learn to press into.  

and so, even with the heaviness that this day has brought, with the hurt and pain that we walk into everyday, i want to say how thankful i am for the chances that He gives everyday to celebrate you.  

happy birthday, my tony.

i love you.

when eleven years pass by too quickly...

it's up there on our bedroom wall - that moment captured eleven years ago after our i do's had been said and you had kissed me for the very first time...

i looked at those two faces for a while today and was caught up in memories...

and i wondered how time could move so quickly.

your face was the only one i looked for at the top of that aisle, your smile was the one i longed for.

i'll never forget the way you looked as you waited for me...


i am caught by those two faces and while they look so very familiar, i find i don't really know them anymore...

you have white in your hair now, that rich black unmarred when i first saw you...


you walked into that classroom and pulled that toque down over your head, but i caught a glimpse of you and you captured me.

those four years between that moment and the moment you asked to pursue me were filled with so much pain and yet they were worth all of it because when His moment was right for us, i knew i would be safe with you.

your beard is becoming more salt than pepper and there are crows feet by your eyes and those lines carry the truth that you find Hope in every situation, you find something to laugh about no matter how dark the moment and i want to hold the snapshots i have of you now because someday, this day will be a distant memory and i don't want to take you for granted.


she looks so happy, but i know what the next few years would bring for her...for you. those first years weren't easy and you were so patient with her...with me.  your love for her made her stronger...do you know that?  can you even fathom the gift that you are? that girl in the picture - she wears the same skin as me, but i'm not her any longer and there are not enough words to tell you how grateful i am to Jesus and to you for your choice to stay faithful to the one so very timid.

i started praying for you when i was twelve.  i remember the moment.  i remember the coolness of the basement and which wall i was facing when it hit me, i needed to pray for my future husband now. i love that i have been praying for you for 21 years and i love that i have been your wife for 11 and that you are the answer to so much of what i prayed to Jesus for.

i remember the years that we fought with each other, how painful those years were.  i was always trying to run, wild with fear that i was going to fail, trying to prove to you that i would.  you fought for me long before i ever fought for us and your steadiness humbles me, because you could have walked away so very long ago and it makes me love you even more because your love is so very sure and where would i ever want to go but straight into your arms?

the longer we are married, the more i realize how short these days are...each day with you is one less with you and the more i gain the more i lose and time keeps moving us closer to that moment when we will see Jesus face to face and i want to love you well each moment we are given.  i want to find the treasure that is hidden in the light and in the dark and i want to discover all that is priceless in you.

i want to love you well, tony baker.


each year that i write on our anniversary, i include a photo from our wedding day...but today, i am deciding not to. today, i want to capture who we are now...because He has brought us so very far from those vows said with trembling and with hope...

He has brought us here, to a love and a trust and a relationship deeper and truer than i ever dreamed was possible.  He has brought us here in all our brokenness and humanity and allowed us to experience life and all of its ups and downs together...

the faces in our pictures from then and now may bear identical similarities, but the story that He has written on our hearts make us so very different.

so to you, i want to wish a very happy anniversary.

you have my heart and the rest of my days, always.

i love you, so very, very much.

all my love...

a letter for my three...

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

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


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

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

i've looked forward,

no...

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


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

but until then, we wait,


expectantly.


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

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

i understand those moments.

each one of us needs them.


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

expectantly.


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

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

yet...

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

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

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

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

expectantly.


i love you...

~mama

1537. brushing their hair in the early morning

1538. the light of a full moon

1539. feeling her foot against my ribs

1540. the way Tchaikovsky makes my heart thunder

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

1542. jonah and what he reveals

1543. expecting fall

1544. expecting Him

1545. a call to place Him first...

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

1547. victories, no matter how small

1548. tony

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

1550. that i breathe for 2

1551. that i eat and drink for two

1552. that my heart beats for 2

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

1554. that He orchestrates our lives

1555. none of it is out of His control

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

1557. the dog hair everywhere

1558. for the calming that mercy brings

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

in the wrapping around...

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

i leave the windows open to let fall sneak in.


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

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

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

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

but i kept standing there.


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


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

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

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

i wanted to fight the pain inside.


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

she asked if she could go home with us too.

she didn't chase the van,

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


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

himself.

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

and it can easily overwhelm.

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

no...

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


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

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

the only way...


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

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

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

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

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

1520. a long awaited cup of coffee

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

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

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

endings and beginnings and hope...

ending moments are always the hardest, the most difficult.

