name-seen

{via pinterest}

we are all soul creatures, made to be seen; we are created to be cradled and tenderly adored. 

:: and yet we tremble at the thought of it ::

{the sacred life of rain}

the above passage from the lips of my bohemian sister have been haunting me since i first read them. i knew they were important, i knew they were resonating with me for a reason. 

i just didn't know why. 

but i do now. because now my warrioress spirit is churning up and my fingers and tangled with grief into thick dark curls and i feel like breaking down into two kinds of weeping. 

once for the joy of truth known.

twice for the agonizing grief of truth kept hidden.

dear Christian women of the world, stop. please, please stop. please put down the measuring cups and brush your hands down your aprons for just a moment, tip your heads back, and cry your name to the skies. i dare you. wherever you are, wail those beautiful syllables from earth to Heaven. your name, the one given by parents, the word known before the creation of the earth. 

the one etched in blood and ink on the pierced palms of the One who died for you, too. 

whoever told you that you had to blend into the woodwork, to be a wallflower and wait with lips pressed together in the silence and shadows...oh, sweet sister, they lied to you. 

because you are seen. and He craves to see you. 

did you know that? 

{via pinterest}

did you know that your name is beautiful and that He speaks it with a smile? have you ever been told that His heart sings when He looks down and sees His daughters with open palms raised to the skies and a warrior-beat thudding between their ribs?

the introverts who peer up from swooping bangs and sing in the silence, the extroverts who leap to bare feet and dance up one aisle and down another. you are warrrioress, and you are too, sister. 

the veil was already torn, dearheart. why do you crave to cling to shredded fabric and hide there with your face shrouded and your eyes down to the stones by your feet. 

He is not down, He is up! He is risen, and you are raised to glory. so tip back those beautiful faces and speak that name to the sky. speak for your daughters, those ones who need a hand to guide them down the bravery path just for now. their feathers are still forming, these dove-daughters, and they need a map to follow. and He made it, and you speak it to their little ears. 

this is truth. open, honest, raw, beautiful truth.

you were made to been seen, to be heard, to be known. 

leap in the meadows and roar with your Daddy Lion. cling to His mane and sing His song at the top of your lungs. 

you were made be to loved this much. 

{linking this warrioress soul prompt with rain and emily}

letter

{via pinterest}

little girl,

i've started keeping my eyes open since i discovered your existance. i started with fingers pressed to my stomach, listening and whispering prayers from the very first moment of forehead pressed to steel bathroom stall door as the dark purple "X" whispered that you were coming. 

but when pink crumbs and white frosting spoke baby girl, little warrioress,  i found myself on my knees more often. because there are so many things i want for you, so many things i need you to know...will you hear me when you're here, will you listen to your mother like i never did until the days were past and i looked back down dusty, bloody roads and realized, "my ears were off when they should have been on..."?

i want you to hear mama's voice now, babygirl. 

:: i want you to hear me :: 

in this house, the things we count will not be calories or inches or grams of fat or how many notches the scale on the floor strikes. we will count to a hundred moments on our fingertips, and then start over when we run out. we will count the freckles on your nose and call them angel kisses. i will count your bumps and bruises, and call you always beautiful. 

i will teach you that life is more than that man at the end of the tunnel. it's about being you and being His before ever being his. and there will be late night whispers and chocolate ice cream when first-time fingers touch and teenage lips brush and the shame will not be there. it will be love, and it will spill over. 

i will paint His colours on your canvas, and then i will put the brush in your hands, and say, "now you paint your own picture of Him. make His love yours." 

because my footsteps are mine, 

{via pinterest}

and yours will be yours. 

and you will make mistakes. and your face will hit the floor when i can't turn fast enough to catch you. and toddler tears with kissable boo-boos will turn into big things that my lips on your bleeding knee cannot fix. 

and i promise you, i will hold you and cry with you, because my heart breaks already thinking about your heart breaking. and i will cling to your daddy on Earth, and i will cry to your Abba-Daddy. 

and mommy will make mistakes too. and i beg Him now to make me supple, to hear your hurts that i caused by mistakes and to always beg for forgiveness from you, no matter how big or little the slight. if you are hurt, and i hurt you, then i want to make it better. 

and i promise you this, above anything else that could ever come on shifting sands of the unknown and dark-clouded paths that lead who knows where. 

i will ALWAYS love you. 

i loved you the minute i knew i had you, and i love you still, and i will love you forever. fiercer and stronger every waking second. 

meet me in Heaven, daughter of Aslan.  

seek justice, love mercy, walk humbly with your God. 

i treasure you, Marian Abigail. and i will never stop.

clinging power

{via pinterest}

i feel like i've been on a train for a thousand years, and i'm watching the trees blur outside the window. and i got so caught up in the blur that i have missed my stop.

that is what these weeks have felt like to me. because i have been in this whirlwind where i feel gripped by the shoulders and the hair and tugged back and forth until night turns to day and day to night, and everything feels backwards.

but the Voice of the Lord was not in this storm.

