broken lines // mosaic

{via pinterest}
artist unknown. if you know, share it with me? 

i couldn't pass this one by.

not when my entire life has been broken from the start, and not when my passion is reaching out the broken ones and tucking them in close against me.

we've been made to think that broken is a bad thing, something to be ashamed of, to coil around and huddle in the darkness. but being broken makes mosaics, those little intricate lines and cracks that make up the letters into words of our own deep stories.

being broken hurts. it's not something anyone wants. we don't set out each day wonder, oh, how might i break today? :: but maybe we should.

i hate being broken. but it's not a shame thing. i'm pulling back the cover on my heart, the thick woolen blanket wound around my shoulders and whispering to each of you, come here, dearheart. let's sit together and put it all together.

it's what sisterhood is all about, taking the bits and showing the bright Light that gleams from between each little crack. it's what the Lion does best, breathing soft Life onto hearts and watching them mend, but leaving the soft marks behind.

and the Pharassees chant, "all you need is Jesus. but then, you need this...and this...and this thing too..." and the milestone hangs heavy and all you can do is collapse.

no dress code or stand up sit down or running away from the shadows. because He's in the shadows.

He's in the Light. He's in the dark. 

:: He IS.

the marks are art, lines of ink on the page. they speak of a greater story, a deeper grace. they show that you are strong, wandering through fire but held tender and close. it's stepping off the cliff and standing on air, hovering gentle on Lion's breath.

{linking five minutes of unedited "broken" writing at lisa-jo's today.}

laid bare :: in which i learn that courage groans

{photo of myself, courtesy of nikki} 

sometimes being brave is easy. 

you know what you want to do, and you take first one step and then another and suddenly you're across the bridge without a second thought. and your footprints are there, and looking back, you're aglow with what you have done.

you were brave without realizing. 

and then comes the hard stuff, the realities as the glow of bravery washes away and you realize that not everyone see the same footprints you do. you see the whole path, the big picture, and they see the toe marks in someone else's way.

yesterday, i made a choice. a choice to drop every facade, a choice to dare and be brave and be luminescent :: woman. i chose to live what i have been speaking here for the past several months. i chose to pose semi-nude. 

and i didn't just do it to say i could, but for the hearts of the woman i have held in my arms as they weep and whisper, i starve because i am starving. 

and so i laid myself bare. no make-up or jewelry, no primping save a brush through my hair. there were no touch-ups to take out stretch marks or freckles or those things that i try to cover up with my fingers with down-turned eye and whisper, don't look.

and i closed my eyes and burst into smile and climbed the summit to meet my Savior there in a hush of holiness and a gentle murmur of "on earth as it is in Heaven."

and i met stones on the way down. 

they had their points and they had their reasons and they had their laid-out plan. and i can't help but respect conviction, because after all, i have my own. and it was my husband who stood up with his hand on my shoulder and took the step in front of me and took so many extra arrows in the chestplate, my warrior-man. and i did the best i could, but i sat down and shook with weeping because it was just too much to bear. 

{photo of myself, courtesy of nikki} 

and my dear friend wrapped arms around my shoulders from across the United States and spoke softly to my soul, 

courage doesn't always roar

sometimes it whispers, sometimes it groans

but it is still courage.

and it came from all sides, from the east and the west. 

:: brave. brave. you are brave.

and it came from His own lips, too. 

:: My daughter is brave

and i knew it would happen, but i didn't expect the intensity of the ache. and i knew it would be hard to be brave, that the journey over seemed so easy but the path down the mountain was a rocky tumble. 

so why did i do it, then?

because you are beautiful. i promise you are, dearheart. 

and i'll do whatever it takes for you to see it for yourself.

my daughter drew life from this body, whispered into my being by the Breath of the Lion. and she changed my visage, my skin, into a portrait made with blue eyes and soft red hair and baby's breath on my neck. and i fit no molds, not that i did before, and i'm learning to be okay with that. 

i am my Beloved's, radiant and adorned. 

thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee.

