wine-tasting

tonight at WalMart, a woman touched my arm and spoke life over me.

I've never met this woman before and I doubt I ever will again. we were standing between peanut butter and hot chocolate mix and Keurig coffee cups, me leaning upwards on tiptoes for a jar just barely out of reach, her pushing a cart down the row toward me from behind.

"I just want you to know, I feel like you need to know, you're doing a good job at whatever it is you're doing." 

and then she walked away.

holy. holy. holy. 

this woman had no idea what those words did for me, the second breathing of prophecy over me in the past twelve hours. she has no idea how deeply I've been creatively pushing myself, she has no idea about the vulnerability hangover I've been nursing since I submitted my fictional short story for publication perusal on Monday, followed by pouring raw words of a far less fictional sort in yet another direction last night.

she has no idea that today was the day that I stood crying at my kitchen counter, overwhelmed with a thousand things bearing down on my shoulders. she didn't know that I've been laden with self-doubt and low on words since acknowledging my own worth. {does it get more ironic than that?}

{photo via pinterest}

I am the biggest enemy to my own creativity, to my own setting out and declaring. I'm fearlessly committed to encouraging others to embrace their words, tell their stories, pour themselves out, peel back the roughage and let their brave show naked and raw and powerful. and then I find myself at the top of a tree, a kitten who had no problem scaling the trunk and finding my cheerleading perch, but now I cannot get down and I'm suddenly stricken with unmatched fear.

I am ravenous for my own self-worth. it's there. I can smell it, the way wine drifts over from the glass and makes your mouth water and your tastebuds spring to life with anticipation. but someone convinced me that I'm a teetotaler and that picking up that glass would be death to my soul.

but the Lion is whispering, not roaring {He knows what my soul can hear}.

if you do not drink, lioness, then you will die of thirst. and there is no other stream. 

being brave enough to lift the glass, to down its contents and let them flood the depths of me is only half the battle. the second part comes when I must step forward and speak, knowing that they'll know what I've been drinking. it's a different kind of intoxication, the kind that brings life instead of death, the kind that leaves deception at the gate and ushers in life like electricity through the heart of a corpse.

it's not chasing the fear away. no, not at all. it's embracing the fear, letting it do what it must, letting it prove itself futile and watching it drift away on the breeze like ash as the brave-flames stoke higher and higher still.

if you'll excuse me, I've been invited to a wine tasting.

{inspired by a Story Sessions prompt. join us? there's always room for you here with us}

fire-walking

{photo by Jennifer}

{this piece has been recorded in my own voice here.}

we live in a place where being naked is forbidden, in the literal sense of sleeves and cleavage and measuring tapes, and the metaphorical sense of words and eyes and thoughts. in fact, I think the fear lies closer to the words than the wardrobe.

it's common knowledge that being covered up to the neck is accepted and seen as the best choice. and if you choose to bare anything that steps outside the line, you risk getting hurt, and it would be your fault. because they told you the rules, and you stepped outside the circle.

it's barefoot coal walking with everyone whispering around you, you're going to get burned, you're going to get burned, you're gonna get burned. someone comes forward with shoes, a pair of socks, nylons. their offerings are well-meaning, but the intent is the same: cover yourself. they're tugging at your ankles, and you're wobbling, clumsily trying to stammer out a plea for them to stop. but then you're face-down on the embers with burn marks on your face, and the chiding comes in thick and fast.

you brought this on yourself, you know. that's what you get for playing with fire. we warned you.

but they missed the point. you're walking on hot coals with your bare feet, and you weren't getting burned until they started trying to cover you. your brave is showing, and it looks good on you. just because your bravery got scorched doesn't mean it went away. it just needs a little salve.

so you arch your neck and throw the socks in the fire-pit, with the shoes and the nylons, and maybe you take off your coat and add it to the pile. and you take a wild step, with the chant pulsing like blood in your veins. it's become your life-source, more oxygen and water than simple words repeated.

your brave is showing. your brave is showing. your brave is showing. 

repeat it as many times as the lies come, and maybe one more so that the brook-stone sinks deeper into the giant's forehead. it's not unladylike to wield a hammer, you builder-woman you.

there's wind on your skin, and it's cold and it'll make you shiver. but you'll take another wild step, and you'll hear the skin-sizzle and smell the smoke, and the flesh of your toes might char, just a little. but that hurt, it's the right kind, the kind that comes when you wake up and everything aches from the pushing and the stomping and the pressing with your back against the stone. the ache that comes when you wake up and find you moved a mountain overnight.

your brave is showing...step...

your brave is showing.... step...