He was in the still, and i lost Him for a minute. or rather, i shut Him out of my tornado. because i didn't want Him to see how badly my world was tossing, and i didn't want Him to be ashamed of me.

but oh, how blind i am. because He sees me, this God-Who-Sees. i have felt like Sarah, rejoicing for this child, and i have felt like Hagar in the wilderness, gripping to a bush for some sense of stability.

but He sees me. all of me, regardless of my rejoicing or my gripping.

and isn't this glory? 

because i feel like i'm finding my footing again. where the waves meet the ocean and tug back the vile and leave the sand clean, i feel like i'm lying here with the Water rushing over me and drawing back the impure.

{via pinterest}

and i'm a lamb leaping in the Lion's shadow. no longer afraid, but living in Truth.

this is not a post to tell you that things have been bad, because they haven't been bad. they've been strange and foreign. this hasn't been a time of despair or excessive fear, just adjusting.

and so my clinging has come when i find myself inadequite, and seek my solace in the One who cups my face in His Hands and whispers

I have made you promises. now stand still, and see what I will do. 


so i've turned my eyes from the blur to the slow, and that is hard when things seem to be moving so fast and distractions abound.

but He sees. and i am standing still, hands raised and warrior cries flooding to Heaven.

and i'm slowly returning, not in this feeble power, but solely in the power of His might.

the Lord God is with me

the Mighty Warrior that saves. 

ink smears

do you know what it's like to hear the voice say

flip the pages and flow

but to have no idea what the flow means? black and white in sunless nights without the urge to fight anymore?

did i forget my passion once again, like the strummer with the broken strings who forgot how to sing in the night we mentioned before?

it's battlescars from movie stars who pinch invisible rolls and wail "i'm fat" and nothing can heal that but reality.

and it's hard to get past that when the mirror speaks lies and the world speaks water for truth but the reality is wine, but we tossed it out with the trash because we counted the calories on the back.

do we remember who we are? 

the chosen people with broken telescopes that won't look past tattoos and high heeled shoes and conceiling black robes that leave everything to the imagination?

we forgot our before with empty shores of seashell glass and glassy eyes and one footprint where two would have failed.

because it's nothing we can done alone. because silence is okay, but pushing the door shut and crying don't let anyone see, don't let anyone in

i feel more broken when i turn my back to Him.

because He already sees, and it's broken hearts that He heals and tattered scrapbooks that paint His portrait when we couldn't even see the road.

so black and white is okay, i think, in the long run when all we have is the sun at our back and the Son at the front where the ink flows and we can acknowledge our broken pieces.

so pick up your pen, dusty traveller,

the dawn is here and the ink is flowing.

{linking imperfection with emily}

Stars

There they stand, the innumerable stars, shining in order like a living hymn, written in light. ~N.P. Willis

I have a fascination with the stars.

There is something so intimately distant about these twinkling points of light...

...so close that my fingertips ache to reach out and brush against the velvet night in which they reside...

...and distant enough to make me tremble with a whisper of things far greater and more majestic than I.

I think the stars are God's secret way to keep me humble.

How can think of myself as any great thing when I gaze up into the night...

...realizing that the mighty hand of the King placed each one of those brilliant diamonds upon the cloak of midnight...

...and calls them each by an individual name?

...maybe this is why I love the night.

I find myself most content...most complete...when I am wandering out among the stars late at night...

...for there is something so sacred about those moments under the black sky, lit only by a flickering point of celestial brilliance.

"There are millions of stars, and I love them. But oh, My beloved, I love You so much more. You are not just one in a waving mass of faces...

...you are special...

...you are loved.

You are Mine."

"But all night, Aslan and the Moon gazed upon each other with joyful and unblinking eyes." C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian