it smells like everything but smoke.

{via Unsplash}

2015 showed up without warning. One minute, it was the year of precipice -- the year of death and life, the year my book was born, the year my marriage passed the five year mark, the year our daughter turned two, the year we found out that we were adding a fourth member to our family.

The year that turned me inside out and rubbed salt on my skin.

And then I blinked. And 2015 arrived.

My year of burning. 

Every year, I pick a word. Or rather, the word picks me. It finds me in the snow, in the dark, between the clinking of dirty dishes and the noise that my vacuum makes when it sucks up a sock by mistake. It slips into my soul the way water slides around stones. It doesn't move them, it just makes itself at home in the spaces.

And this year of burning // it's already started. It started when I dared to speak the release date for the second book to my writing coach, and she smiled through Facebook chat and said,  HOLLA. Just like that, all in caps. From anyone else, it would have made me smile and I would have moved on. From her? It's a tattoo on my heart-walls.

Holla. You got this. You do this.

It started when our entire plan for birthing this second child was turned on its ear by a cowardly stranger, leaving me scrambling for plans B, C, and D...and maybe even E. It all went down between rushed footsteps to the bathroom and a smell-sensitive husband standing outside the bathroom door with a water bottle and a hairband and a soft apology. It happened in my weakest moments, leaving me feeling even weaker in the process.

2015, you're already burning shit away. And I mean that literally figuratively. All the crap, all the stuff that I came into this year carrying? It's burning away. And it stinks and it's making me gag and feel weak and empty in the moment. But then I feel lighter, better, when I walk away.

It's the kind of year where I stop apologizing for making metaphors out of morning-afternoon-evening-all-the-time sickness. It's the kind of year where I acknowledge mistakes and dig my hands in deeper until the mud creeps up to my elbows, the kind that smells fresh and earthy and full of growth potential.

I can't help but wrap my entire body around the story of the three men in the fire that turned into four, because Glory was made perfect in flames and they were never alone. And they came out without even the smell of smoke on them, because they were wrapped up in Lion's breath -- flame retardant from He who would eventually fight a path through hell all for my soul.

Burning is beautiful. Burning is deadly. I'm okay with both.

So basically, this is where I leave you. Or begin with you. I'm not entirely sure which is more appropriate, but both apply ::

2015 is a year of burning. Of birth. Of rings of fire, physical and mental and spiritual. I can anticipate the raw that will be in this place. Less censored, more jagged.

Less talking, more words.

And a hell of a lot more burning.

the synchronicity of birthing

{via pinterest

when I started 2014, He gave me a word :: precipice. and I knew it was a scary word, a big word, a word that held a lot of power and shivering potential. and it might not all be good. because weather high-up can be harsher than the weather close to the ground. when the word found its home inside me, I literally shook and sobbed and begged for another. because I knew :: big things, heavy things. and I was afraid.

I had no idea.

I lost another grandmother, the second in twelve months. upheaval became the name of the game. there was emotional turmoil, loss and brokenness in a community that I thought was solid ground. my family groaned under the weight of ache after broken-hearted ache.

and in the moments between the weeping, I wrote a book. words became sentences became paragraphs became pages became chapters because an entire volume. and yesterday, I finished it. officially. the proofing is done, the uploads are complete, the cover is the correct size. and then I clicked the button and ordered fifty copies. thirty-nine copies are already spoken for, which is overwhelming and more than I ever expected.

but on Friday, two days before, we got more news.

our family is growing. 

another tiny pair of feet are forming beneath my skin. 

and again comes the feelings of unworthiness, like last time. but this time, there is something more. there is something powerful that drowns out all the whispers of fears and cries of "too much too soon all at once." 

there is hope. there is a breath of restorative life. there is an echo of synchronicity that I've been waiting for...finally. it's been forever. 

this year, this precipice year, it has been a year of "He takes, blessed be. He takes, blessed be. oh, again, He takes. blessed be..." and the words have started to falter on my tongue, quivering as though I might not believe them as much as I did the first time. my lips ache from the wind-burn of being so extended on this precipice, and my fingers are bleeding from the grip against the stone.

and then I remember that He makes the stone crack. that death starts working backwards.

this year has been heavy. but now there is life. 

life on paper, words from my own soul escaping into the world. 

