the long road home...

eugene and wilma moved out this past week.

they unloaded their house and hitched up their 5th wheel and sold their home to a young family whose u-haul is parked right outside their front door tonight.

we've got ourselves some brand new neighbours.

some of my walls still stand bare - we moved into these four walls 372 days ago and there are spaces that still baffle me.

it will come...

maybe.


and maybe home is close to my heart tonight because i don't necessarily know what the plan is anymore.


i think of all the times when i've demanded my own way of God. fighting Him at every turn - thinking that four walls meant stability and putting down roots meant being comfortable and safe and when i glance back at the road behind me, i can see the claw marks in the ground - the places marked with a desperation for control.

and they were bloody.

and they are still raw.

but if the scars have taught me anything, they've taught me to trust in a kind and tender Saviour.


what happens when the road to home doesn't lead to comfort and safety and tidy and clean? what happens if the road to home leads you deeper and darker into what pushes against everything that make sense?

we live on a quiet street with quiet neighbours and crickets that sing in the flowerbeds below our bedroom window. until this past week, our 4 were the only children on this road and the occasional grandchild who comes to spend the weekend at a grandparents house...

but then he takes that job on the street formally known as "the hole". where drugs and gangs and violence and drive-bys are the norm.

the year before? there was an opportunity to go down there, before tony ever took the position he has now, for a harvest party in "that" part of town and i shook my head - there was no way. no way i was taking my children into an area that unsafe.


i don't know what happened...when that shift occurred. when i no longer felt scared.  we go down almost everyday and most days down there are just like our days here in the middle.


there's a sign at one of the main intersections in town that splits *that side* from *this side* and each time i drive by it i feel torn...


it's a sign that is supposed to make you think, but what it does is make me sad -

which road are you going on? it asks:

the road to heaven - which apparently follows the road leading back towards mansions and comfort and the safe part of town,

or - 

and i always look at those words as i reach for the blinker that signals which direction i'm turning:

or are you on the road to hell?


well then,

i guess i'm on the road that leads to hell everyday.


and instead of wanting to escape back here at the end of a long day, i find myself longing to be down there. down in the hellish nightmare of a world i still don't completely understand. and both of us? we agree - it's where we are feeling led, but the timing? it seems so slow but our hearts are burning and if we are saying to Him that our lives are His...that where He leads is where we will go, then we wait with open hands until He clears the way.


and so my walls remain bare.


but the restlessness - it rubs my soul raw and i look around at closets that need to be sorted and baby clothes that need to be switched out...baseboards that should be dusted and light switches that should be wiped down and i get overwhelmed with the everyday...

and after a long week of doing i begin to feel overwhelmed with the list that shouts out the needing to be done.

saturdays have turned into a chaotic heart scramble and the day off we have as a family finds me twisted up in a knot taut and ready to snap.

before we left for the green of vacation last month i began to pray about our saturdays - about the heart messes that find their way into a schedule already heavy with the housework that needs to get done and as we drove further away and closer to rest it's what i kept sensing...

sundays are a day for sabbath - a ceasing of work and allowing our bodies to rest;

but could saturdays become a day for sanctuary? a space hollowed out to become hallowed - as i clean the nooks and crannies around me, could my spirit find a place to breathe in His Peace? could the day before the day of rest be redeemed and made holy too?


i'm tired of the striving.

to be honest, my soul is weary...His call to find solace and rest in Him? i wonder if i can really settle down long enough to see if it's possible - but i'm willing to try.


this saturday will find me bent over in a simple, most basic step...


i'll be lighting a candle - one in each room. a reminder that He is the True Light - the One Who shines brightly in the darkness that surrounds..

.the One Who is really and always my True Home...

to the woman-who-thinks-she's-a-failure...

i get it.

i really do.


and that one moment of failure?

it can have you locked still with your eyes on what's burning down behind you.


i sometimes wonder if that's why she was told to not look back -

that maybe it was because she'd never be able to look forward again.


and eyes that could see vibrant colours, a mouth that could laugh joyful, ears that heard the sweet voices of her children...

all crumbled to a salty dust.


and what all lay before her was no more,

what was behind her was drifting away in ash,

and the woman only known as lot's wife?

she stood frozen in the space between.



failure has this way of bringing out the worst in us - we either turn a blind eye and inwardly rot, or we remain glued to what was and become the hardened living and either way,

either way,

we crumble.


i get it.


moving forward, placing that one dragging foot in front of the other seems wrong.

that moving forward doesn't seem right, because you chose the foolish way and living out your faith seems a mockery because a christian should be better than you have been...


i've heard it,

i've cupped that poison in my own frozen hands and felt my hope and my failures drain me all away.



and there is a death that happens on the road from sodom to zoar, a death that happens in that broken place between what was and where you are heading to.


and that could be the end.

it could be.


except for Jesus.


please wait, because yes, it does seem too simple,

and yes,  you did mess up

and yes, you could have made a different choice...

but just stop for a minute,

you're already standing there frozen anyways...


