in which He did not call us to be jerks

{photo by Jennifer}

there's a picture going around my newsfeed, a cartoon drawing of a bleeding man dressed in a rainbow shirt being bludgeoned by men holding Bibles. these caricatures were drawn to make us think, to draw the nodding heads and the "mmm"-ing and then "how true, how true" from those who identify as Christians. but I feel like it gets forgotten that the idea of the Sword of Truth being wielded like a butcher knife is more common, that we're good at passing out scarlet letters, carved into the chests so that they never forget they are sinners.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: they know us by the things we hate instead of by our love, and that's the opposite of the way He meant for things to be.

do you really wonder why they hate us? why when someone hesitantly says, "I'm a Christian," there's groans and eyerolls and muttering?  I've heard the laughter myself, heard the mocking voice of the ones trodden undo so-called holy feet. there should be something different about us, the ones who don "small Christ, wandering followers of the Rabbi" as our moniker. and unfortunately, there is something different :: the fact that we so often choose to us Truth as an excuse to cleave flesh from bone and then drag them by the hair to the foot of the cross.

you're forgiven and you're going to like it. or else. 

you want bluntness? you want transparency?

Jesus did not call us to be assholes. He did not bleed Himself dry to raise a horde of sanctified jerks, to lead an army of righteous indignation. when He said to turn the other cheek, He didn't mean by slapping one until the head bows in apologetic pain.

{photo by Jennifer}

it breaks me down when I think back to the hearts I turned, the way my own words sliced and my own hands slapped and my nails clawed frantic to make them see their sin. but instead, I scratched the corneas of their souls until things were blurred and tears streamed and they stumbled away into fog. I pray someone else came behind me and loved them better, loved them like He would have done.

sometimes I look at the story of the Crucifixion, the way they ripped His body into shreds and spilled His blood on the courtyard stones, and I think, maybe there's more of a picture there than at first glance. because that picture, it's visceral and holy and grace personified. but I can almost see Him looking up from beneath the thirty-ninth lash, thorns pressing into His skin, and maybe I can read His lips.

I took this already. I'm doing this for them, for you, for all. 
it's covered. it's taken care of, once for all.
please don't do this to anyone else.  

He died to make us alive, died to tear down walls and bring separation to a minimum. He cradled the broken ones closest, touched the untouchable, and laid the twisted paths straight. there is Truth we seem to forget :: this thing of grace, this thing of mercy, this thing of Love that passes through death's grip and into Life abundant.

and this, this is the marvel of marvels. 
that He called me beloved. 
{c.s. lewis}

inked and unfolded

{photo by Rachel}

I want to unfold. let nothing in me hold itself closed. 

for where I am closed, I am false. 

I want to be clear in your sight.

:: Rilke 

every time I get a new tattoo, people ask me why. in fact, it's become such a habitual thing that I immediately start to consider my why the second my body touches the artist's table. it's a holy experience for me, stepping from the wide open outdoors into the small shops with needles on the tables and art in its own right covering walls and bodies. 

on Friday, as I leaned back on the table with the leg of my jeans rolled up and the buzzing of the gun in my ears ringing like a holy chant, I could feel the reason, the why flowing through my soul like electricity. 

I get tattoos so that I never forget and so that I can never hide again. especially this one.

I've hit that point in my life where I'm actually willing to be transparent. actually, if I'm honest, I'm less willing to be this open as I am realizing that I am meant to be splayed wide, visible for all to see. 

it's a strange sort of untucking. 

some of it is smooth and easy, the way that skillful hands fold and refold and unfold crinkled paper to form a crane. most is awkward, a dissecting, a flailing akin to the way the fitted sheet pops off the corner of the mattress when tossing and turning and nightmares cling tighter than sleep. it's not as graceful as I'd like you to think, less ornamental and tidy than my carefully placed words might lead you to believe. 

the new words on my skin read simple and smooth :: we are all stories in the end. there's a reason I got these words, this quote from my favourite television show of all time {Doctor Who}. because my life is stories, everything about it and every aspect of me. I have steeped myself in stories, my story

{photo by Rachel}

and her story and our stories all merged together. it's something I can't avoid anymore. it's something that has followed me forever. 

but that's why I get tattoos. that's why I walk again and again into the place thick with the scent of ink and cigarette smoke and something else, something rising like sacred incense from the Holiest Place toward Heaven. it's wafting out through the tear in the curtain. it's a thin place, where the Lion's roar is clearer and His breath smells sweeter still. 

because if it's there, permanent, on my skin, I can never shrug it off and leave it on the side of the road. even when I get scared. 

these marks on my skin, this new one in particular, are my Ebeneezer stone. my place of help, my flesh-guides to remind me that I am called, that I am not hidden. I am unfolding, one smooth piece and one awkward flail at a time. and each of these marks are helping me remember. 

I am clear in Your sight. 

{inspired by a Story Sessions prompt. join us? there's always room for you here with us}

i want to tell you

{via pinterest}

i want to tell you my story. but i'm scared.

i want to tell you that my parents tried, that they were wonderful people who heard a word and let it twist inside the wrong direction. i want to tell you that i still love them, and they still love me, even though i'm still healing from some of their raising choices. i want to tell you that they're changing too, and they're not the people they used to be anymore either, that they're beautiful people with His hand-print etched deeper than it ever was.

but i'm scared.

i want to tell you that i grew up in purity culture where modesty was more important than personhood, where my worth as a woman was measured by the length of my skirts and the height of my neckline. i want to tell you that i followed blindly because i was too scared to take my sunglasses off inside the Church.

but i'm scared.

i want to tell you that i courted my husband and we have so much regret from the way we were guided into love. i want to tell you that i look back and i think, why didn't i just kiss him a thousand times before i finally took a breath of courage, and why did the fear have to come so strong afterward? i think, why didn't i press that Joshua Harris book back onto the shelf and whisper, it's okay. i'm going to hold his hand and we're both going to chase the Lion instead of legalism...why didn't i?

but i'm scared.

i want to tell you that i found a way back into love surrounded by a tribe of women who helped peel the duct tape off my mouth that the well-meaning Church slipped over my lips when i wasn't looking. i want to tell you that i've sobbed my eyes out for the nearly twenty-one years lost in blindness before i dared to look straight into His eyes and whisper, i don't know You. but You know me. 

{via pinterest}

but i'm scared.

i want to tell you that i realized that i was a Jesus feminist when they placed my daughter into my arms and i looked at her face and thought, i can't let her endure what i did. i want to tell you that stepping out as a feminist was like my own personal closet with helpings of shame and grief that came alongside the breathing.

but i'm scared.

i want to tell you that i love you. i want to tell you that i love Jesus. i want to tell you that i see Him as a Lion because He isn't safe, and i can't do safe faith anymore. i want to tell You that i'm messy, and so is Jesus, and that's why i can lean on Him so fully, because i'm not afraid that me will rub off on Him. :: if anything, He's rubbing off on me. 

and like i've said, i'm scared.

but i think i'm going to tell you anyway. because He has made me a wild thing, a lioness renewed with the wings of an albatross at her back.

*deep breath* 

standing with the five

{via PerceptiveArtista}

two years ago, a soul-sister reached through the letterbox and pressed a book into my hands. the title spoke a name so often spoken with accusing acid within the church :: Havah {Eve}. 

i got lost inside that book. it wove a familiar story into a new pattern and wrapped itself around my shoulders as i wept. it's always the way when you're reading something well-known, where you know the ending like the back of your hand, but somehow, you think if you beg a little louder, things will change. 

:: but they never do. 

she's one of those women that gets a lot of grief from those of us who have carried their stories in our pockets from the early Sunday School days. we point 21st century fingers back with 20/20 vision and wag them back and forth with clucking tongues. tsk tsk tsk. she should have known better. 

all we see is the bite-mark, the belly curved with her father-in-law's unborn twins, the rooftop bathtub. and so we toss our heads and murmur, we can learn from them. we must not do what they have done. i would have never...and we find our paths crossing with modern day women just like us, just like them, and we cross to the other side of the road. 

but we leave the biggest part out :: the mother of He. 

nothing they did erased the lineage of the Lion from their blood. nothing they did made them untouchable or unworthy in the eyes of the One who would one day touch the hand of the broken, bleeding, unclean ones and whisper daughter. 