and life under skin, growing to be birthed into the world when the appointed time comes. 

abundant, He promised. 

life. 

the labour room

{photo taken the day of Marian's birth
by Abigail Dahl}

pressing in is not always elegant. it is not always a tender touch of hands on shoulders, it is not always what happens in a jubilant moment at the end of a church conference. it doesn’t always happen in cherished community.

sometimes it’s a falling, a plunging of brokenness and tears onto the couch, a visceral sobbing into cushions as the vice of pressing in seems like it will crack you from head to toe like a china doll left in the ruins of an abandoned museum.

it can be the scariest thing you’ve ever experienced.

for me, it was the day my daughter was born...

{I'm sharing the story of the day Marian entered the world, the day that everything shook, and the day that pressing in became tactile holiness. join me here for the rest, won't you?}

wild night, holy night

{photo by me}

I want to talk about the wildness.

did you know that this season is the start of the wilding?

we don’t talk about it, we don’t focus on it, hardly ever. we focus on the two extremes, the war on Christmas or the silence of the must-be-holy.

there is the madhouse of the mall, the shopping centers pulsing and writhing with need and want and heads down to make it from one aisle to another. or there is the Silent Night, the soft moments that are left behind the closed doors of imagination, the things that cause lit candles to flicker to the tune of Oh Holy Night. 

those are your options. pick one and have done.

but I can’t. I can’t release that wildness, the one we feel obligated to leave at the door as we find our places in the pews in their special liturgical rows. because there was screaming and howling and blood, so much blood. and was there even a midwife, anyone save the rough carpenter hands fumbling? It was foreign, one virgin touching another in a way far different than they could have anticipated.

there was wildness. this I promise.

but it’s not just the cave and the hills and the shepherds humming the song of the expectation to their flocks. It’s not just the mooing of cows to the tune of birthing screams.

it’s the sacred conflict, the holiness of the One long awaited slipping in a rush from body to hands in darkness. it’s the way we strip away this rawness, this wildness, the very moment the tree is tucked away and the candles are guttering in their sconces.

{photo by jennifer upton}

we wipe Him down and place Him neatly on His prepared shelf, and say, “there You go. You were so dirty, and now You look like us.”

it’s not that He was Anglo-Saxon or Mediterranean, it’s not that He was born in humble state and then raised up high. it’s that He was born wild, raised in His own Messianic rebellion. and then He poured out the essence of Himself on the ground into a puddle that splashed against their shoes.

but we would rather see Him clean. His birth was blood and straw. His life was dirt and wind and callouses on His fingers and blisters on His toes. His death was blood and splintered wood. His burial was ice cold stone and humbly woven linen strips.

there is a reason for the falling to knees and whispering, “oh night, divine.” 

because what is more holy that the Mighty taking a seat beside the bleeding and pulling them against themselves? what is more sacred than the Lion taking the wounded lamb and letting her blood turn His mane from brown to crusty sodden red?

oh, holy night. 

the Holiness midwife

{photo via dramaticelegance}

dear you,

yes, you, the one with the Charlie Brown Christmas tree and the pile of tangled lights. you, with the expectation piling up in droves around you while sparkling decorations and Christmas carols threaten to drown you in a haze of grief and overwhelming fog.

it's okay.

it's okay to shut down Pinterest and buy cookie dough from the store. it's okay to leave the elf off the shelf and the cardboard star hanging sideways off the top of the tree.

it's okay to bury your head in your hands and sob to the tune of Jingle Bell Rock because you're too exhausted and worn down to turn the radio off.

because that's not the point, is it?

this is the season of Word becoming Flesh, the season of being stripped down to beyond the nothing. sometimes, it's even a time of fear. because waiting can be scary when you can't see beyond that curve in the road. it's a pregnancy, an expectant quivering. it is a cracking, an opening cervix through which blood will stain and Life will come.

it's the time of imperfection. if we were perfect, there would be no need for this season, for this waiting for the cry of One who came to gather us into Himself. for the One born of blood who came to bleed. He was born to stain, to leave a mark on all He touched.