Jesus.

let Him near?

let Him breathe over you, stirring your heart and that hope you let go of and fill your lungs up again.


breathe deeply,

because you are not defined by what you have done - you are defined by Whose you are and you,

woman-who-thinks-she's failed,

you are His.


and when you are His, with failures and brokenness and sin splattered all over you,

He only sees Jesus.

He sees the Holy One Who boldly took your place.


so take that step - that frozen, halting step.

move your foot forward and then move the other one too,

let the wind blow the dust of death off of you, because you are not some shell of a woman lifeless and without use...


you are His and He will use even the salt that caked your face dry to cause a thirst in some other parched heart

and you will find that what left you frozen will lead you to His water that never runs low.


you are not a failure.

you don't have to be stuck between what has been and the elusive what-could-be...


His heart is there, thrumming deep inside you -

it's time to start moving forward again.

come and hear, all you who fear God,

and i will tell what He has done for my soul.

psalm 66:16

3 gifts found in Christ
2118. sitting in the hot sun with a sister-in-Jesus, sharing our hearts over His Word
2119. relationships deepened
2120. when we have been with Him, others can see (acts 4:13)

3 gifts close
2121. his kisses in the warm sun
2122. teaching the girls to read all pressed in close
2123. the younger 3 tackling me in bed

3 gifts reflecting
2124. sleepy mornings in front of the fridge
2125. moonlight on grass
2126. remembering lyla small

3 gifts fragile
2127. gramma's ring
2128. lyla's heart
2129. the smallness of zeruiah

a gift cloth, steel, wood
2130. those dish cloths
2131. his commitment to us
2132. cherry trees all in a line

3 gifts moving
2133. that crazy strong wind
2134. her hand on my cheek
2135. days that speed by

3 gifts "ugly beautiful"
2136. a back that seizes - move slow
2137. a "from scratch yard" - endless possibilities
2138. sibling conflict - learning to work out the hard things

3 gifts orange
2139. deeauna
2140. robin
2141. those shoes on my feet. :)

3 gifts in dirt
2142. candy tuft. lots. of. candy. tuft.
2143. that one purple tulip
2144. new grass coming up

a gift given, made, sacrificed
2145. tony's promise
2146. our babies
2147. saying not to what i really wanted

3 gifts tasted
2148. the second cup of coffee - with a friend
2149. blueberry yogurt
2150. home-canned peaches

3 gifts flat
2151. fedex parcels arriving right on time
2152. made up songs by sisters in the back seat
2153. the folded laundry pile

3 gifts found in difficult people
2154. a strengthening in my spirit
2155. tony and i drawing closer
2156. to realize it's not a competition

3 gifts before 9am
2157. sunrise sightings
2158. early morning coffee
2159. the start of a journey

a gift in a sign, a smile, a snack
2160. that hidden inn on the mountain
2161. that they had intense children too
2162. strawberry icecream-on-a-stick

3 gifts found in Christ
2163. that i am found in Him
2164. i may know Him and the power of His resurrection
2165. my righteousness comes from faith in Jesus Christ

3 gifts about your home
2166. the light
2167. the improved kitchen
2168. that we are all together under this roof

3 gifts inside a closet
2169. a mess of hand-me-downs
2170. organized jackets
2171. all those canned peaches

3 gifts found in the dark
2172. soul-changing prayer
2173. cricket song
2174. cool breezes

a gift outside, inside, upside down
2175. a mowed lawn
2176. my kitchen ceiling
2177. that we are here

3 gifts about your parents
2178. married 40 years
2179. all those years of piano lessons despite my complaining
2180. raised me to love a wide-open alberta sky

3 gifts held in hand today
2181. 7 week old barney
2182. all of their hands at some point
2183. that rose - thorns and all

3 gifts found in your mother
2184. passed on her love of reading
2185. taught me how to iron a man's shirt the right way
2186. that her birthday was yesterday...

when it's hard to be still...

