a question :: selah cottage

{via pinterest}

today is the birthday of my dearheart soul-sister, Beth. she's having a giveaway over at her place for her precious art awakening e-course, MADE, which begins in four days. my own heart cannot bear the excitement of stepping beside amazing artist-souls and merging in community with them. but there, at her place, she asked a question.

:: what question has been pressing on your heart lately?

we closed on our new home on Monday.

we got in the car after the papers were signed and i cried. i still don't know why. there was a lot of emotion in this entire process, more than i could ever hope to sort out into the neat little piles most prefer when it comes to feelings. i'm okay in my jumble right now.

in the jumble, there comes questions. beautiful, wild, frightening questions that i honestly don't know how to answer. but there is one that comes up and holds my hand, nestles in the crook of my neck and whispers softly,

what are you going to do with what you've been given? 

i've been handed a precious gift. a new space, wide and untouched yet by our hands. we've smeared paint on the walls, covering over the cracks and spaces left by previous owners, changing pale blue and white to dark purple and slate grey. we've carried in cardboard boxes with hand-scrawled words like cookbooks and fragile and DVDs and placed them in each room where they belong.

i've been given a canvas of wood and stone and cement and plaster. now what am i going to do with this space i have been given? it comes back to that word i chose for 2013, before i knew what was coming, before i knew the way this road would feel beneath my feet.

{via pinterest}

// release //

every year i pick a word. and every year it changes me, powerfully, in a sweeping strange way that i can only equate to fingers dipped into paint and spread wide to change the very depths of my soul, as though a wall needed repainting. 

and so i'm packing up each thing i own, shaking off the old dust and leaving in this place. i don't want to take it with me to this new place. what am i going to do with what i've been given?

i'm going to release the old. i'm going to smear the new on my canvas, dipped straight from my soul. i'm hanging the portrait of the Dawn Treader on the bedroom wall and whispering close, Aslan, Aslan, Aslan...

we named our new home selah cottage :: the little home of peace. and that's what i want to find there. i want to reach out my hands, open and waiting, and let the Peace beyond all i can know rain down and fill me up. i'm laying down art here. i'm making an altar, a monument to Glory, in the selah of my new space. 

i'm being made new. 

You make me new

You are making me new

You make beautiful things out of us. 

{beautiful things :: gungor}

Supposed

I pray your glory shines / through this doubting heart of mine / so my world would know that You…You are my strength / You and You alone / You and You alone / Keep bringing me back home. ~Gungor, You Are my Strength

I know that you're all expecting my weekly Monday musings regarding all the beautiful things in my life. 

And there are many of them, brimming just under the surface of my dreams and moments this past week.

But right now, I can't find them.

I made a resolution to myself that I wouldn't write what the world at large might want to hear. I'm going to write what's real.

My reality.

And right at this moment, my reality isn't all that beautiful. In fact, it's rather like a harsh palace of stone and ice. I feel at war with myself, with certain people in my life...and in all honesty, I don't even know what to say. 

I'm brimming over with so much confusing, and maybe a little too much hurt than I should be in this particular situation. 

It's overwhelming me. And I have no outlet...not right now. Later, I will, I'm sure...but I don't need it later. 

I need it now.

I feel horribly selfish and petty to even write a post like this one. I feel as though I have promised you poetry, sunshine, and summer breezes in every piece I write. And this one is truly more of an icy snowstorm of hurt and complicated emotion.

Forgive me? Please?

Maybe later this afternoon, after a bit of a good cry and losing myself in the silent embrace of the Word, I will come back and pour my beauties onto the page.

…but, for now, this is all I have... 

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. ~Psalm 73:26

Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. ~Isaiah 41:10

Joining in with this beautiful sisterhood on August 22nd, 2011
Expect to see more of this blessed release from time to time.
Life is hard. God is good.