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


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

we had coffee.

we had almost instant community.


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

it was familiar when i had lost almost everything.


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

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

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


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

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

we both felt it...

that urging to look closer.

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

closer to what didn't feel safe.

closer to a desperate need.


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

He's serious.


and that sometimes our sacrifices are bathed in tears.


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

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

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


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

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

the truth?

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


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

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

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

the children who haven't yet heard His Hope,

a dark place that so desperately needs His Light,

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


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

but it was only the start.


the endings are always the hardest,

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


but that beginning ahead of us?

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

the making of a home, a family...

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

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

and they returned.

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

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

the exterminator had been called last fall,

he had sprayed them all dead,

and now it's all buzzing with life again.


they are a nuisance.

they are aggressive.

but they are making a home.


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

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


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

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


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

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


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

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

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

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

i hear the sound of family.

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

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

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


could that be the point?


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

and it's His journey i'm following,

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

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

it's a moving towards Jesus.


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


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

i looked into his eyes and said yes.


i didn't know what He had mapped out,

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


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

and He led us both to here.


here where the air is hot in april,

here where i feel lost and found,


here where He provides the family,

and here where we are finally home.

lessons in the messy...

he comes home to find me a mess.

packages of chicken thighs that normally hold a set amount all wrapped up in prepackaged plastic are each missing one and they need to be in the oven five minutes ago.


the floor that i had vacuumed at 10 was a disaster again by 4

the children that had been shouting all morning were now full on fighting

and my last nerve

was

being

stretched

very

thin.


he walks in the door to find his wife barely holding it together.


or maybe,

if i'm to be honest,

not holding it together at all.


he walks into the kitchen and stands in my way.

on purpose.

won't budge from that spot as i try and force my way around him,

exhaling loudly

and sighing impatiently

and biting my lip so i don't cry.


he knows this.

because he knows me.

and he keeps standing there.




he knows why i'm about to fall apart.


the microwave beeps

and the third package of chicken is laid down and pulled apart.

i oil and stuff and salt and pepper and place them on that rack

and set them all into the oven.


and that's when he says something,


they put their pants on this morning one leg at a time,


just like us.


and i want to laugh and cry and i did a little bit,

because it's true.


in this year hollowed out and named new

i was trying to stuff it up full with the hurt from the old...


i forgot that what He spoke in the dark of the first month

can still apply in the chaos of the second.


that when He asks us to abide, we can trust that He knows 

and those new roads He leads us on have been traveled by His feet first.


it's safe to trust Him...

even when you are scared to.

even when you have been hurt before.

even when the landscape around you leaves you feeling disorientated at the oddest of times.


He is trustworthy.


and even if you have lost it all

but you still have Him...


you have Everything.

and those new roads through those new places?

they lead closer to Him...

indeed i count everything as loss because of the surpassing

worth of  knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. for His sake i have suffered the loss

of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that i 

may gain Christ, and be found in Him...

philippians 3:8-9a

when He woos a heart already His own...

He woos me on valentines day.


He doesn't have to.

He has already won my heart.

this heart that has a tendency to burn so hot and freeze ice cold.


maybe that is a reason He keeps drawing me to Himself,

closer to the heat of His Love,

so that i'll burn with the wonder of Him again.


it happens after i repeat the words from memory that i have been planting deep.

speak them out loud to the one who calls me daughter while my 3 little ones listen close.

six weeks in and twelve verses rolling with a rhythm off of this tongue,

i turn that page to the thirteenth one as the house settles and quiets

and i look at the words held in these hands.


i can't help but stare at this valentine He has given.

because no matter how one looks at it, it is exactly what it is.


it's no i choo-choo-choose you written on red and placed on a school-girl's desk.

no.

it's been written in red and offered up to anyone who will receive.

for He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness

and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves,

in Whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

colossions 1:13-14

i lay my head next to tony's in the quiet.

look into his eyes and see him for who he really is.

i reach out my fingers and trace his lips.

this man who gave up everything for me, for our family.

this man who gave up job, reputation, income, home...

gave it all up so that we could live out from under the shadow of death and brokenness.


he gave it all up for the love of the ones under this roof over our heads.


and He woos me,

through the love of my husband that reflects His Own so powerfully;

through His Words printed on paper and planted deep in my heart.


and it was those fairy tales and stories that i stopped believing in so long ago,

but it is the truth and beauty of His Love that quickens my heart and catches my breath now.


and it's through both:

the shadow of dreams and tales juxtaposed next to

the Truth of His Love,

that i have learned...


a heart caught in the stranglehold of distress need never fear.

can your spirit hear it? 