:: song of songs 4:7

// // 

{i want this to be a gentle place, a place of love and respect. if you have something to say, please say it with love and words seasoned with salt and Life. i have disabled anonymous comments because honestly, i am still learning to be brave, and i think you should, too. if you don't want to write your response publicly, my inbox is always open to you. i also have a zero tolerance policy for fat-shaming, victim-blaming, "slut"-shaming, etc.}

falling up :: five minute fridays

{via pinterest}

falling scares me.

i watch The Amazing Race and whisper with my husband, i want to do that with you. and we talk about each challenge...could we, would you? but the height ones seem to make me swallow the hardest

and then there was the man who smiled at the tallest building in the world and said, oh, i love the heights. and i started at the screen agape, heart filling with something i still don't understand just yet.

and i'm realizing that it's more than just the simple heights of feet and inches up against the clouds. i've found myself afraid of high living, because there's always that chance i might plummet down with just one little misstep. and nothing scares me like that  idea that maybe i'm not as steady as i like to think.

but falling just might be what needs to happen. because there's that rush as your eyes close and the Breath rushes past your cheeks and there's nothing but you and the Lion in the silence, and you realize all of a sudden that you're flying.

i'm in awe of the way His wings feel against my cheek. or maybe it's the shock of the feathers sprouting out of my own fingertips as He whispers about the wings of eagles that He promised low in my soul.

it's sacred, holy ground. 

:: holy air.

and when my feet touch the ground again, i lift my wings to cover my face and whisper

worthy worthy, holy holy

maybe one day, i'll lean back with eyes closed and let myself just tumble hand in the hand with the One who fought death and won. tandem diving from earth to Heaven.

{linking five minutes of unedited stream of consciousness with lisa-jo }
join us?

three things // repost

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sometimes i want to write what i feel. i want to take what i see and do the undone and fix the unfixed and light the snuffed candle all over again. but then i look and i say, do i even see? do i even know anything?

and so i take my pen and my paper and my too-many thoughts and i sit and i wonder just what might happen if i knew something, anything at all.

i watch the people, feet on pavement and pavement on feet. and i realize what i know.

i know three things, because sarah kay says good things come in threes, and she's right, after all.

:: i know that light kills the dark ::

and when you're walking in the dark and there's nothing but a match in your pocket, it's a good thing to know. and when you're walking in the Night and there's nothing but a verse in your mind reminding to be still and know that I AM...it's a good thing to know.

:: i know that art is the voice even when it never speaks ::

i know that sometimes the silence of a paintbrush screams SEE ME and the whisper of just one wavering note in the empty concert halls cries I CAN DO THIS AFTER ALL and the raised arm on a stage is the salute to all things undone and all things done over and over and done well.

:: i know that mystery is just that, and it's okay to not know ::

i know that knowing is part of the battle, and when you don't know what you know that it can crush and scare and be unsure. but it's okay to have a mystery that you don't understand.

{via pinterest}

and it's okay to let Him be the mystery of Love and Flesh and Man and God all in one small infant bundle, growing up up up to be Death and Life and Salvation and Water and Broken Bread with Wounds that Heal.

that is what i know. no more shaking ground for i stand on What, on Who i know. because i write what i feel and i feel what i know. and i know Him and little else. but that's power, okay? that Light is more than enough. that Water is more than enough.

because i know these things. Him and Him only. everlasting, time over time, from age to age.

Alpha and Omega, You answer. because You know

more than three things. 

{this is a slightly edited re-post from this post from December 2011

linking this renewal with emily today}

:: kinsman redeemer

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i wish i could reach down and smear my fingertips with paint and streak them across your eyes so you can see what i see.

i want to look up and count the stars, the ones tucked away in a sacred place that even my own human eyes cannot find them. the ones that were there the night among the piles of honey-toned barley where a whispered exchange passed between the lips of a man and a once-cursed foreign beauty.

spread your cloak over me, for you are my kinsman redeemer. 

and she slept that night on the threshing floor at the bared feet of a man who swore to save her, joining the ranks of the world-forgotten women that reached up and wept to be seen.

she was third of five, this Moabitess who begged for the covering from her saviour-turned-groom. they all bore the familiar shame, the whispers and pointed fingers. they were stamped with an ugly word, one too quickly spoken still two thousand years down the road. but from their blood, oft murmured "tainted," came the Life-Bringer.