He was not born for tidy.

it's okay to let go. to relax and let it come. we scream through the contractions and labour through the waiting. the Holiness is the midwife to this birthing, strong enough to bear it all.

and so you, you dear beautiful expectant soul. there is so much permission here. there is permission to breathe and pause. there is permission to quiver. there is permission to be imperfect.

sometimes you have to fight to find the sacred in the Advent. sometimes, you light a candle amid the piles of dishes on the kitchen counter and close your eyes and whisper,

i am waiting, i am listening. 

{this is another in my Story prompt series. would you joint us? there is always room for you}

a year of Light :: {my girl}

i wanted to write a post about thrashing. it's been on my heart and mind since my post last week since i allowed myself to exhale about my faith journey publicly. but then, i guess i am going to write on thrashing.

because i'm going to write about my girl.

i cannot believe it's been a year since my soul-wailing warrioress made her entrance into the world. i didn't know such a small being could so drastically change my perspective on life. i didn't know i could be this brave for someone else, not just for myself.

in a way, she brought about my gushing. this tiny one brought me intense volume and the most incredible hush, all once. she's a mystery, my Marian.

she held my hand

walked me into my soul

and said

this is where i want you

to write from.

Soul/mate |Tapiwa Mugabe

the poem above made its way into my inbox this morning, so early, on this day, a gift from a soul-sister far away.  and i wept like rainwater with each word. because a year ago, i would have read those words so differently. i would have found something romantic, something sensational in those words. i would have imagined something far away. 

but now it's personal. 

because the she is now both of us :: this tiny little blue-eyed dove daughter that whispers the most luminescent nonsense into my heart. it's been a year of this whispering, and i look back now with impossible awe that i have survived, and what i have done, and what she has pushed me to create with those tiny fingers. 

i didn't understand this feminine roaring, this brave standing, until i held something made of Light in my two hands and trembled, i don't know what i'm doing. 

sometimes she cries. and sometimes i cry. and sometimes, i sit and weep while this tender-souled love touches my cheek and hums some strange infant-turned-toddler song while we rock. sometimes she soothes me. she's radiant and intense and such a jumble. 

in the darkness, while she sleeps with lashes on my cheek and mouth drooping open like it did the night she entered this world, He whispers, she needs you. and you need Me. 

dearheart, it's okay. 

He gave me her in a time when i didn't know who i was, let alone how to mother something so small and innocent. i'm still thrashing {oh, that word. prepare to see more of it around here}, and i'm still growing. but He knew i needed her like she needs me :: a picture, born of blood and love. 

so we'll keep walking. her and i and Him. 

happy birthday, Marian Abigail. 

your momma loves you. 

little girl loved // two weeks

{taken the day of her birth, bare minutes old}

my daughter is two weeks old today.

and i've been resisting the urge to blog endlessly about her for fear of turning into one of those moms who can't exist outside their children.

but she's so new, and so precious, and i can't help but fall in love with her all over again every single time i look into her tiny face and see those blue eyes staring back at me and see that tiny mouth curl up into a pouting smile that illumines me.

the first days of her life are a mental blur for me, a blur of morphine and hospital blue and white stripped blankets. and now they are a different sort of blur, an exhausted new mommy blur of sleeping sometimes but not all the time.

clocks have stopped having a meaning for me. 3am and 12 noon and 4:15pm have all become times to curl my body around my newborn child and feed her from my own body and inhale her sweet indescribable infant aroma.

and though she be but little

she is fierce 

:: william shakespeare ::

{two weeks old in Daddy's arms, already so much different}

there is a strange fierceness about this tiny creature that came from my body. the way she demands attention with the loudness of her wails, the wildness of her intense blue eyes. 

there is no secret that she will be a warioress, 

// and she already is, in a way. 

at two weeks old, she is already little girl loved, small fairy-child treasured. and now she sleeps on my husband's chest curled in a soft pink daisy-patterned blanket with her rosebud mouth partially open and an arm tucked beneath her head. 

and i'm overwhelmed with the fierceness of this small one, of Aslan's newest and smallest daughter, currently a cub but a strong lioness in the making. 

i'm mad with love, with a fire i did not know i could ever possess. 

i'm mother, more than i ever was before. 

and i am two weeks mother to a lioness. 

arrival // Marian Abigail

she is here. 

my bug, my angel, my soul-wailing warrioress. 