{this post was inspired by my tribe of writers, the ones that hold my hand and my back in a way I've never experienced. want to join us in Story Sessions? there's always room for you with us.}

precipice

{photo by jennifer upton}

I found my word for 2014. and it's a scary one.

normally, I keep this under wraps until right around the end of the month, the end of the year. there's something about that cresting that has always appealed to me. I appreciate symmetry, waiting for the start of the end to speak about what word is to come. but this year, this year is different.

this year is a big one.

it's been building, this strange activity that I started just for fun. I had no idea that He would use it to change me, shape me in such a powerful way. how could I have known? it was just a clever pastime, something everyone was doing.

in 2012, it was brave, that word I now use far more freely than I ever imagined I would. but He heard me and whispered, brave you will be, dearheart. but it must be built. 2012  was a year of expectancy, of pregnancy, of birthing, of pain and sickness and surgical knives. it was the year of delivery. it was the year of motherhood.  

then came 2013, and with it, came release. I remember wondering, why this word, and thinking of what it could mean for me. I wanted to be made new. I just forgot that Holy fire was often involved. it brought me the first year of my daughter's life, the loss of a dream house and the finding of another. it showed me that I'd forgotten how powerful grief could be as I mourned the death of one grandmother and brain cancer in another.

now 2014 is right around the corner, and it's breathing soft down my neck. it's not stalking me, it's not threatening me. but it is making me quiver as it breathes the word straight from the mouth of the Lion, whispering it over my soul.

precipice. 

when I heard the word, curled under a quilt beside the Christmas tree while Survivor played on the television, my everything shook and I wept. there was something overwhelming about this word. simple letters, laid together in order, enough to make me tremble with the power it brings.

{photo by jennifer upton}

first I was brave, brave enough to climb the mountain. and then came the releasing, the start of the shedding, finding what was holding me back and weighing me down. and now I am on the precipice. and as my precious sister Elora spoke to me, prophetess that she is: nothing is holding you back now. you've released everything. now you're free to fall.

I've talked about this birthing before, this cervix-like opening, a Red Sea of blood with my soul as a midwife and the Lion of Judah as a coach at my back. it's standing on the edge of a cliff with the water beneath me. the waves are beating and the rocks are shaking and my footing is a combination of steady and unsure.

I've been shedding, chips of me falling off and splashing into the water. and now, here comes 2014, right around the corner. and my toes have found the very edge.

precipice.

nothing holding me back. I'm free to fall.

:: in which i'm Tangled up in Brave-ry

{via pinterest}

{over the next several weeks, maybe even months, i will be writing here and there from elora's thirty days of prompts. this is something that i have never done before, something raw and fresh and gorgeous and potentially painful. so please, be gentle with me. you can find all posts i have written from these prompts here}

every time i breathe, i am reminded what is like to be a woman in this day. every time i put my toes outside my own little circle, i find myself attempting to be swallowed by this creature that is confusion.

it's why i have so deeply adopted release as my precious word for 2013, and why it has been so hard to live the words i speak. or, in this case, type. more often than not, i feel like my soul competes for a place against the modern definition of "sense." in faith, in life, in motherhood, in the very essence of womanhood itself.

i found a poem someone anonymous had left with magnets on the bookshelf at the library today, as i sat and pondered being a woman, being a mother to a little dove-daughter who has woman brewing at her core. it fit, deeply, like a puzzle piece locking in a secret sacred place within my heart ::

worship Light through enormous shadow

rain, mist, storm will be

swim above

never beneath

dream

drive on

smoothly

luscious life can shine

:: author unknown, and they want it that way :: 

i sat with my little one today and watched Tangled. and sometimes we watch Brave and sometimes it's Beauty and the Beast. they're tales of princesses and true love and beautiful dresses, and people beat down my soul-doors and cry, how can you stand strong as woman but embrace fluffy dresses and princes on white horses?

did you know it's possible to acknowledge love and still embrace myself? because we all need someone, after all, and it's okay to have a bow and arrow in your back pocket but still look out the window and whisper, someday...

warrioresses have two hands, one for the bow and one for the Words.