{via PerceptiveArtista}

you will hear thunder and remember me, and think: she wanted storms. 

the rim of the sky will be the colour of hard crimson. 

and your heart, as it was then, will be on fire. 

:: Anna Akhmatova

a wise friend of mine spoke to my heart this week :: how can we love the ones we avoid? and it made me gasp aloud. i see so much of me reflected back from the eyes of these scarlet-lettered ones. but He tugged and tugged at the sewn-on letter and let it unravel, wild and loose, and tied a scarlet thread into their hair so that the world can see their eyes. 

there is so much existence in Him. i've said it before, and i'll say it here again because i cannot remove this reality from my heart. He is not a statue of marble, rigid and cold. He is breath and blood and Light and Wild. He is touchable-sacred. 

i'm finding my place at His feet, curled up against His warm side. there's me, and there's the five women from His line with their woven stories wrapped around their shoulders. and there's you, too. 

i am telling my Story. 

right beside theirs. 

sufficient wildness

it's official. i've decided that this thing of being gutted is apparently what i'm supposed to be doing. i never intended for my thrashing journey to become this public, this observed by the world around me. in some respects, each post i've written and each personal snapshot that i've shared has caused me to withdraw, to pull back into myself and against His wild mane.

it's not that i'm withdrawing fully. if anything, i'm drawing close for shelter, for comfort. it's remarkable how my path is straying closer and closer to the Lion's keep while those around me seem to feel the need to pull me back to the "right path." it's answering my questions, in a funny sort of way.

there are words that He spoke, words about a gate and wide and narrow paths. someone recently spoke to me on a friend's Facebook post about wildness and Christian mysticism, and i made a remark to this stranger who was taken aback that God might just have wild things.

i've quoted Lewis before in this place, and i'm going to say it again because it's the epitome of what i believe :: safe? of course He isn't safe. whoever said anything about safe? but He's good. He's the King, i tell you. 

do you know when you walk a wild path behind a wild Lion, you're going to get dirty? and there's going to be leaves in your hair and blisters on your feet and stained berries in patterns down your arms? and there will be tears in your eyes, but they glisten and reflect the light right back, so you're never blinded. He has a bottle for each drop, and He keeps it close. not to look back and gloat in your suffering and your weeping, but to work into the watercolour palate and smear them across a canvas :: see, I am doing a new thing. 

the more i write, the more fingers point, telling me that i'm not "doing faith" the right way. i've sat on those words since the minute they were spoken to me, agonizing and pacing back and forth within myself. i was at the water's edge, panting from self-exertion. i started to wonder, to worry, how could i love Him and still please all these others around me.

it simply wasn't working.

and that's when i discovered that His mane was wild with a few dreadlocks of His own. there is so much existence woven into Him. somehow, i keep forgetting that He is Man as much as He is God. His growl echoes in my heart :: if you had felt sufficient, it would have been proof that you are not. 

and so this withdrawing is not hiding. it's not an attempt to get my clothing in a line and my shoes on the right feet and my face appropriately hidden. oh no, it's allowing Him to breathe Life into my lungs and to refuel me in a way that only He can.

i'm still thrashing, diving deeper and splashing until i'm soaked, even to the ends of my hair. and i'm going up the path, riding on His back, inhaling the wind.

and the path behind is littered with broken chains.

permission to chase {page seven}

it came again, the silence. that breathing calm after the storm that often follows a bursting of bravery. the words -- my own words, those from the lips of others -- have been burning deep within me, a fire in my bones.

i've felt a little unravelled and a lot vulnerable. i opened my heart to the world in my last post, gutting myself and pouring out my grief toward the broken Church like a drink offering on the ground. so many thought i was dropping the title of Christian into the mud and making a point to stomp and grind my heels against it until there was nothing left. 

:: but that wasn't it at all. instead, i took the moniker and set it loose on the sea, like a message in a bottle, a page out of my Story. 

i want to reach out and take the hand of every person who wrote me harsh or concerned or confused. i want to draw them into my arms and whisper, i'm scale-shedding. i'm not leaving Him on the sand. on the contrary, He and i are wandering the beach together. He's not afraid of wandering. 

 i am the lover and the loved, home and the wanderer, 

she who splits firewood and she who knocks, a stranger in the storm.

:: adrienne rich 

those words up there, they epitomize this thing i'm doing, this thing i'm letting Him do. i'm letting Him strip me down, bare and scandalous. He knew the scars were there, but i'm letting Him see them. i'm dropping the arm and letting the tears fall. my eyes are closed, yes, but the arm is down. 

i said before i was tired. when i was young, there was this slogan, this little smiling fish swimming the opposite direction of all the other frowning fish. go against the flow. but i couldn't help but look at that little fish and wonder, aren't you tired? 

i always thought the point was that He lifted off the too-heavy yokes, stripped away the heavy chains that were exhausting to drag around. He never wanted to trade one weight for another. 

Mandy etched words in the front of my copy of Thrashing about with God :: to the one who chases Light and makes space for sacred selah. we've never met, but she breathed those truths over my soul like oxygen, and i'm gasping, even though i had no idea just how empty my lungs were. i'm breathing in the Holy, the Wild, the Spirit, the Lion's Breath. it's all my soul can handle. 

i feel like my spirit has dreadlocks, twisted knotted things of beauty cascading down that i'm just starting to appreciate. but the well-meaning Church keeps pressing a comb into my hand, whispering, you're knotted. go straighten yourself out and come back in. you'll fit better. 

but i'm drawn to the One that's beaming Light down into my soul, the One who broke my chains and turned me wild and fierce. i'm running, flitting, chasing after Him.

and i can hear His voice on the wind,

I like your hair. 

permission to not be a Christian anymore {page six}

{photo via dramaticelegance}

i've been sitting on what to write in this post for more than a week. i was so excited when i wrote my last post, so excited about my own bravery to share pieces of my story, that i wanted to share more and more and more. and then the brave went away, and i sat in all the silence. 

because i've come to a realization over the past several months. it's something beyond what i ever thought i would acknowledge :: something i never thought i'd be brave enough to say. 

i can't be a Christian anymore. i just can't.

and i know those words cause a certain level of discomfort to billow up in the stomach of those Christians who read them. there's something that sits wrong, the instinct to grip me by the shoulders and say, no, wait, no, don't say that. that's not right. don't do that. don't say that. 

but before you throw a rock at me, ask me what i mean. ask me what i'm giving up. because honestly, it's not Jesus that i'm giving up. not by a long shot. i refuse to give Him up. 

but i'm giving up my supposed white robes and taking the Israeli dirt covered one instead. i'm spending time with the unclean ones instead of the ones that whisper. and I'm picking up the lame ones that the Church has hobbled one too many times. because i feel like the Church is locked in this childish game, the one where fingers grasp an arm and connect hand to face over and over with the chant, stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself. 

and then they wonder why the bruised ones don't return.

it makes me cry, hard and long, a keening wail into the night. i feel so like Him in these moments, screaming, oh God my God, why have You forsaken me? because i feel so alone, like i have love smeared all over my hands but everyone else is afraid to get the stains on them.

it's that word, that strange word that has become so warped and twisted. they will know us by our love. it's written there, in black and white. but why do they know us by all the things we hate? the laundry list of the things Christians won't touch is too long. it's like whiplash, what i'm allowed to eat or drink, where i'm allowed to shop. because we should be making a stand, right? they should know that we don't give money toward this and that and the other thing.

but instead, i'm closing my eyes on the deck of the ship, and i can hear the roaring of a dragon. it's me, with scales on the ground and skin ripped and bleeding. and He has claws and eyes...piercing, calm, quiet eyes. and He's tearing, and rending, and gashing, and i'm getting smaller and smaller and smaller still.