"be still, and know that I Am God,

I will be exalted among the nations,

I will be exalted in the earth!"

psalm 46:10

in light of tragedies and loss and and bombs and fear and all those unknowns...


sometimes it's okay to quiet.

to slow.

i don't think you have to know the answers,

though we would like them.

sometimes restlessness rages in because there must be *something* you can do...

and there are times for that.

but sometimes,

maybe the better thing

is just to sit in His presence.

to allow Him to quiet your heart from all those fears and from all the unknowns.


and maybe it's naive -

that mama and i talked in that playground last week,

we talked of those "what ifs",

what if, as we sat there on that green, a bullet flew and one of us died,

if one our children were struck,

what then?

and she said it quiet,

i would still trust Him.  i would. because i know where we are going and i know Who is in control.  but maybe that's foolish.  a lot of my friends think so...

and i looked at her and i shared what we've lost. i shared of that horrid new year's eve and the life we lost in the softly falling snow.  i looked at her and i told her that it's faith. it's trusting in a good God when everything else falls apart.

because when it all seems good, when everything seems to be going our way, that is precisely when we need to plant those seeds of faith...

so that when it all falls apart, when everything around us explodes in chaos and all those unknowns fly in the air around us, we can rest in His presence,

maybe not knowing the whys, but knowing, so very deep down, that He is good. 

3 gifts round
2058. mug of coffee
2059. crispy apple
2060. that dimple under her lip

3 gifts white
2061. clean teeth
2062. lazy, hazy clouds
2063. apple blossoms in those orchards

3 gifts surprisingly found
2064. kindred spirits
2065. matching socks
2066. common ground

3 gifts in His Word
2067. luke 10:22 - my name is in heaven
2068. romans 1:12 It is a gift to be encouraged by another's faith
2069. acts 2:28 - He shows us the path to life - being with Him is joy

3 gifts @ 11AM, 2PM, 6PM
2070. school chaos
2071. nap snuggles with zeruiah
2072. laughter at MH

3 gifts nailed together
2073. this house
2074. the fence the  neighbour fixed
2075. my desk

3 gifts waited for
2076. that abused dog we adopted - her tail finally wagged when she saw us!
2077. vacation plans finalized
2078. those cherry trees to bloom

3 gifts raising up
2079. 8 hours of sleep uninterrupted
2080. seeing beauty in our ashes
2081. watching the sun come up in the early nursing hours

a gift hiding, held, heard
2082. elias under his blanket
2083. zeruiah snuggled up in that ergo
2084. lyla singing

3 gifts opened up
2085. yellow tulips
2086. jar of salsa
2087. a book avoided too long

3 gifts budding/blooming
2088. our japenese weeping willow
2089. hyacinths
2090. those flowers hanging over our fence

3 gifts worn
2091. that circle of gold and diamonds on my finger
2092. skin stretched, changed
2093. zeruiah's tears

3 gifts bright
2094. date night
2095. all their smiles
2096. 6 AM morning light

3 gifts found looking up
2097. dark rain clouds
2098. the cross that points to hope
2099. tony's hope beyond circumstances

and it's in the little ways,

the small thanks that keep me quiet before Him.

He is here - even when it's chaos,

even when it's scary and we don't understand.

Jesus is here and i quiet my heart before Him...

(and huge thank you to Gravrock Photography for including our little family in the pictures at Madison House...a gift treasured.)

letting go...{day 30}

i started out to write 30 posts about letting go...

and my computer stopped a few - odd connection issues refused to connect and so i'd wait for a few minutes and then head to bed...trusting that maybe my silence was better than my words.


because in the silence, He worked in my heart.


and i don't think i've come to any earth shattering conclusions about what letting go truly means...because letting go isn't earth shattering.  we are called, as followers of Jesus, to lay down our lives, to pick up His cross and follow Him - and as my hands empty they simultaneously fill as i choose to do what He asks.

the purposeful act of letting go of what holds me back or drags me down or pulls me away is needed and continual but worth it because of the treasure i find in Him.


during this past month, i've finally joined the bandwagon and picked up this book and started to read. and it's these words that i read late last night that i keep coming back to throughout this day,

walking in genuine intimacy and full surrender to God requires great faith.