{via pinterest}

:: but needing a warmth to curl against when the nights are cold doesn't make you a traitor to strength or a backstabber to progress. it makes you created with God-breath in your lungs.

because we all know He spoke truth when He murmured like breeze among Eden's leaves, it is not good that {s}he should be alone. 

and sometimes we just need to sketch the solar system on our palms and look down and realize that we are held in more than ink and skin but in Light and Breath from the lungs of Glory.

it's okay to release what you think you know and turn your neck so that you look behind you just to make sure that the Breath will carry you when you take that step off the cliff. and maybe you have to build your wings on the way down using the string from your bow and the feathers from your arrows.

but you're still warrioress.

art is for you

{via pinterest}

i remember the first time i saw the ocean. i was a little girl, landlocked from birth, with a swimsuit that matched the ocean and short hair hacked by even younger hands. and my soul inhaled the salty air and murmured,

:: i am home. 

it takes diving into a pool and sinking down to rise up into the place He sang into Life. it takes cresting the ocean's wave to even catch a glimpse of His eternal country. there's something powerful about this idea, that it takes deep immersion until all you can see is the Light hovering on the surface of the water from down below.

we are all soul-creatures, made to be seen, 

created to be tenderly cradled and adored, 

yet we tremble at the thought of it.

love like water :: wild rain

so often i wish i had a mermaid tail tucked away in the closet, shimmering and waiting for me to slip inside and dive into the sea :: to return home, in a way, to a place that i never truly held but always flowed through my fingers.

i think it's part of why i've gone back to being an artist in recent days. it was something i had given up after comparing myself to others who were "better" even though all we were was different. i was seventeen when i put down the brush. all it took was an art teacher's slightly raised eyebrow and the words, maybe art isn't for you. 

all i can do is reflect back on words i've written before :: it's those moments in the dark where we wrap our arms around our knees and kneel within ourselves to the waves of crashing Love that threaten to overwhelm us. it's a tremble, not a cringe. it's a breathing, not a hyperventilation. 

{sketch by alexandria for dramaticelegance}

this is for me. and my mermaid soul is seen by the One who wove kelp into my hair and called my soul to love of depths.

there is a seacove of my own, tucked gently beneath the waves at the edge of Aslan's Country, that place that hums a familiar melody and whispers of one day, forever. there in that place is a set of paintbrushes made from the mane of the Lion who gave it up for me to Live freely. 

it's a metamorphosis of sorts, a shedding of the ugly and the embracing of the mantle of glory.  it's stepping away from the shadows that confines my feminine soul into certain boxes that aren't allowed to stand here because it might not be right. 

it's being brave and letting down my hair. He promised to come to us like rain, and like water does He fill my soul to overflowing. 

and this is where i am :: tucked in my cove surrounded by sisters of soul and ocean, the crash of the ocean and the roar of the Lion harmonizing tender. 

because He promised
art is for you,
My mermaid daughter. 

one thing // i want to see

{photo taken by rachel lee
property of dramaticelegance}

{over the next several weeks, maybe even months, i will be writing here and there from elora's thirty days of prompts. this is something that i have never done before, something raw and fresh and gorgeous and potentially painful. so please, be gentle with me}

sometimes i wonder if i ever have a one thing. all my life, i've been the she of a million hats, that girl that does it all. i raised my hand more than it sat on my hip, ever since i knew how.

i've been working, plowing a strange sort of furrow on the ground and dropping a handful of seeds in the dirt. and they grew, up like fingers reaching toward heaven. 

and then as all my things grew up twisted and tangled and strangely beautiful but all too close together, i sat and sighed. because it was beautiful and perfect, but it felt foreign. like something you go and look at that another has done, without the personal connection.

and again, i whispered,
// do i even have a one thing?

and then i find myself in the darkness under the light of the beaming supermoon, and the lyrics flow in: now you do, now you do.and i start to realize that maybe i do have a one thing. a trend that has followed me all my life. 