:: the One who spoke to the slave in the wilderness, 

who rested hands on the unclean and whispered

dearest daughter

I knew you would not be long...

{via pinterest}

there's a reason that Lewis wrote so often of the breath of the Lion on the face of those He treasured. the wind from the mouth of the Risen One against the cheek of His bride, the whisper in the night that He is coming to bathe me in Light. i am not forgotten.

the rocks on the seashore, grit and earth and dirt

until they are picked up by the fingers of one who knows

and then they are treasures. 

so i'm finding my own place on the threshing floor, under the stars with the moon as a witness, and speaking to the One who is not safe, but oh, so good

spread Your cloak over me, 

just let me touch the hem

// for You are my kinsman redeemer 

women :: wild-blessed

{photo via pinterest}

i speak about the wild here quite often. sometimes, i'm not even sure myself how to find that perfect grove of trees. and the smudge of dirt on my cheeks feels a little foreign, almost like a virginal bride awakening that morning to find her husband-love in her bed with a blush of blessed now.

i'm embracing that wild with shaking fingers, the wild that is woman, that is me somehow strange. the whisper of woman that was in the forefront of His mind, composed with God-Daddy smiles and sunrise-stained fingers that i cannot comprehend without weeping. because He formed me, hips and hair and eyes and mouth all in one, and whispered I see that you are good, wild daughter. 

and i can't help with the pinching and the frowning and the clumsy fingers clutching a chisel to gouge away the parts of me that He must have made wrong, the spots where the Wild-Maker slipped. and the mirror laughs and the sky cries as the Lion lets tears fall as i wrap myself in filmy black mourning cloth and block out the Light.

but He comes in the morning, like a bright-eyed groom with fresh unchanging love in His holy gaze and scissors to snip away the veils until i'm exposed and raw and maybe even bleeding just a little because pruning is pain, but it's beauty too. and then He spits on the ground and smears Heaven-made mud mixed with the Blood of the Lamb on my soul and whispers see again, for your faith has made you whole.

{photo property of DramaticElegance, taken via instagram}

He writes His name on my eyelids so when i blink, i remember. and every flicker of the eyelashes is a flicker of the Spirit-flame sent down after forty days of waiting from the day He rose. He calls me woman, He calls me daughter. and it's not a dirty curse but a whisper of admiring glory woven in Light.

and Heaven to earth is only a whispered prayer away, a half-step to glory. and for so long, i've been loving and living like fire and ice, never touching without burning and melting. but now i'm flying close to the Light and i am not burned, for the One at my side is like the Son of the Most High

so i'm leaving my shoes on the threshold because this place is holy ground, and the dirt feels good between my toes and the wild is calling my name.

run further up and further in
for this is the place of which you have dreamed
for which you have been waiting all your life.

:: be wild, dove-daughter
for your faith has made you whole

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

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

:: 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.  

:: be kind to yourself

{my little love and i}
photo property of DramaticElegance

they used to believe that a photograph captured a piece of the soul. with every flash, a part of the person was absorbed into the image.

sometimes i think that's still true. only in part, of course, for i know where my soul stays unwavering. but part of me pulled into the image...yes, i think i could believe that. because i judge my face in the mirror and the camera is a mirror of sorts, a mirror that freezes moments in time.

and i don't always like those moments.