"what are you doing right now that requires faith?" that question affected me deeply because at the time i could think of nothing in my life that required faith. i probably wouldn't be living very differently if i didn't believe in God...

life is comfortable when you separate yourself from people who are different from you...that epitomizes what my life was like: characterized by comfort.

but God doesn't call us to be comfortable. He calls us to trust Him so completely that we are unafraid to put ourselves in situations where we will be in trouble if He doesn't come through.

francis chan - crazy love

to let go -  to truly let go of my dreams, hurt, pain, anger, unforgiveness and even wishing that i knew the why of some situations - is hard. it's messy and i seem to make a mess of it even more...

but throughout this month, the one thing i have kept coming back to - that everything always seems to come back to - i keep coming back to Jesus.

i keep coming back to the freedom found in Him when the only thing i'm holding on to is His grace.

so i stand at the edge of another december.  another holiday that is missing so many.  days leading up to the days that still hold so many questions and so much hurt.  and almost three years after the fact, after the shattering and the suicide and the most unhappy of new years, i am feeling the joy again, the anticipation of celebrating that moment when Emmanuel left His heavenly home, wrapped Himself up in our fragile, dusty skin and became God With Us.

And now, O Lord, for what do I wait?

My hope is in you.

(Psalm 39:7 ESV) 

so what do i wait for? do i wait for the dark days to overwhelm and discourage again - or do i push back by looking up...to Him?

because that is the only way to be able to let go, i think.

the only way to truly let go of it all, is by lifting up my eyes to the One Who bled grace on the cross and  clinging to Hope in Jesus with everything i have...

from their yard...

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

i was eighteen when she was born.

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

and how much Jesus loves them.


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

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

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


and it never will be.


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

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

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


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

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


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

He uses us ~ 

miracle in and of itself...


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

a letter for my three...

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

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


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

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

i've looked forward,

no...

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


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

but until then, we wait,


expectantly.


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

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

i understand those moments.

each one of us needs them.


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

expectantly.


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

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

yet...

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

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

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

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

expectantly.


i love you...

~mama

1537. brushing their hair in the early morning

1538. the light of a full moon

1539. feeling her foot against my ribs

1540. the way Tchaikovsky makes my heart thunder

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

1542. jonah and what he reveals

1543. expecting fall

1544. expecting Him

1545. a call to place Him first...

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

1547. victories, no matter how small

1548. tony

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

1550. that i breathe for 2

1551. that i eat and drink for two

1552. that my heart beats for 2

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

1554. that He orchestrates our lives

1555. none of it is out of His control

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

1557. the dog hair everywhere

1558. for the calming that mercy brings

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

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

what they forgot to tell me...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

they never warned me that my heart would break.

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

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

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

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

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

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

it's all around me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

sin permeates both sides of the tracks.

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

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

the big dipper.

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

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

to the broken.

when you weren't made for what you face...

it's as i'm driving home yesterday, turn right onto that loopy street when i look up at the temperature right there in the center of my windshield and about hit the brakes...

107 F.

mild, yes, for some parts of this country, but for me?  it made me whisper out His Name in a plea for mercy.


i keep saying it's because i'm canadian, despite the visa and the pictures and paperwork that are just one step closer to becoming amercian.  deep down, my roots have been planted deep in "the great white north" and over and over i tell myself that i wasn't made for this...



he fights the newest transition, cries and pleads to not be a big boy as the diapers are put away and the big boy pants are brought out and we sit for hours today in that bright and sunny bathroom, those cars he desperately wants, just out of reach.

we sing and clap and laugh and still...nothing.

nothing, of course, until he is in the kitchen and then, of course, accidents happen...but i begin to question that maybe i wasn't made for this...

and it's as that thought sneaks it's way into my mind today that another thought entirely counteracts what i have been telling my heart for years when things become uncertain and rocky...

but maybe you are...

no, the blood that runs through these veins may have found their origin years before me in countries like norway and scotland, ireland and russia.  and maybe, because of this, i will always long for -40 degree winds and snow that blows from the north just to steal your breath away,

but before He ever created me, before i was ever knit together in the dark and quiet, He wrote out my story.  every smooth surface and every detour that i have thought was going to be the end of me.  each mile my life will cover...and has covered... has been penned by Him first.

i may think that i wasn't made for the circumstances i face,

but He knows i am.


she placed the doppler yesterday morning on my belly that's starting to show and almost immediately that sound of a runaway heartbeat filled the room for a moment that was too short.

this one hears my heartbeat everyday...

all day.


and maybe ~ though, i could be wrong ~ all of the i wasn't made for this's could be quieted if we purposefully hide under His Wing and lean close against Him to hear His heartbeat that beats strong for His Own.

maybe...

because i think in the cadence we'd hear the promise that He created you and me because He has a plan, a purpose, that we get to be a part of...

and it will all bring Him glory.


so in the days and moments that you feel that you couldn't possibly have been made for this, dare to believe that maybe you have been.