:: words. 

and i think i know what i'm doing, some of the time. and then something inside me slips, a cog tripping out of line, and i start with the assumption that actually i have no idea. and then i get scared and scarred and i pick up my skirts and i run away, because shadows whisper too much of the unknown. 

and this thing of the unknown is unsure and viciously uncomfortable. and i told a friend, the kind of friend that grips your heart and gathers close to your soul, that it was an awful gorgeousness, and she felt it because it's true. 

i want to be Lucy, brave Lioness steeped in renewal. but then, i find a mirror and i choke. 

{via pinterest}

i'm Edmud. ugly, traitor, viciously sucked in by tempting sweets laced with poison lies until i am pale and and empty. i'm Eustace, trapped and afraid, clawing at myself because i cannot get free of this scale-wrapped fear prison...the one that holds the words back. 

and all i can manage is a cry, one so much less than a roar and more of a squeak from a mouse who forgot what it was like to have a tail after all. 

if You are willing, i want to see.

and He finds me there at the pool alone and touches my cheek and murmurs my name in the light of dawn, His love roaring like a Lamb. 

dearest daughter, 

I AM willing. 

and i can see. laid before me like a banquet of starlight from His secret garden, i can see my one thing.  

:: words. 

messy, aching, beautiful words. 

laid bare :: in which i learn that courage groans

{photo of myself, courtesy of nikki} 

sometimes being brave is easy. 

you know what you want to do, and you take first one step and then another and suddenly you're across the bridge without a second thought. and your footprints are there, and looking back, you're aglow with what you have done.

you were brave without realizing. 

and then comes the hard stuff, the realities as the glow of bravery washes away and you realize that not everyone see the same footprints you do. you see the whole path, the big picture, and they see the toe marks in someone else's way.

yesterday, i made a choice. a choice to drop every facade, a choice to dare and be brave and be luminescent :: woman. i chose to live what i have been speaking here for the past several months. i chose to pose semi-nude. 

and i didn't just do it to say i could, but for the hearts of the woman i have held in my arms as they weep and whisper, i starve because i am starving. 

and so i laid myself bare. no make-up or jewelry, no primping save a brush through my hair. there were no touch-ups to take out stretch marks or freckles or those things that i try to cover up with my fingers with down-turned eye and whisper, don't look.

and i closed my eyes and burst into smile and climbed the summit to meet my Savior there in a hush of holiness and a gentle murmur of "on earth as it is in Heaven."

and i met stones on the way down. 

they had their points and they had their reasons and they had their laid-out plan. and i can't help but respect conviction, because after all, i have my own. and it was my husband who stood up with his hand on my shoulder and took the step in front of me and took so many extra arrows in the chestplate, my warrior-man. and i did the best i could, but i sat down and shook with weeping because it was just too much to bear. 

{photo of myself, courtesy of nikki} 

and my dear friend wrapped arms around my shoulders from across the United States and spoke softly to my soul, 

courage doesn't always roar

sometimes it whispers, sometimes it groans

but it is still courage.

and it came from all sides, from the east and the west. 

:: brave. brave. you are brave.

and it came from His own lips, too. 

:: My daughter is brave

and i knew it would happen, but i didn't expect the intensity of the ache. and i knew it would be hard to be brave, that the journey over seemed so easy but the path down the mountain was a rocky tumble. 

so why did i do it, then?

because you are beautiful. i promise you are, dearheart. 

and i'll do whatever it takes for you to see it for yourself.

my daughter drew life from this body, whispered into my being by the Breath of the Lion. and she changed my visage, my skin, into a portrait made with blue eyes and soft red hair and baby's breath on my neck. and i fit no molds, not that i did before, and i'm learning to be okay with that. 

i am my Beloved's, radiant and adorned. 

thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee.