{via pinterest

the point of being with Jesus is not to be made bigger. the point isn't to be seen on the streetcorners with signs of broken bloody babies and screeching murderer into broken lives. the point isn't to grasp the arms of the ones with rainbows on their cheeks and glare into their eyes to make sure they know that they're sinners and we hate them.

and people on the street are catching my arm. do you know Him? do you know Him? and i say no, i don't. but He knows me. and He knew me before i was the Christian definition of desirable. He knew me when they dragged me out and flung me in the dirt. and He wrote in the dirt and they walked away in silence. He knows me. 

i'm tired. i'm so tired of being forced to act like i know Him, all of Him, every in and out and twist and turn of this thing called Christianity. if this is what Christianity is, then that's not a title i claim. i claim one thing, and one thing only.

i'm still thrashing. but i claim Him.
and He claims me.

permission to not have answers {page five}

i realized something today. i realized that i've been talking so much about all the permission i have found in telling my story :: but i haven't really told you any of my story. which is actually relatively funny, seeing as how i've become more and more free with sharing my story with the world in recent months.

there's a certain level of fear that comes with telling my story. it takes bravery to stand up and stammer out, i grew up Christian because i was supposed to, not because i chose Jesus above everything else. it takes a strange amount of courage to admit that from a very early age, i was that person, the one that gripped people by the throat and dragged them to the feet of Jesus whether they wanted to be there or not.

i made sure they knew they were sinners. i made sure they knew they were going to hell. that is, unless they became Christians.

i remember the girl in the department store, the one that i cornered at the age of five and asked, if you died tonight, do you know where you'd go? and then came the words that scarred the little missionary in me for a very long time :: uh, yeah, why are you asking crazy questions? 

that was my persecution, i was sure. and so i soldiered on, relentless in my pursuit to change the world for Jesus. i was on fire. or rather, i thought i was on fire. but i had no idea what i was doing. i had no idea what i believed. well, i believed what everyone else around me believed. i knew what i was supposed to think, and that was what i thought.

it wasn't until i was seventeen and i experienced the quietest moment of my life that things started to change. and it wasn't until even later still that i received permission from myself and from the One who sees me to question everything. i never would have dared to even think the things that now are the mantra of my entire existence.

{via pinterest}

not too long ago, a precious soul-sister sent me beautiful words, etched in paint and ink, that i have held close from the moment my eyes first beheld them :: He is not threatened by your questions. i grew up in a place where my questions meant my faith wasn't sure, and that wasn't okay. i was just supposed to trust, to lean, to go with what i knew, and knowing equaled faith.

there wasn't any mystery. there wasn't any wrestling. there weren't any questions.

except i had a lot of questions that didn't have answers. i didn't understand why those around me shouldered these heavy chains and walked with their heads down, murmuring about joy in their souls but with such strange oppression on their faces. this is what God says, they chanted, this is what we must do. but they wouldn't touch the broken ones that lined the road. and they looked me in the eye and held out their hands to me, Christian me, church me. the one that fit.

and then i had to wonder, what if they knew my story? would they hold out their hands then? because i know what i was, before this strange thrashing freedom came, and i would have crossed to the other side of the road. 

and it was then that He made Himself known to me, this strange Voice that loomed out the darkness.

:: dearest daughter, I have known you long. 

and this Voice, this Lion...He didn't seem threatened by my not-knowing. in fact, it seemed to fit. because He wasn't safe, which felt so foreign. He was supposed to be safe, to be full of facts and thick black lines, and there weren't supposed to be any questions.

but i had so. many. questions.

{via pinterest}

and i found myself standing on the edge of the sea, feeling the spray from the waves soaking every inch of me, through to the skin. and He murmured, deep into my soul, oh dearheart, I know there is a sea of questions. but I AM the great bridge-builder. and I can wait for you forever. 

i've never felt so fragile, as though a wind might knock me over. but then, i've never felt so free, as though i'm riding on the back of the warmest, wildest One i've ever known. i still have so many questions. but answers are slipping in, finding their places, one little scrap of wood at a time. and slowly, a bridge is forming.

i am fragile. the wood is strong.
and i can feel the flames building inside me again.

{this was written as part of a synchroblog to celebrate the release of Addie Zierman’s book When We Were On Fire. i'm honoured to stand beside her and a thousand others as we speak our stories, share our pieces. won't you join us?}

art is for you

{via pinterest}

i remember the first time i saw the ocean. i was a little girl, landlocked from birth, with a swimsuit that matched the ocean and short hair hacked by even younger hands. and my soul inhaled the salty air and murmured,

:: i am home. 

it takes diving into a pool and sinking down to rise up into the place He sang into Life. it takes cresting the ocean's wave to even catch a glimpse of His eternal country. there's something powerful about this idea, that it takes deep immersion until all you can see is the Light hovering on the surface of the water from down below.