:: be kind to yourself
the note on my mirror reminds. four little words that might be the hardest ever to swallow. but i have to be kind to myself, for my little one's sake. because she's started holding out her arms to me, five and a half months old, and already she silently calls for her momma.

and i know that soon enough she will be speaking, because she's already listening. and she reaches up her hand each morning with sleepy eyes and feather-soft touch from the bed we share and coos love to me.

she loves my face.
why don't i?

i have to learn. so i wrote the note in my best handwritting, the letters composed in what my friends call a fairy language, a love message to myself. because i have to learn to love myself before my little girl sees that i don't, and learns to hate herself the way i still do sometimes.

{via pinterest}

so i'm learning to smile for the camera, learning to reach out a hand toward the feral, frightened kitten that lurks under the porch. we need to make friends, she and i.

there's a promise written, one i will one day have tattooed on my skin like the Lion on my left wrist.

the King, your King, is enthralled by your beauty.

honour Him, for He is your Lord. 

::psalm 45:11

there is a King, mighty and righteous, a roaring Lion and a sacrificed Lamb. and He is captivated by me.

so for my little girl, i will learn to look beyond the mirror and into the soul the camera can't quite capture. the one He holds in the palm of His hand, the one He finds beautiful and worthy, covered in His blood.

Lion of Judah, enthralled by me.
oh, how can it be?

shattered alabaster

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we fear brokenness. we fear what comes when we are face down, palms up. we can't see our backs from this position, this place of humility.

and what if someone sees us here? they might whisper, they might talk about how low we have fallen. and whispers hurt, after all; who doesn't know that? 

but He sent them out into the streets to bring us in. the broken, the lame, the blind and the weary. and He brought us in and set us as His table, us broken ones. and He stood still in the crowd and said someone touched Me. 

we forget these stories. they get pushed to the back as we look around and stand shoulder to shoulder with others and stretch to stand on tiptoe to measure up like we think we should. brokenness does not negate the warrioress, but instead it creates glory. 

a phoenix cannot rise until it burns. 
a seed cannot grow without death. 

“God uses broken things...it is the broken alabaster box that gives forth perfume.

 it is Peter, weeping bitterly, who returns to greater power than ever." 

:: vance havner

it is something we are taught to fear, taught that we must flee from and hide, that we must scrabble for some token of false strength to save face. do we deign ourselves so great that our Jesus must be broken, but we find shame in this place for ourselves?

the prostitute was the first to find Him in the dawn when the stone had rolled away. those who followed Him were too full to see, but this woman was empty of all but Him. and He said her name, and she knew in a word. this broken vessel, this woman of the night now turned bright as the Son. 

raised to glory, this broken ones.
living in life, these blessed ones.

a letter to you

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dear you,

yes, you. you beautiful one, you earth-shaker, you mountain-quaker. you with the feathers in your hair, you with the baby on your hip. you with the tattoos on your skin, you with the long hair and the ankle-length skirts.

you tucked in the corner with the tsk tsk tsk ringing in your ears because you said that one thing too loud when they said to be seen but not heard. 

women of the world, you are real. 

 :: don't let them force you to disappear. 

they're the ones adding millstone to millstone in a necklace of death that will end with a broken-hearted "depart from Me." 

they're all about death, these shadow voices that would rather keep you masked and silent. He was all about life and broken stones with the keys of Hell in His fist.

they made their list and ran off with fists raised high and left Him standing at the table with tears running down and a gentle you left Me behind. 

they don't read the red letters, do they? if they did, they would know that there was a perfume vial --the most expensive, the most precious. and it spilled over His feet as a broken woman with whore on her forehead in invisible ink and invisible fingermarks of men who were not her husband covered her body. and she prophesied to the world of His dying. 

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and that was a woman.

and you are a seeker. 

i wrote it before {here} and i'm writing it again now, word for word.

we are women. we are vessels, full of Him and aching to overflow.

we are brave and strong and beautiful and beloved.

we are more.