:: Marian Abigail ::

9-16-2012

9:21pm

9 lbs, 6 oz, 21 1/2 long

my labour was induced on the 15th at 7pm. i laboured for 24 hours with no change, breathing my way through contraction after contraction, praying for strength as they grew and then faded and then grew again.

but then her heart began to struggle as i contracted. oxygen found my nose and fluids found my veins and we watched and waited and prayed. 

doctors came and my mother held one hand, my mother-in-law held the other, and my husband stood at my head while i wept in fear and whispered

please God...

please...

labour was too hard on her, they said. and she was big, bigger than they had ever imagined my body could produce and bear for so long. and the time had come, the appointed time, for this child to enter the world. 

they bound my husband up in baby blue scrubs and clad us both in green mesh caps and numbed my body from breasts to toes. and i laid on the table, arms spread wide and shaking like a leaf with whispered words into my ear and his hand clutching mine, and His hands holding all three of us. 

and they pulled her from me, this child of the strong lungs and dark hair that covers her head like the softest duckling feathers.

 in a rush of blood and life-giving fluid, my daughter was born and laid at my cheek so our skin touched. 

and i heard her wail, and i wept. 

and now she lays against my side, curled in pink and white blankets as my body heals among the IVs and foam cups with ice chips. we're a tiny family here. 

my strong little miracle. my heart outside my body. 

my Marian. 

my daughter. 

jumble // tomorrow

{via pinterest}

i'm all over the place right now.

bag packed, clothing washed...did i remember everything? do i need one more blanket, another outfit, just in case? am i overplanning, under-doing?

i'm excited. i'm so, so excited.

but

oh Lord, i'm so scared. 

:: tomorrow is the day ::

i've been counting down for this day for 41 weeks and 3 days that have seemed to stretch endless in front of me. and now this is the end, no more waiting.

i'm being induced tomorrow, the stroke of noon is where this pumpkin starts to transform from me to Mommy. it could be hours, it could be days. i don't like this unknown where i sit right now, this not knowing.

but this i do know.
He is greater. He is in control.
He is God. i am not.

so pray for me, would you please? because i'm so very small, and this seems so very big. and i need peace to do this big thing, this foreign and beautiful and frightening thing.

i'm bringing life through blood. it's sacred, a reminder of Him, really. the Stone Table broke when blood was spilled, and my body might break in this pursuit of motherhood. i'm ready to be carried, lifted up and held.

tomorrow is begin.
tomorrow is the start.

and He is greater.

Narnian almost-newborn

{via pinterest}

i am Reepicheep.
a mouse who must be held back from attempting combat with a dragon.

i'm marveling at the grace and joy that this life brings, to inhale and exhale courage that never seems to let up these days.

there is a kind of happiness and wonder 

that makes you serious. 

it is too good to waste on jokes. 

:: the last battle  // c.s. lewis

and that is where i am right now, right on the cusp of so many things, so much change. and i am breathless with excitement.

i understand that Narnian wonder again...i think i had forgotten what this feels like. it used to be my passion, to leap into the pools and come up to the tune of Lion's breath and steel growing alive from the ground.

because that's what this time is for me, a transition from summer to autumn, the time when the earth comes so alive and grace overflows so that the earth brings life from nothing.

{via pinterest}

it's hot cinnamon apple cider and burning leaves coupled with soft pink sheets and hand-crocheted booties in purple and mauve.

it's mustard yellow sweaters and chunky knit scarves with fresh-printed books by candlelight...Goodnight Moon and I'll Love You Forever take up the shelves where Austen and Bronte used to reside.

this is where it starts. this is the begin.
she is four days late, but i know she will arrive.

and then we will tip over the wave and catch our first glimpse of Aslan's county in her newborn eyes.

and i will teach her to being a roaring lamb
a dragon-fighting mouse.

being imperfect mommy

{my family, May 2011}
me, my mommy, my daddy, my sister

your mother is so amazing
you have a fantastic father. 

these are words i hear often, frequently filling my ears from the lips of those who encounter the people that raised me. not just church people, not just family people, but strangers too, sometimes, who know me through them.

my father is the life of the party, loud and wild with a whistle and a laugh that both boom and echo so loud that they can be heard in the front of the church where i sit, compared to the back where he sits with my mother, always just that one second after the joke when the rest of the laughter has died away.

