Monday, April 29, 2013

rising wild

i am a rare creature. i am a thing of wonder, a thing of push and pull and inhale exhale repeat repeat without even thinking.

it's the little and the simple parts of me combining to create something greater, something that even i cannot explain. something glorious and dangerous and precious that pushes on the edges of the world and reaches past to twist among the stars.
"'you,' he said, 'are a terribly real thing in a terribly false world 
and that, I believe, is why you are in so much pain.'"
:: emilie autumn 
but that's what growth is. it's pain, it's the push of life to emerge from beneath the thick rich-scented earth to burst through green and bright and full of promise.

a friend wrote two Aramaic words that rang in my soul for days after. talitha cumi. and i couldn't help but ponder these words and the Man that said them soft into the ear of a little girl whose breath had left her altogether. and then it came back. because He spoke it so. 

and that is the power of the cry of arise spoken by the One who vanquished storms with a word. they were simple words, familiar to the ear but strung together in a way that was far more foreign than it ought to be. it sinks wonder into my heart, but why? why should life returning at the word of the Son be anything but expected, but known, but anticipated with bated breath?

so i tie a string around my finger and remember.

this world is not where i belong, my hunger is for another place. a place where the wild and the wonder are the common and the expected, where the wind is the Breath of the Most High and the sun pales in the light of the One who spoke before time was ever born.

because i am the wild one, the daughter of more than grace, but of Water and Bread and Blood. a rare thing, a real thing.

bursting.
questing.
:: rising



Wednesday, April 24, 2013

fall fresh on me // avocado

{via pinterest}
i've always been captivated by the inside. by the stuff that no one sees, the painting underneath the varnish that was forgotten for a hundred years until one brave chisel flaked away the dark to show the light.

and it's springtime, or almost, and i'm watching as life is fighting winter every minute and every second to find its way out of the ground and into the blue sky world out here.

i saw a little girl find a feather the other day, and she smiled and held it up, and the silken strands were still so strong despise the wind and rain and squashy mud all around. and my soul picked up the feather too and tucked it in my hair, the little girl in my heart throwing back long dark waves of hair and laughing to the sky

Spirit of the living God,
;; fall fresh on me

and i'm starting to find God in the little things again, the things i forgot. and i know i've written here a thousand times about the beautiful ones, the almost hidden ones in the Bible, the ones He noticed that were invisible to everyone else.

it's the slicing of the avocado, that thick black shell melting away under silver to reveal the green of nourishment and the thick pit that holds life at even its tiny tight-locked core. and it's marvelous how much life can be wrapped up in something so wrinkled and unappealing to the eye.

sometimes i feel the pain of that knife slicing so smooth through the vileness that has built up around the life potential He placed in my heart of hearts. and it hurts so that i falter and weep and beg
{via pinterest}

Spirit of the living God
:: fall fresh on me

and then the green is seen, and the life tucked away deep within comes to the surface and blooms rich like springtime with glory and life shining from every pore. oh, how i ache to be radiant, to cover my face with a veil for the Light bursting from me to every corner.

now i feel infant fingers pull at long waves of my raven-wing hair, and i bring down my own fingers on the soft ginger gosling down that clings to the head of my beautiful little one. i think of future days when i will brush her hair and tell her about feathers and grace and the Light of the Son.

but for now, she falls asleep on my shoulder and lets loose the sweetest of baby sighs, and i feel something stir deep inside my soul. it's that little girl, tucking the feather behind her ear. she sits beneath a tree with the soles of her feet pressed together and elbows on knees.

and she whispers soft like the newcoming springtime breezes

Spirit of the living God,
:: fall fresh on me


Monday, April 15, 2013

upward gaze ::

{via pinterest}
i've decided to stop looking down
because all that's down there is grass and dirt and my feet and the path less traveled. 

and He's not underground anymore, because He's risen and now sits among the stars. and i'm going to spend my hours in the stars this spring. no more shame with downcast eyes and hesitant steps that aren't exactly sure, that aren't exactly steadfast. 

now that she's back in the atmosphere
with drops of Jupiter in her hair
she acts like summer and walks like rain
reminds me that there's a time for change ::
drops of jupiter // train

people are living on the "even the..." too much these days, while i'm rubbing the eraser over those words until they disintegrate into thin rubber strands on the paper and get brushed away as far as the East is from the West. 

i'm resolving and loving regardless. and that includes loving you in the skin you're in, and looking past sex and race and orientation because those are words but they're are who you are, too. because He didn't stop and pass out checkboxes just to make sure the crowds were lovable before He stretched out His arms and poured out pints and pints of redeeming blood. 

so why do i?

so no more looking at the crowds with pointed fingers, Church-Bride. no more figures where faces should be. see the dove daughters and rainbow hued sons and paint-streaked kings and offbeat queens, just like He did. 

and that means loving you too. it means loving me like i'm worthy of His death and rising and loving and sword to the throat of Hell for me, oh all for me. and for you. and them.