we are all soul-creatures, made to be seen, 

created to be tenderly cradled and adored, 

yet we tremble at the thought of it.

love like water :: wild rain

so often i wish i had a mermaid tail tucked away in the closet, shimmering and waiting for me to slip inside and dive into the sea :: to return home, in a way, to a place that i never truly held but always flowed through my fingers.

i think it's part of why i've gone back to being an artist in recent days. it was something i had given up after comparing myself to others who were "better" even though all we were was different. i was seventeen when i put down the brush. all it took was an art teacher's slightly raised eyebrow and the words, maybe art isn't for you. 

all i can do is reflect back on words i've written before :: it's those moments in the dark where we wrap our arms around our knees and kneel within ourselves to the waves of crashing Love that threaten to overwhelm us. it's a tremble, not a cringe. it's a breathing, not a hyperventilation. 

{sketch by alexandria for dramaticelegance}

this is for me. and my mermaid soul is seen by the One who wove kelp into my hair and called my soul to love of depths.

there is a seacove of my own, tucked gently beneath the waves at the edge of Aslan's Country, that place that hums a familiar melody and whispers of one day, forever. there in that place is a set of paintbrushes made from the mane of the Lion who gave it up for me to Live freely. 

it's a metamorphosis of sorts, a shedding of the ugly and the embracing of the mantle of glory.  it's stepping away from the shadows that confines my feminine soul into certain boxes that aren't allowed to stand here because it might not be right. 

it's being brave and letting down my hair. He promised to come to us like rain, and like water does He fill my soul to overflowing. 

and this is where i am :: tucked in my cove surrounded by sisters of soul and ocean, the crash of the ocean and the roar of the Lion harmonizing tender. 

because He promised
art is for you,
My mermaid daughter. 

// releasing all over again

{via pinterest}

i used to blog every single day.

before the season of my life when i was pregnant with our daughter, i was hitting publish every single day. and it was less because i was prolific, and more because i had a simple selfish goal in mind: i wanted to be famous.

at the time, i was barely out of my teens {which, if you want to be technical, i'm still barely out of my teens} and was shuffling my way around the youth blogging world. and let's be honest, there are some amazing young bloggers out there who are really putting their voices out there.

and of course, i wanted to be just like them. i've wanted to be a famous writer my entire life, and i suppose i thought, if i can't get a book published, i'll put my blog in the limelight instead.

but i lost myself somewhere in that process. i can remember staring at the laptop nearly sobbing with fear :: i don't know what to say. i'm out of words. but i have to write. 

my pregnancy which started out my 2012 spun me for a much needed loop. and down i came from my self-constructed pedestal , striking a lot of rocks on the way down that rocked me to the very core. my husband calls it the demolition. i call it the dark night of the soul. my wrestling with the Most High.

:: it was here that i started to find my voice.


the poet-king wailed his psalms, his poetic voice. and like David, wrapped in a cave in the side of a mountain, i started to strum my soul's strings and things started to come out. scary things, things that intimated me, things that made me want to shut down and give up.

but something told me not to do it, that maybe there was a purpose in this little internet corner that was about more than being famous, that was about reaching out and smearing warpaint on the cheeks of those who needed to know there was more, that they were more....and that they were seen. 

there is a gush of sacred, an embracing of selah, and the screaming wailing war-cry akin to giving birth. because it's a hard process, and it takes incredible strength. and it's okay to reach out, to take the hand of a soul-doula and press your forehead to hers and let it pour.

maybe it's not about the amount of words i can pound out in the space of a week. because i've started to find my groove, less posting but more writing. my word for 2013 was release, a word that i did not fully understand until these past couple months. a word that has been gripping me by the heart and speaking in the voice of the Lion that i adore

:: let. the eff. go. 
release to Me, you lioness.  
because I promise, I have not failed you yet.

and i've started to exhale, feeling all of me unclench and the surrender coming like a broken dam that brings a lot of tears and a lot of clinging to the One who is counting every single drop. the One who is seeing my awakening and is stroking my hair while i let it all go.

the King of Kings is holding back my hair.