///

{this thing of beauty, of strength, of true womanhood has been on my mind these days. i'm praying ceaselessly as a project begins to form in my heart and soul for the coming weeks. would you join me on your knees before the Throne, sisters, for wisdom and grace and so much unceasing might from the Hand of the King?}

real beauty // you are not fat

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i have a formspring. you know, one of those places where people you know and people you don't can ask you any number of questions about any topic they wish.

and today there was a question sitting there in my inbox from that coward, anonymous. innocent words strung together to form something so much more painful.

so you've used pregnancy as an excuse to let yourself go, then?

and my blood ran cold. because in my mind's eye, i saw fifteen-year-old me crying in the dressing room because i felt so fat every time i tried on anything. and my sister could fit into clothes that i never could, because i was curvy. 

and then i saw another little girl.

a little girl whose face i couldn't see clearly, but that i knew better than my own all the same. and she sat there in the mall food court picking at the pile of lettuce with the dressing on the side that she called lunch and sipped at her water while she smelled the burgers and watched the other girls drinking their smoothies. 

i saw my daughter's face. 

and the blood turned to ice in my veins, and some strange mother-bear anger stirred in my stomach right next to the little rolling flutters that mark my daughter's current home. 

this anger was not for me. i'm growing stronger now. words, yes, they still hurt. but this anger was not for me. 

with hand on stomach and face curved toward the sky, my soul screamed

don't you dare call my beautiful little girl fat. 

don't teach my little one to count calories instead of the stars. because she has my genes, the curvy genes with rounder hips and fuller breasts. the ones that might not fit into the teenage carrot stick world into which she is being born. 

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and maybe there will come a day when you come to me with big eyes and slender limbs and say words like carbs and calories...too soon, too young, too early.

and i will pray for grace and i will pray to not break down until i am behind a closed door where i can weep for this world where little girls starve themselves and big girls stare in mirrors and whisper i hate you. 

and this is the letter i will read to her even before she understands the world, in which i have promised to not call myself fat anymore, and i pray that she will see her mama living in truth and not on the scale. 

beauty is not size 2 defined. 

beauty is health, not break-ability. beauty is dressing on your salad and chocolate for desert. beauty is forgiving eyes and kind smiles and a soft heart, and chins lifted with so much peace and warrioress pride. 

because there is a Lion in Heaven that roars with rage when people talk bad about His daughters, and when people whisper lies into little girl ears that are too innocent to know better. there are millstones for people like that, and He has them in a line and waiting with rope for tying.

don't you dare call My little girl fat.

{linking with my dear emily}

kaleidoscope

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all the colors

of the rainbow

hidden 'neath my skin

::

hearts have colors

don't we all know?

red runs through our veins

::

feel the fire burning up

inspire me with blood

of blue and green

::

i have hope

inside is not a heart

but a kaleidoscope
::
{kaleidoscope heart // sara barielles}

this song has been the soundtrack to my soul since the moment it first passed from my Pandora station into my ears. 

it stuck with me, as things have been doing lately. is it the hormones? is this my soul's version of nesting, perhaps? is my spiritual self starting to line the nest with the softest and most beautiful of things to prepare for what is to come in a mere 13 weeks, if even that long? 

it's certainly become a kaleidoscope pathway for me, as though the granite blocks have suddenly been fitted with some sort of intricate scroll-work that i never noticed before, and all i want to do is stop and study every detail. 

this summer is captivating me. it just started, four days into June and i'm feeling like exploding into peony petals and white picket fences. i want to spend every single day possible barefoot in the grass and dancing down the creek despite my ever-growing belly.

and so i removed the design that i've had for almost a year now, and i made it new. i tweaked and changed and made it fit the changing me. the sacred feminine inside me that i've squished for so long, but am now allowed to peak out of the crevices.

it's become a kaleidoscope of His story, of His breath mixed with the light to swirl and create something ever beautiful and ever changing.

it's sacredness, and it's mine to inhale.

