what the silence taught me

{my space, unafraid of clutter}
photo property of dramaticelegance

i've been practicing silence this week. i didn't press myself hard one way or the other, and i refused to let legalism be my governing force. i simply let myself sink down, down into the ocean-rushing.

oh, the things that happened when i stopped shouting and let the Light soak in deep.

we met a new place, a white cottage tucked into the urban wild. we put our names on a piece of paper and let the Lion prepare to sing us a new word :: home. and oh that space has potential, and my fingers can twist gently around the banister of a place called mine, and his, and ours, and His, too.

dearhearts, we're buying a house and making it home. 

the irony is, i finally found my space here. tucked between the kitchen sink and the front door, there it was. i think He was waiting for me to exhale, ending up with my forehead on the table with ink on my fingers and paint in my hair, before He slipped this new space into my grasp.

i learned to embrace
:: and i learned to sever. 

i learned to cut and rip and take something mysteriously called "whole" and make a new kind of wholeness from the pieces. there's nothing wrong with reaching out and finding the secret messages humming deep within a secret place.

oh, let us know Him.

His going forth is established as the morning;

He will come to us like the rain

:: hosea 6:3

{via pinterest}

i'm excited about August. the last month in our place of almost four years. it's a page-turning, a severing embrace. it's bittersweet, i'll admit. but oh, am i excited.

it's like i'm finally seeing the design among the broken pieces. because July was so deep and full of grief, so full of shattered bits that didn't feel smooth like seaglass but were jagged enough to gash and scar. but then i realized that there was something beautiful coming. it's a birthing, a labour in blood and
tears and even some breaking deep inside.

and then Life streams forth, and glory is born. i've been fired like molded clay, not made hard but made strong. a few feathers floated to the ground, but my wings are still beating strong in the wind.

the silence taught me to grasp tight while i sever. the silence whispered to me of strength. because He was not in the fire or the wind or the crushing storm. but that still small voice, that hush-holy selah...

the Lion found me in the silence and spoke a hard thing into my soul.

it is coming.
and i am eager to breathe.

sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet

confinement of your aloneness

to learn

anything or anyone 

that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

// david whyte :: sweet darkness \\