The One named Faithful and True is fighting for you...

when it's not very loud...

i have stood on a frozen field with my face lifted up to a night sky alive and dancing with the blues and greens and purples of the northern lights.

and i have felt the awe of Him.


i have stood on the edge of the land beneath my feet and felt the crash of the waves of an ocean pounding deep.

and i have been shaken with the proof of His power.

i have listened to the wind whip itself into a frenzy, watched the black clouds above me swirl and green and form into the beginnings of a funnel that has one seeking safety.

and i have wondered for His mercy.

i have laid my body down 3 times and listened as another's heartbeat deep within me has filled the air that surrounds me.

and i have known Him as Creator.

but.

it's when harsh words have been loudly spoken,

when one of us is firmly planted in the hall,

the other braced in against the kitchen sink,

and pain flying in all that space between...


when i find myself on the floor of our closet,

tears pouring down and i hear that door open...


when he lowers himself

and brings us both to the same level;

when he says those words that break through the ice,

reaches out his hands,

asks me to look into his eyes,

and we forgive each other...


it's in those moments,

the ones void of lights and noise and movement...

the simple ones

that i come to know Him as

Healer,


Redeemer,

Friend.


and He is there

and so intimately close

in the hush of a gentle whisper...

sometimes...

there are times

and days

and moments

where the words become

small

and hushed

and few.

where moments gain momentum

and He keeps that door open

and ushers in something new.



it's those moments,

the ones where fear crowds in

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

when there is nothing else to do

in those waiting moments

but to become like daniel

and praise out the fear...

now when daniel learned that the decree had been published,

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

three times a day he got down on his knees

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

daniel  6:10-11

so, with trembling hands,

i do...

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

1170. olivia learning close

1171. the way tony tells me he loves me

1172. my gift of yellow daisies

1173. elias' favorite dump truck

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

1175. that beautiful, beautiful sky

1176. the floor of this house He gave

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

1178. voices of 10 children playing within these walls

1179. voices of their mamas

1180. his key in the door lock

1181. the forgiveness of a child

1182. this city that has become home

1183. the way He loves us through others here

1184. those old comfy shoes

1185. an apology that mends what's broken

1186. an unexpected dinner delivered by the dearest of hearts

1187. a fire in the fireplace just because

1188. lyla discovering I'll Love You Forever

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

i'll love you forever

i'll like you for always

as long as i'm living

my baby, you'll be...

when it's all wrapped up...

it's when tensions run high that i find myself in that tiny room just off of our garage.

when everyone is tired and dinner takes 2 hours to get through

and i just need to catch my breath.


2 days in and already the new year feels kind of like the old one.


but i turn on that light in my tiny little laundry room

and face the truth about the state of my heart these last four weeks.


as my sorrow grew, so did the pile of completely clean,

but most definitely, unfolded chaos and socks.


i reached in and pulled out a frilly tutu,

a pink ruffly shirt,

little socks that keep little boy toes warm...

the mountain of disorder was soon made right.


and she sends me a box in the middle of those days of december that cause the most pain.

all wrapped up in brown paper, i open it gently

because she gives with specific purposes in mind.


i pull out the bird all painted with blue,

given in the cold of december and holding balloons that burst out with colour.


and tucked in beneath it all

is a book.

one that is full of the pictures she took - 

full of the hope of the coming spring.


and as i dusted off the tops of my neglected laundry duo and reminded myself of why it's more than a room to do laundry...it's a room with the possibility to bless...

as i flipped through the pages and lost myself in the beauty of spring; feeling the hope that the new that He whispered really is mine for the taking,

i read this:

when the laundry is for the dozen arms of children or the dozen legs, it's true, 

i think i'm due some appreciation.  so comes a storm of trouble and lightening strikes

joy. but when Christ is the center, when dishes, laundry, work, is my song of thanks to Him, 

joy rains. passionately serving Christ alone makes us the loving servant

to all...when the eyes of the heart focus on God, and the hands on always washing the feet

of Jesus alone - the bones, they sing joy, and the work returns to it's purest state:

eucharisteo. the work becomes worship, a liturgy of thankfulness.

~ one thousand gifts

and i try and grasp this thought...that for the new to be made real this year, my heart needs to be bent in thankfulness towards Him...

so, i pull out a  new journal,

turn to a new page,

dust off the habit,

and begin again...