:: deep breath in ::

red string

{via pinterest}

:: i am wind woman ::

:: air daughter ::

:: dove child ::

i am bleeding ink and whispering prayers in the same breath,
learning to lean on windowpanes and not so much on sinking sand.

this is a Solid Rock kind of moment,
barefoot at the burning bush with knees pressed to grass.
leaning on me is futile. leaning on Him is essential.

they say that soulmates are connected by an invisible red string
and no matter how far they go apart, the string pulls them together in the end.

my Saviour and i are tied by the red rope of redemption,
drenched in His blood, one end around my wrist, one end tied to the cross.

and so i'm learning to rely
on red strings and winds from the east
on Lion's breath and eagle's wings.

blessed assurance

Jesus is mine

dark light

live in the light

{via pinterest}

stand in the sun

never look back.

these words have been whispered to me by a thousand voices in a thousand languages for the course of my entire life. and i think if you were raised in the church, you heard it, too. 

there is a place in this world where dark reigns supreme for six months of the year. the earth is tipped and the light cannot reach it there, not for all those weeks of night. and the people there wrap in furs and tangle fingers together and wait...

because they know that there is an end to the darkness. and then comes the six months of light, and the darkness fades into a place of echoing radiance that spills from fingertips and spiraled ends of hair.

but they feel the light because they knew the dark. they cannot appreciate one without the other's balance. 

it's the same with us, the same with the life we live and the breath we inhale every single day a thousand times without even realizing. and the voices that whisper never look back are wrong to wish you blind to the past and wide-eyed to forever. 

both are needed. we have a moon to cool the sun, and a sun to warm the moon. we must have both for tides and seasons and growth.

what matters is how you breathe in the night. do you stare at the midnight and scream light is dead, and never will come back again?

or do you look at the stars and say there is light here. 

for you were once dead in your sin

but God, rich in mercy, made us alive.

:: ephesians 2:1, 4 ::

i refuse to stop loving for fear of the night. i will dance below the stars instead, fingers spread toward the moon and inhaling beam after beam of silver light. 

for i was once dead,

but God...

finding the new {236-242}

i am barely here this morning. my precious notes of jubilation still remain, but they are clouded with exhaustion and a twisting, churning stomach that has yet to abate since close to 8:30 last night.

i knew this would be a side effect. it's the one everyone whispers about behind closed doors, the one they all ask me about, and the one i thought i was escaping.

but curled up in armchairs clutching a ceramic bowl before rushing to another wider bowl in another room...this has been my sleeping and my waking.

and my stomach is slowly fading in its clenching as sparkling water with hints of peaches and a lot of slow-moving rest are finally beginning to do their job.

i feel my blessings slowly changing in their style, but never fading in their sacred glory.

• 236. ginger ale and sparkling peach water

• 237. laundry already started and the strength to finish the chore

• 238. salsa chicken in the crockpot, one of the few things that appeal to my lurching tummy

• 239. the peace of resting soundly when sleep finally came

• 240. comfort in disappointment, rest in knowing that plans are held in a Lion's paw

• 241. encouraging notes from dear sisters and friends, knowing that other women have walked this road before, and have made their own paths of strength

• 242. being reminded that i am brave and warrioress even in the oddest of ways.

and so i'm resting now. 

i'm breathing slowly and feeling myself settle deeper into the comfort of warm quilts and steaming cups of tea. this cold winter does not touch me here, for i am warm and safe and healing deep within. 

blessings rise here. pregnant and barefoot in the sacred. 

drumbeat :: magnify

{via pinterest}

a precious breather occurred this weekend. i was going to apologize for not blogging in two days, but i'm refraining.

i'm honestly not sorry. 

i love this place i'm in right now. it's a breathing place, a place where Light overwhelms and rest is finally accepted.

it's a dancing place, a place of scarves and bells and so much leaping to the music of glory as this soul magnifies again and again.

this year is barely twenty-two days old. and it's already the best year of my life. perhaps a cliche, a redundancy that everyone speaks in moments of joy. but this is more than this heart can bear.

:: i'm pregnant ::

these are words i still struggle to speak because of their newness and the awe that accompany their presence against my tongue. as the weeks are ticking by and my exhaustion is deepening and my appetite for every food in sight grows, i also start to smile broader. as this little one gets bigger within me, i cannot help but magnify.