but he has these eyes, my father, the eyes that draw men to speak and share their hearts when most would rather withdraw and be quiet. he was good to his girls, my dad, my mom and sister and me, and soon his granddaughter too. most men wouldn't have cared. my daddy did.

and then there's my mom. this red-haired, coffee-carafe toting powerhouse who often starts her sentences with i'm not perfect or only by the grace of God am i here. and she's right, of course, because it takes God and only God. but mommy needs to give herself some credit too. because she spends hours with women, holding their hands and weeping with the broken. she gives of herself endless and endless to teenage girls who love her and call her mom like i do, and it's amazing.

and women tell me that listening to my mom is like listening at the feet of Jesus. and it is, because she raised me when she could have said no, and adopted me when she could have been content to give to others who didn't hold corners of her flesh in their fists. but she chose a daughter, and then another. and gave even more of herself -- the most bits of herself -- to us, my sister and me.

and i'm going to be a mom soon, any day now. and i sit and press my hands to my swollen stomach where my daughter, due tomorrow and stubbornly waiting beneath my skin where she seems to be quite comfortable in her silent liquid world. but wouldn't you be too?

i want to be the kind of mom that has people come to my little girl and say your mom is doing good. your mom is amazing. 

{via pinterest}

and i fear i won't be that kind of woman for her. i fear i'll live in flesh and in self, and not in the Jesus-shawl that my mother drapes over her shoulders when the world brings her to her knees. and i fear that i'll chose my own feet instead of kneeling on the sheepskin that my father has used for prayer since i was a little girl.

i have big shoes to fill, these ones of sacred parenting that were emulated for me by the two most amazing people i have ever encountered. and sometimes i call my mom crying, and tell her that i don't feel good enough to mother like she mothered.

and then i remember that He fathered her, and me, and my dad, and my husband. and fall is coming, a death and a life all at the same time. and my little one is coming to make me a mommy, and to make my husband a daddy.

and we won't be perfect parents. but we will be parents who love. i won't be my mom. but i'll be me, and that'll be okay, won't it?

and she'll love me for me, those tiny flailing arms and fluffy little cheeks and big still-unseen eyes of an unknown colour and hair to match, also still unknown.

but He died to make me worthy to hold this tiny one in my arms and call her my child, and made me worthy to be called mommy. He didn't die to make me perfect, to make me supermom, to make me anything but me.

He died to make me whole.

and i'm who she'll call mommy

imperfect mommy who loves Jesus

loving mommy who tries

her mommy. 

who loves her forever & always 

{linking my imperfection with dear emily and her community today. join us?}

circles repeated

{via pinterest}

:: i am drawing circles in the earth.
i am marching around my Jericho. 

those words, those two simple lines, started a post that i wrote on the last day of January. my circle journey had just started, and i almost want to laugh and then weep at how far i have come.

because all of me has become a circle. and i can say that with laughter as i watch my belly grow and grow and continue to grow. and i watch the mandella of prayer in which i have found myself kneeling become visible and evident on my skin, dark purple twisting lines that create

the most intricate
the most precious
the most beloved
and the most frightening of prayer circles that i have ever witnessed.

i've learned more about myself in these past nine months than i ever could have anticipated. and yes, it has been nine months now, at the dawning of this morning's fingers of rose and pale gold. i've had to release the rigidness to which i have steadfastly clung, because i wake up every morning without a single clue as to what i might encounter.

and this journey of her safely beneath my skin is almost over, and with a scream of mine and a wail of hers, she will be here...and this makes me tremble, loved ones. this makes me tremble in the most sacred of ways, and the most human of ways, as well.

{via pinterest}

i feel like this circle is fragile. like it could break if i press the wrong way, and everything falls to pieces. it's that fear again, that serpentine voice whispering my ear, you shall not surely die, but you shall be like God. 

and now i understand why Eve's temptation was so great, why the first woman reached out for the fruit that whispered lies of simple solution, of knowledge of what is and what could come.

but i'm letting Him guide my fingers from sparkling poison apples to something brighter, something dirty like Carpenter's sandals, something dusty like the hem of the Rabbi's cloak.

grasp Me here. 
and down on your knees is where you will find Me, the most clean and the most pure. 

because faith is found in circles of prayer and blood and freshly cut covenant
where the fire can pass between the torn pieces of me to lodge in the fullness of Him.

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.