.
because it's there, that promise of His that paul wrote down to calm trembling and doubting hearts, just in case you find yourself in the same place that my heart tends to go...

for we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for 

good works, which God prepared beforehand,

that we should walk in them.

ephesians 2:10

if He penned it, He knows the outcome.  

and He's given you all that you need for each moment that has you whispering His Name as you search for mercy...

when it's fading...

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

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


he knows me - stopping here shows this.


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

the lack of flowers shows this.

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


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


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

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


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

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

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

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

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



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


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

but Jesus.

and here is what my soul responded to...

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


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

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

colossians 3:3

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

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

with Him.

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 it's dark you can hear it...

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

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

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

i wasn't ready.


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

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


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

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

we weren't going back.

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

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

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


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

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

until two nights ago.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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


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

when 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.

dear dad,

it's on the days that decisions loom large and life throws us a curve ball.

when i stand on a floor not my own and my eyes fill as i look into the ones of my husband,

your son,

and watch him step up

and in

to the shoes that your feet should be here to fill.


it's on days like today when we need you


and you are no longer at the other end of that phone.


days like today when more than anything,

i wish i could say the words to you that i miss saying so desperately ~

i love you, dad.


and so i whisper them out loud,

to the air that is empty around me and trust that Jesus will let you know.

it's on days like today when grief blindsides

and i feel like i can't breathe

because i want to scream at something,

someone,

and beg you to come back.


because we weren't done needing you.


we weren't.


you would have been so proud today,

so proud of that son of yours.


proud of his mind,

his desire to make the right decision,

proud of who he is becoming.


i think you would have smiled at the way he wondered at what you would have done,

and i think you would have nodded when his decisions mirrored your own.


i think you would have laughed

at the three who bear your name.

the way they tumbled and yelled and drove their mama crazy.


you would have told me stories of the loudness of your own six,

you would have put your arms around him and i,

and you would have told us you were praying for us.


and maybe,

maybe we weren't done needing you.

and we will never be done missing you,

but He is near in these moments that are blinded with tears,

He is so very close when we feel lost in the vastness of decisions and choices.


and as i breathe out in the quiet of this evening that feels so heavy,

breathe out air laced with tears and grief and pain...

i breathe in the promise of His Presence ~

because when we are broken,

He is here...

in the sun...

i stay wrapped up in blankets this morning;

the sun pours in and i open up those curtains.


while the little ones sleep, i sneak into the kitchen and grab those plants that sit by the sink...

i carry that green in my hands and sit them in the sun.

and i watch them.

for an hour, maybe a little bit more, i watch them strain and straighten,

reach for the light beyond the glass.


i think of two cemeteries visited today ~

two different cities,

for two different reasons.


one grave filled,

the other being filled,


both surrounded by ones who love.



he talked of his dad on the way home from getting food for the fridge,

talked of what he learned from the one who raised him

and i got quiet sitting beside him.


he turned to me when i didn't respond,

asked me what i was thinking

and the words quivered out,


sometimes i wish he had made a different choice.



and it's those plants i think of for most of the day,

as graves and memories and tears run all together,

that it's here in the waiting,

in all of this waiting ~

we are striving,

straining,

reaching

for the Light Who is Home.


the tears that fall, fall because our hearts have loved.

they still love.


but i am learning, in small and simple ways,

that the way to find hope and joy in grief

is to turn my face towards the Son...


and someday,

some glorious, wonderful, amazing day,

there will be no more separation between Him and i.


all the striving and straining and reaching and turning that fills up this life,

this life that longs for Him but seems to always hit hard against the immovable unseen,


the barrier will be lifted and this path that leads up to that moment,

the one paved with tears and confusion and questions,


it will become the altar that i offer my thanksgiving on,

because all of this that this life is,

is leading me Home to Him...


and that which separates the seen from the unseen,

what allows these eyes to catch fleeting glimpses of His glory?

it only builds the anticipation...

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.