He's making a way, a new way, for these feet of mine to follow.


1135* a new moleskin filled with new verses to learn

1136* the yellow daisies placed around this house - the most wonderful gift

1137* hugs that love strong

1138* grilled cheese sandwiches

1139* that He still pursues my heart, even when i have been faithless

1140* a hard evening turned right around

1141* him, lost in sleep on that couch

when sorrow begins to turn...

they sizzle and pop in that pot on my stove,

those onions all translucent in butter.

and i reach for that old wooden spoon,

the one that he gave to his gramma that year.


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

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

and he engraves his name,

burns it into the wood all soft

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

he is still there.



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

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


we decorate the tree and name it george,

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

and i think of their papa

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

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

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


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

joy that i knew him,

that i was given the chance to love him,

joy that i will see him once again.


hope.

a precious word.

a word that continues to give.


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

His people shine like the stars around us,

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

and our family of 5 that found ourselves here,

alone and unknown,

is growing...

and the hearts that didn't have to,

 do.


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

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

is finding us home,

finding us healing,

finding us trying to love well

while being found loved well.

and a season that bears the mark of great sorrow,

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

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

do you know...?

i remember the very first time i talked to you.

the room was warm and sunny and i was a nervous wreck,

i was sure i would disappoint


tony handed me the phone and i'm sure what little sound you heard in my hello was lost in the airwaves somewhere between your home and mine.


but i remember.

i remember how you spun out stories of your life, of your marriage, of your children.

how you pulled me in and made me laugh and how that conversation ended too soon.


i remember the first time i met you.

you, so proud of your son with the diploma in hand and that cap on his head,

you stood there with arms outstretched to welcome me in.


you welcomed me in and added me to the many you already had.


you loved with the love of a father and you unlocked a part of my heart that i had hidden.

and you...

you were you and my world that was so complete with you in it has been left gaping since you made that choice to leave.


and i wonder, as you stand perfected in the presence of Jesus, do you know?


do you know that when i look into the face of elias, i see you?

when olivia laughs her sweet belly laugh and her eyes crinkle closed, i see you?

when lyla begins to sing every note to every song, i hear you?


do you know?

oh dad, do you know?

but do you also know of the way He is healing us here?


the question floated up from the seat behind me this morning,

the one that always seems to come up every other month,

the one that asks why they don't have a papa.


i pulled over because i suddenly couldn't see through the tears,

because i want to have an answer that is easy.

and the one left behind in your wake is anything but.

but i'm sure, you know that too.


i think of that moment we drove away to come and see you, 2 years and 1 week ago.

and how 14 short days later, everything fell apart.


and everything really did fall apart,

but the glorious truth of the matter is that what has fallen apart

can be built up again.


and here, where we knew no one when we traveled that long and tear-filled road to this front door,

He continues to pour out His Love onto this family left reeling in the loss of you.


i lost so much when we lost you.

i don't know if you know that.


but dad?

i am gaining so much in the healing.

that is something i'm pretty sure you would know.


i watched elias take off running down the hallway of our church tonight,

his eyes lit up and his smile grinned wide as he flung himself into the arms of a father here who didn't have to, but does.


and i think of how i will always miss you,


how my life is completely changed because of the eight years you loved me and the one day you gave up.


but changed for the better -

because you taught your son how to love,

and you taught this timid heart how to trust.


and how because of you, whether you know it or not,

we hold close the love He gives us through the ones He brings into our lives.


and maybe you know too, that the foundation that was so broken that horrible new years eve is becoming stronger, little by little...


the ashes are being gathered up in beauty,

 and the joy is coming back.


i love you dad.

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...

the month of here {day28}...when the words are hard to find

this post finds my heart undescribably full.

overwhelmingly so, that the words keep stopping and i keep restarting and still, still there are none that seem right.