and i'm not done yet, not by a long shot. i'm still working on my book, a dream that i have never given up. i have a brand-new jar of warpaint and a beautiful tribe with their hands on my shoulders.

and i'm ready.

the gasp :: much

{via pinterest}

 {over the next several weeks, maybe even months, i will be writing here and there from elora's thirty days of prompts. this is something that i have never done before, something raw and fresh and gorgeous and potentially painful. so please, be gentle with me. you can find all posts i have written from these prompts here}

:: in what ways have you found your way out of the depths? where is your appreciation and sensitivity? what makes you beautiful?

oh, to ponder these words above. what makes me beautiful? from what depths have i climbed? but, to speak of that would be making myself oh-so vulnerable. and that might be where the beauty is hiding, tucked away in the tender wrappings of a heart so easily swept under. 

i used to think that being broken was ugly. not in other people, you understand, because their broken pieces made breathtaking mosaics and all i could was stare in wonder. but my broken pieces were fragmented, distasteful. my being broken was ugly.

but then there was this metaphor, one that i've had in the back of my mind all my life but only recently jogged into remembrance :: that picture of a woman with a hand over her mouth, eyes wide as though she wanted...needed...to speak but could not. and then there was a whisper, what if that hand is your own?

and then a poem found its way into my fingers from the heart of a friend. words that made me catch my breath because they related to my soul. 

because the soft season will come

it will come 

loud

ready

gulping

both hands in your heart

up all night

up all of the nights

to drink all damage into love.

:: therapy // nayyirah waheed

{via pinterest}

it sank in like water to the most-parched soul and i realized. my soul is trying to drink it all, reaching up my fingers for selah merging with beams of Light streaming from the eyes of the One who stopped and spoke into the pressing crowd, someone touched Me. 

i'm only twenty-two, told often that i have not experienced enough life to know pain, to appreciate what it means to wait and experience and cling to something. i won't pretend that i know, but i know my share. and it's not a competition as to who aches the deepest or who needs the water the very most. what makes me beautiful is my past, my broken cobblestones and the scars on my toes from trying to climb a mountain with bare feet. 

but i reached and i gasped with eyes wide and pleading, fingers clutching His robe while His eyes meet mine and whisper, you love much, and you are forgiven much. 

and so i'm gently gathering the jagged and the broken and the cracked into my pockets and laying them out like sea glass on the sand. my heart is there, twisted like wrought iron and molded like clay. and there's a word there, humming soft with Lion melody to mingle with my soul's gasping inhale of Light. 

:: much. 

tribe :: being seen

{via pinterest}

i think i have found the most beautiful word :: tribe. 

and honestly, it's a word i used to hate. there was this movie we watched when i was younger. i don't even remember the name. but this woman called her children "the Lacey tribe" and never told people all their names because "life is short and time is precious."

and it made me feel strange, unsettled, even when i was eight. because why wouldn't time be precious enough to list off your own children's names? why lump them into this vile thing...this tribe?

and then i realized something for the very first time, just yesterday, at almost twenty-three years old :: being part of a tribe is about being known.  to take the idea and make it about being identity-forgotten, to strip away the you-light from this candelabra of tribehood, is to destroy the very essence of what it is to be.

because the Lion sang tribes into existence from the soul of the man who wrapped himself in fur and lied, who worked fourteen years for love, who dared to wrestle in the hour of his unknown. and from him there came twelve, and from one came the One. and there is something so precious, so unique about each tribal voice that led to the breathing of the Most High.

being in a tribe, finding your circle and your family of exhale :: it's about being see. it's about gazing and locking eyes with another, the brush of fingers over your cheek to leave a soft painted blessing on your skin.

