my own

{via pinterest}

there are plenty of mornings when i have no idea what to write about. it might just be one of the most frustrating things i have ever and will ever encounter in my life.

writing is my life. my pillow is words and my tongue is prose and my clothing is poetry and my blood is ink and inspiration.

and so when it is illusive, i feel as though i am missing. melting. a fog being sieved by the rocks and trees and mountains of this very real thing called life.

i look at this world and think

how can i not write? there is so much here. 


and in my dreams, inspiration comes. in those last moments before slumber overtakes, my mind is full to overflowing with this and that and so so so much richness that comes in the fog of dreaming while awake.

but then i awake, and i have lost it all.

inspiration is less frightening that i wish it was, i think.

 i wish i had a reason to be afraid of knowing this light. because there is power in this light, and it's my calling to bring it here.

His wish. 

share My words, dearheart. 

and it's frightening. because this is big.

i sit, quilts tangled and sunlight streaming. voices calling nonsense from the street below.

{via pinterest}

and i touch the play on my pandora and let the music envelop.

i let the phone ring, and press my best friend's voice to my ear as she spills life and pain and confusion and delights into my waiting soul...because she's good at that for me.

i soak myself in life. 

this melody of inspiration that never stop flowing, the one i just have to reach out and touch.

so i run fingers back through tangled locks

and smile.

i need Your grace

to remind me

to find my own.

{linking with laura -- this playdate with the King} 

decade

{via pintrest}

i was 10. telling everyone "almost 11." almost but not quite.

red and blue and green and yellow dress. gap-toothed smile and dark bobbed hair.

flash of a camera bulb. school pictures taken. sister comes next.

little-shoes skipping back to mama, asking why the tears and why was everyone so sad.

television flashes. fire. smoke billowing like something from a movie i wasn't allowed to watch. screaming. people jumping, life gone in a leap.

first one plane. then another. then comes collapse. smoke and screams mingling in horror that flowed like a rapid-rising river from sea to shining sea.

fear. so much fear.

mama, sister, and i at the tea shop. eating my favourite soup in a bread bowl, with big ice cream cones and jelly beans afterwards. mama saying "it might be the last."

phone calls to daddy on her old cell phone.

i love you.

what do we do?

praying. 

God knows.

so many heroes lived and died that day. first responders ran in while hundreds ran out. 

and three fathers shed their hero blood to spare their cities with cries of 

let's roll. 

today marks 10 years. 

that little girl is now 20. the dress has turned to jeans and the teeth have all come back to make a complete smile.

Photo by DramaticElegance
wax memorial in Madame Tussad's, NYC

but the world is now so different. my country is different. 

we have a war now. we have pain now. we have so much hate now. 

turbans and hijabs spell terror to ignorance. be watchful, yes. but hate not. 

it's hard for me to wrap my mind around these children. innocent-eyed angels that don't know. the little ones who wonder why we stand and sing and weep and remember. 

honouring rows and rows of our own heroes today. men and women in our church with medals pinned by our pastor. the colour guard and standing ovations. hands over hearts and red-white-blue at the front. 

the words in bronze hang from my husband, my father-in-law, my mother-in-law. the soliders. the cops. the EMTS. the firemen. they all stood and received the same words of power. 

to honour and respect those who serve and protect.

evil is real. He is stronger. 

the USA still stands. the colours still wave. 

we must affirm Truth. Justice. Love. 

9-11-2001. 

we still remember. 

we still honour. 

we still stand.

You are stronger / You are stronger / Sin is broken / You have saved me. / It is written / Christ is risen / Jesus, You are Lord of all ~Stronger, Hillsong

{linking with hear it on sunday and playdates with God}

breath like His

it's become a thing across the blogging universe.

why do i blog? 

what brought me to this place?

and why do i continue?

i have already done my various posts of this sort, one of which can be found here. 

however, this is different. this is where.

where do i blog? where do i let myself be heard?

to start my September, i was honoured to receive the sacred becomes you award by my dear literary and heaven-bound sister, rain. 

the conviction which flooded me upon reading that post was almost enough to knock me to the ground, as well it should.

i don't blog on my knees enough. 

i think i like to to cling to this wobbling pedestal that looms above me. i don't know why that is, really. it's not that i think i'm something special or want to gloat over my fragile bits and pieces. 

i think my pride doesn't want to admit my smallness. my weaknesses. oh, how i hate my struggles, my moments of emptiness. to be counted as weak is a greater curse than being counted as silent. 

and so i stand. hard and fast against the gentle wind of my Savior's breath. this breath that should and must become my own...i fight and wrestle as though letting go is to die.

but then, isn't it?

isn't it my call to die to self and live for Him? so many greater than me have done so, and with joy. 

paul rejoiced in his infirmities, knowing this truth that i cannot yet grasp.

via Pintrest

But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.”Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 

and so i must let go. i must die. to self, to me, to pride and control and my own strength. 

i must let my breath leave my will, and let His name take its place. 

for is His name, the most sacred, is yet my breath. 

the letters of the name of God in Hebrew… are infrequently pronounced Yahweh. But in truth they are inutterable….

This word {YHWY} is the sound of breathing.

The holiest name in the world, the Name of Creator, is the sound of your own breathing.That these letters are unpronounceable is no accident. Just as it is no accident that they are also the root letters of the Hebrew verb ‘to be’… God’s name is name of Being itself. ~Rabbi Lawrence Kushner

prematurely linking up with The Wellspring.
perhaps not a playdate per se, but oh what joy . 

woodpile

(via Heather @ Pintrest)

i drove by my parents' farm this morning to pick something up from my dad.

took a little wander down to the pole barn-slash-woodshed to check on my numerous kitties. when i moved out, they stayed behind. my daddy has discovered that he actually loves cats, and takes very good care of them for me.

at first glance, the barn was entirely empty

save for the woodpile 

and a few bits of machinery

and then i saw the ears. 

two tiny, fuzzy points sticking up from a small pile of wood

perched above a pair of wide golden eyes and a innocent little pink nose.

it was a stray kitten. scared to death. i could see it shaking. 

i could almost hear its thoughts as it stared right at me. 

please don't notice me. 

go away.

please don't see me. 

slowly, i turned to go. 

little kitty bolted. break-neck speed toward another woodpile, in which it hid. 

i am that little kitten.

doing my best to blend into the woodwork, begging all my fears

(via Natalie @ Pintrest)

please don't see me. 

go away.

just let me hide. 

and then, for whatever reason, i break cover and run as fast as i can. i'm too scared to just wait for the scary thing to turn and leave me alone. 

i get a burst of courage. and i run to safety. 

for a kittycat, it's a woodpile.

for me

it's a wooden cross.

prematurely linking up with The Wellspring.
perhaps not a playdate per se, but oh what joy .