ashes :: what wondrous love

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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. 

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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

tidbits.

I never write random posts.

Truly, not ever.

Which, in all honesty, is very odd.

I am an incredibly eclectic person with a whimsical mind that tends to wander a bit more than perhaps it should at times.

But today has been so dreadfully hot, as though the fingers of the sun had become lonesome in their cooler home, begging for just one more moment to turn the earth into a simmering mass of melted souls.

Perhaps it is this vile heat, drawing me down into a puddle of nothing but dreams.

 Perhaps it is simply the creative spirit within me, whispering

compose again

dance again

write again

that draws out a need to speak in regards of some lovely wisps of colour that have passed alongside me today.

• this blog. a place laden with tea leaves and Jane Austen, laden with the aroma of Earl Grey and whispers of vintage dreams yet uncovered. this place belongs to my best friend, Alexandria, of whose mid-March engagement I wrote about here. this is not her first attempt at blogging, but this is hopefully her last attempt and first complete success. i promise that you will not be disappointed by her writings in the least. visit her, stop and say hello, if you would?

• the slight design changes i let myself make to the blog tonight. simple new header, new quote from my favourite authour. just the little things. do you like? 

• the summertime wonder of crickets chirruping and cicadas trilling. the beauty of this warm evening's soundtrack, shutting out the nonsense and drawing out the stillness in me again. 

• this song. could it be any more perfect for a day like this? it's a silhouette of perfection. i am lost in its wonder. 

• the wonder of my King. oh, how His glory endures. 

• the final week of my giveaway is upon us. take a moment and enter. i promise you will not be disappointed with what is in store. 

• the impact that imperfect prose on thursdays has had on my writing. everything is different. i'm letting go of so much inner perfection, my incesant need to be flawless at all times. i'm learning to fall in love with lowercase letters and let the magic flow without my inner voice wailing at me to edit just once more. and so, my dear Emily, I thank you.   

These are my evening wonders. 

forgive me my tidbits. 

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.  ~e.e. cummings