:: amen.
so let it be.





Wednesday, April 10, 2013

if you dare

it's the one about revelation. it's the one about life unrestrained and the stuff that comes along with it, day by day.

it's the one about renewal and restoration. embracing the challenge, living in the freedom we craved and received and now are almost too afraid to reach out and take.

{via pinterest}
i thew my hands in the air and said
"show me something"
He said
"if you dare, come a little closer."
stay // rihanna

and i'm digging in my heels and shaking my head back and forth because i'm afraid. but arrows have to be pulled back to fly forward, and so i'm releasing my grip and letting my head lean up with mouth open to taste the rain of His goodness and mercy. 

sometimes i feel like a collage, scrap paper pieced together like little girl dreams of this and that with glue sticks and glitter, except with bigger girl dreams that are just as fragile and just as deep.

it's like holding that match to newspaper, watching the flames expand and the statue turn from stone to new living skin and blood and breath. the thunder rolls like the churning mantra in my soul, and i find
my way to stomping and lifting my face to the sky.

if you dare, come a little closer.

hesitant on the water's edge, whispering, i'm thirsty...will You promise not to hurt me? 

and He says that He can make no such promise, but i come and dip my hand in the stream anyway because the Water is living and i am dying slowly without Him flowing through my body like liquid Light.  

:: because i begged Him to show me something.
and He did. 




{linking with dear emily where we rejoice in imperfection} 


Monday, April 8, 2013

ashes :: what wondrous love

{via pinterest}
what wondrous love is this 
oh my soul //
oh my soul //

i've been softly singing these words as i wander though my morning. it's been notes that have hung on my tongue since Saturday afternoon when i stood and watched as tongues of fire devoured my in-law's barns and vehicles. 

but the wind turned in the nick of a second and spared the house. melted slightly, scorched and warped slightly. whispers of what could have been, but were not. what wondrous love is this.

and now i find myself on my knees as i ponder what He let me see. i walk a line between grief and awe, of sorrow and wonder. because i'm learning first hand about refinement through fire, and seeing things that i never connected before. 

beauty from ashes, life from the ground's barest places. this is the thing He has been pushing on me in recent weeks. i have the firebird on my ankle, placed there the night that we remember His cry of it is finished

and He spared the house like He spared my soul, with His breath and His wind and the rain that came pouring down like tears as He saw the grief and wept Himself for love of His own. and as i walk through the ashes and embers and charred remains of wood and metal, i realize this more and more. 

{via pinterest}
deeper and deeper i am sinking into impossible Love that is almost wordless, inexplicably powerful except for when you experience something beyond yourself. 

He dwells within her
she shall not be destroyed.
::psalm 46:5

because my soul is something tucked away, and He lives in every corner of me, and i'm learning to let Him paint my soul His colours instead of mine, and gently mold me into something more beautiful than i could ever comprehend. and if that takes ashes and ink and clay and soot, so be it. 

and so i'm back to the words that i've been singing for three days. 

what wondrous love is this
// oh my soul
// oh my soul



Tuesday, April 2, 2013

:: brave looks good on you

{via pinterest}
i've been compelled by bravery in recent days.

i think it's because i'm learning more about my Jesus, more about this journey that He and i are taking. and i'm embracing the fear that might come, because it makes me lean against His chest more and whisper,

hold me, Daddy. 

i got a new tattoo on my leg this past week, the kind that hurts a lot more than you thought it would. but i closed my eyes and embraced the ache because it was a beautiful picture for me, spending my Good Friday with the low throb on my skin.

because He marked His skin for me, in a holy different way. and then He broke the bonds and rose up, up, the phoenix from the ashes of death with a resurrected Lion's roar.

I am the Resurrection.
I am the Life.
I AM. 

and so i have a phoenix of my own now. it's my reminder to be brave, to sing in the flames while holding the hand of the One, the Son of God. 

{photo by DramaticElegance}
it's standing on the Rock that is mightier than i, reaching out for the hem of the robe of the Broken Lamb. 

i won't lie, i'm more like Peter than i'd like to admit. the fearful one, shaking by the fire with trembling lips and eyes downcast to the ashes gathered by my toes. 

and i have to reach up and touch the marks of Love that track down His back, the holes through His hands, the ones that speak of the most incredible self-sacrificing Love. 

now i reach down to the mark on my leg, the red and black, the flames and the petals. and i smile to myself and whisper

:: be adventurous more often
brave looks good on you, dearheart.