:: i'm going to Europe ::

i'm boarding a plane to Germany and Prague with my little sister in April. i still am in utter awe to the point of falling to my knees with elation and wonder. in a matter of hours it went from maybe to impossible to official, and this trip is now in the middling stages of planning. and again, i magnify.

my soul doth magnify the Lord

and my spirit rejoices in God, my Saviour. 

{via pinterest

there are times when i feel that my level of blessings overflow above and beyond anything i could have ever anticipated.

and then in the moments of darkness when hope seems barely fingertips from reach, i remember this.

these dancing moments where glory brushes the earth and i find myself streaking cheeks with earth in lines of warrior paint and the drums of pounding hearts set the beat for my soul to leap.

oh, i am brave, soul doors thrown open to let the sun warm the broken corners.

oh praise Him.

:: EDIT :: Europe has fallen through. and though my heart broke all afternoon and tears flowed like water, i am still rejoicing. because there is something here for me, something to which i should cling. and home is where i should be now, i see. and i am still magnifying. 

joy :: the Lion's song

{via pinterest}

someone told me you need to be happy always now. 
and i laughed.

because that's not possible, pregnant or not. understand me this, i am filled with such feelings of elation that i cannot fully put into words, writer or not.

but there's other things too. there's life that keeps happening outside my sheltered world of expecting motherhood. there's frustration and hurts that well up, and hormones that fight me to explode free from fingertips and lips.

this is complicated, this thing of morning sickness that turns to ravenous hunger and late night tossing with vivid dreams that are almost impossible to rationalize to reality. and then there are the tears that well over at insurance commercials and late-night episodes of Grey's Anatomy. 


and i cannot be happy always.
no one can.

but i find the joy in the quiet moments when i press earbuds to my stomach to teach this little one the best of music, or when i pour words from favoured pages into little forming ears. and there is courage in knowing that i will be okay, because i am not alone.

:: i never have been :: 

because even in this strange ship at sea, there is a gull on the masthead whispering courage, dearheart to my thudding heart. and there is a lilting song on the wind that i can barely hear, but i know it is coming. and i am teaching this Lion's song to my unborn.

not of happy, but of joy.
not of fearless, but of brave.

there's an expression i've heard: barefoot and pregnant. and that is me, overwhelmed in the sacred to the point of no shoes, curling safe at the base of the cross.

blessing overwhelming {228-235}

{via pinterest}

this month is half over already. and it's overwhelmed with blessings

i started this month with a whisper of a word, spoken to the night like a pleading, a promise. brave.

and then the world started tangling and twisting, so many things changed in the space of sixteen short days. and fingers fumbled with slender packages and whispered words of new life discovered as i leaned against a cold steel wall. 

and my blessings continued to grow, even as my mind churned in wonder and i felt myself changing from the inside out. it's the strangest, the deepest growing that i have ever experienced.

this -- these months counting down on infant fingers and toes...this is my most breathtaking brush with sacredness yet. 

• 228. two dark purple lines that change a life forever

• 229. rest from weariness, peace in confusion

• 230. brand-new grandparents, eyes illuminated with the excitement of new life

• 231. fresh grapefruit and woven wheat crackers. 

• 232. the connecting fingers of sisters and friends, the ones that care and the ones that cradle

• 233. a husband rejoicing, a family celebrating. 

• 234. learning to change my body's position in sleep and in life, moving my feet in step with the dance of mother instead of me

• 235. now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us. {eph. 3:20}

and so i'm continuing to find the beauty in the seemingly ordinary. those things that are perhaps forgotten, perhaps misunderstood. these are the things i'm learning to love. 

i'm getting a stronger grasp on the important, seeking the sacred in the foggy mirrors and the crumpled scraps of paper. 

:: becoming mother ::

:: becoming warioress ::

:: becoming seeker ::

becoming braver and braver, day by day.