{via pinterest}

// because you're seen. 

it's not about being smooshed into some sort of grey-hued mass where you blend in, where you simply are. it's about the circling of arms around you as sisters braid your hair and wind your neck with colour. and there in the caves with the soft lap of the water against the stones, the light flicking and the Light flowing from He-Who-Sees gathered in their midst. 

we see you, unique one. 

we know your name. 

and i know theirs. because i'm their family, and they are mine. and we take the time to see their lives and call each soul by name. just as the Lion who sang the stars, one burning flicker of light at a time, and whispered their names in the darkness. 

dearest daughter, 

I have known you long. 

moon-howler // be still

{via pinterest}

daughter

be of great courage

for your faith has made you whole.

i forget He said that.

it's funny, the more i pour through familiar words, the more i'm okay with passing them by. maybe because they whisper a little too close for comfort, maybe i'm afraid of what they say. 

am i afraid of being made whole? 

am i too comfortable with brokenness? 

because being healed takes more work than maybe i want to invest. maybe this thing of building wings while falling is too scary...too many of the "what if's" clouding my eyes like midnight fog on the windshield making it hard to see through the night.

after all

i might drop the feathers

howling at the moon is a brave thing, but what if my voice cracks? what if i'm less of a Lioness and more of a kitten on a rain-soaked back porch? the scars make a pretty picture, but they tell a story too, and what if i don't like the words they speak? 

:: because if i start, then i have to finish. 

{via pinterest}

oh

He will fight for you

you need only be still

so sometimes you have to leave your shoes somewhere in the blackberry patch and just run out in the soft dew-damp grass. because you have wings hidden in your hair and stars in your eyes, and the Son who made the moon wants to dance with you because you're His lady-love. 

and He'll hold your hand while you howl at the moon, brave-hearted beloved, fingers curled against His pierced palm while He sings His song in your ear. 

the world might whisper 

do you know Him? really?

and i sing

He knows me.

trying on shoes

{via pinterest}

i'm walking a mile in your shoes. it's a hard thing to do. it's stepping out of the comfortable, away from the familiar and the normal.

but it's something we've forgotten to do, even as Christians. our greatest commandment is love Him with everything, the inhale and exhale, the lightbeams from the ends of our fingers and from each strand of hair. 

but that second one. why do we have so much trouble? 

love your neighbor ::

and don't try to ask the question the man at the fire asked, the one i'm never sure if it's heartfelt sincere or hesitating sarcasm. i can almost see that gentle look in His eye, the one that i'm sure that He wears often. the look of sorrow, the unspoken, 

oh child, can't you see Me? 

because 

your neighbor is everyone.

it is those that we have made untouchable, unlovable. the wallflowers and the window-washers. the soiled doves, the bastard sons.because the noblemen sat at the table with upturned noses and gags held back in the throat at the distaste, at the horror, at what kind of woman was touching Him. and He reached down and touched her back. 

i'm aching at this church, this city on a hill turned smudgy and dark because we're content with only tending to the pretty candles and letting the other ones burn out alone. 

He washed their feet. down on His knees, a servant Messiah, He took off their shoes and got their dirt on His hands. 

so i'm trying on your shoes, and my toes are a little squished in some and my feet too tiny for others. and my eyes are adjusting to seeing through your lenses for just a minute. because i want to understand what He did. i want to see your world through your eyes, through His eyes. 

i want to stop in the street because i felt the power. 

someone touched me.

{linking early with emily to celebrate LOVE}

kumbaya

{via tumblr}

it's more than three syllables, more than a simple campfire chants with guitars and jean shorts. it's more than that.

:: kumbaya. 
come by here. 

it's the word my soul speaks in the darkness when i'm reaching out into seeming nothingness and i'm empty and the dark night of soul is pressing in tighter and tighter.

:: kumbaya

it's the dance of the soul bathed in light as joy comes bringing in the morning with a laugh and a whisper of better things, beautiful things made new like He promised.

:: kumbaya

it's a silly song, one that every little child can sing by the time they've seen five summers. the words are used to mock, even, those who seem to want to lower weapons and hold hands across enemy lines. but it's more than that.

{via pinterest}

:: kumbaya
oh Lord, come by here. 

it's the rings in the tree, repeated and widened year after year. it's that knitted line in the scarf, threads woven by hand that speak of love when wrapped around neck and palms. it's the sacred footsteps of the seeker who has nothing left, the nomad who wanders the desert to find the spring of water and sits in the shadow of Him that sees.

for I have stood in the presence of the God who sees me.

kumbaya.
a word transforming.

it is come by here, Lord. it's a little girl crying come find me, Daddy. 

and El Roi, the God who sees, Abba Daddy. oh, He comes running.

it's more than a firelight song. it's a heart's burning cry.

it's the breath of our lungs.

::kumbaya::