God is so good.

there. these words are right.

because they ring with truth.


i filled up a basket this morning with one of the ways i feel most comfortable showing love.

i fill it up with food...

because He has filled up my heart.


and i wonder why He continues to show such love to someone like me?


my three run and play and laugh all afternoon here in the chill of a fading november.

i stand on the edges and watch,

overwhelmed by emotions and feelings that threaten to spill all down my cheeks...


i hold in my arms a sweet and gloriously round 2 month old baby boy.

i rock him and he sleeps close against my heart.

i look at the faces all around me, listen to the laughter, smell the good food and the question dances around the back of my mind,

why?  

i remember being so terrified when we made the decision to move.

terrified to start again 

terrified that He would forget about us.


so, it seems laughable that i question the blessing that He appears to be pouring out.


i meet her in the hallway before bible study this evening.  we walk down the hall and find 2 seats together.

that third seat sits empty beside us, as though acknowledging the absence of the one who couldn't make it.

and we listen and take notes and laugh about our lives and as we head in our own separate directions, that is when the tears begin to fall.


i remember that christmas tree last year, standing tall and bare in the corner.  the feeling of not being able to take down the decorations from the attic that were still packed away from before it all fell apart.  as though not releasing that air was the final grip i had on what was.

and that sweet friend came to the door with a bag holding precious ornaments...one for each of us and for our new home here.


He has been paving a way to here all along.

and at the end of that road, the one that led to this city in this state, He prepared the dearest hearts to welcome us in.


i sit wrapped up in a blanket pieced and sewed together by an aunt whom i love dearly and who meant it to be for my little boy.

i curl up underneath it and try to stammer out what it means to me that He would choose to heal me, us in this way.

and i can't, despite all the words above, i can't begin to describe what His wooing and proving of His Love means to this heart who still struggles to believe she's worth it.


oh, but i'm thankful.  so very, very thankful.

and i give thanks on this twenty-eighth day of this month that finds me here...and for His Love that reaches deep.

the month of here {day26}...my 600th post

i began this blog in may, 2006.

and like i've stated so many times since then, the purpose was to let those living far away join in on the journey we had begun when we became parents.

lyla was only 5 months old.


how can she be almost 6?


five and a half years worth of posts that hold everything from the ridiculously funny to the moments that ripped my life completely apart.


and He has been so faithful through it all,

even when i have screamed the hard questions at Him,

when i have been too distraught to pray,

when life has been easy and i forget how desperate my need is for Him,

even then.


i think of that tiny apartment where i first loaded those pictures,

of the six moves since,

of the 2 added babies,

and the love that has grown deeper.


600 posts ago, i never would have pictured myself here.


i don't think i would have wanted to picture myself here...


but as we drove around this evening, looking at homes all sparkling with lights, we looked at each other in wonder.


it still hits us, this feeling that we are home.

this feeling that after everything He allowed...

the hurt and the pain and what i thought was literally going to destroy us,


that He was right, those 11 months ago.

when i asked for a word for the coming year,

and He gave me two instead.


He knew the plan He had for our lives, plans to prosper and not to harm.  to give us a hope and a future.


i couldn't see it, back there in the middle of the pain.


i don't know if i could have seen it those 600 posts ago.

but i see it now.

i do.

and i give Him all the glory and praise.

and i give thanks on this twenty-sixth day that finds me here...and for His faithfulness through it all.

the month of here {day25}...dancing

it struck me today, in the quiet of this evening,

as little ones sleep and tony lies exhausted in our bed,

that it has been a year.


i've lived through a day that found itself nestled between this post and this one 12 long months ago.


for 12 months, i have sung the same lullaby over them as they drift off to sleep each night,

and each time the tune fills the room soft, i remember that dark,

and the tears that covered my face as the words warbled their way out of my mouth,

are you far away from home, this dark and lonely night...


my heart knew before my mind could accept it, the changes that were waiting on the horizon.


i remember the cold of those floors, that bitter prairie wind and the way my heart ached each day.



we piled into the van around noon today, drove down to surprise their daddy and be near him as he worked.


they position their chairs so that they can cheer for him loudly, smile big goofy grins and observe him while he works.

and when he steps off the floor for a brief 10 minute break, they run to him begging to be caught up in his arms.


his smile is breathtaking.


he catches my eye...

and he winks.


the sorrow was overwhelming those 12 long months ago,

i knew our path was changing

and joy seemed so far away.


but i looked up today, as his staff cheered for olivia...encouraging her to do her *rock n' roll* dance,

as they showed her their own dances as she buried her face against me...


i felt it.

deep in my heart,

joy ~ abundant and full.


there are places in us that will always bear the mark of the last 2 years of pain.

but He has faithfully gathered up what was shattered, not wasting any of it,


and as He rebuilds the broken, He binds it together with joy.


and that path that led us from there to here?

it finds us dancing under the song He sings.

and i give thanks on this twenty-fifth day that finds us here...and for the tears that led the way.