:: song of songs 4:7

// // 

{i want this to be a gentle place, a place of love and respect. if you have something to say, please say it with love and words seasoned with salt and Life. i have disabled anonymous comments because honestly, i am still learning to be brave, and i think you should, too. if you don't want to write your response publicly, my inbox is always open to you. i also have a zero tolerance policy for fat-shaming, victim-blaming, "slut"-shaming, etc.}

if you dare

it's the one about revelation. it's the one about life unrestrained and the stuff that comes along with it, day by day.

it's the one about renewal and restoration. embracing the challenge, living in the freedom we craved and received and now are almost too afraid to reach out and take.

{via pinterest}

i thew my hands in the air and said

"show me something"

He said

"if you dare, come a little closer."

stay // rihanna

and i'm digging in my heels and shaking my head back and forth because i'm afraid. but arrows have to be pulled back to fly forward, and so i'm releasing my grip and letting my head lean up with mouth open to taste the rain of His goodness and mercy. 

sometimes i feel like a collage, scrap paper pieced together like little girl dreams of this and that with glue sticks and glitter, except with bigger girl dreams that are just as fragile and just as deep.

it's like holding that match to newspaper, watching the flames expand and the statue turn from stone to new living skin and blood and breath. the thunder rolls like the churning mantra in my soul, and i find
my way to stomping and lifting my face to the sky.

if you dare, come a little closer.

hesitant on the water's edge, whispering, i'm thirsty...will You promise not to hurt me? 

and He says that He can make no such promise, but i come and dip my hand in the stream anyway because the Water is living and i am dying slowly without Him flowing through my body like liquid Light.  

:: because i begged Him to show me something.

and He did. 

{linking with dear emily where we rejoice in imperfection} 

:: brave looks good on you

{via pinterest}

i've been compelled by bravery in recent days.

i think it's because i'm learning more about my Jesus, more about this journey that He and i are taking. and i'm embracing the fear that might come, because it makes me lean against His chest more and whisper,

hold me, Daddy. 

i got a new tattoo on my leg this past week, the kind that hurts a lot more than you thought it would. but i closed my eyes and embraced the ache because it was a beautiful picture for me, spending my Good Friday with the low throb on my skin.

because He marked His skin for me, in a holy different way. and then He broke the bonds and rose up, up, the phoenix from the ashes of death with a resurrected Lion's roar.

I am the Resurrection.

I am the Life.

I AM. 

and so i have a phoenix of my own now. it's my reminder to be brave, to sing in the flames while holding the hand of the One, the Son of God. 

{photo by DramaticElegance}

it's standing on the Rock that is mightier than i, reaching out for the hem of the robe of the Broken Lamb. 

i won't lie, i'm more like Peter than i'd like to admit. the fearful one, shaking by the fire with trembling lips and eyes downcast to the ashes gathered by my toes. 

and i have to reach up and touch the marks of Love that track down His back, the holes through His hands, the ones that speak of the most incredible self-sacrificing Love. 

now i reach down to the mark on my leg, the red and black, the flames and the petals. and i smile to myself and whisper

:: be adventurous more often

brave looks good on you, dearheart.  

auld lang syne

{via pinterest}

it's the end of 2012. how did that happen already? 

this year has been full of a thousand moments, a million things that i wasn't expecting. i am better for them, i know, even if they broke me as they came. 

the last day of 2011, He gave me the word -- one word -- brave, and i didn't know why. and then i found out why thirteen days later when expecting brave became reality, and Marian was waiting for me then. and then everything went up and down in a kaleidoscope of colour and newness and fear and tears and joy. oh, so much joy in this year. 

i used to look back on the calender squares and wrinkle my nose. good riddance to that 365. but not anymore. now i look back and whisper i was brave. i was so brave. 

i was also silent a lot this year. looking back at my blog, i've watched my words slowly trickle down to a drip and my stream of consciousness become dammed up and locked away. is it out of place, sacrilegious even, to compare myself to Mary in these months? both Marys of the Word, in fact.

one bore the King of Heaven under her skin, bound up all these things and treasured them so deep within her heart. silent solitude was this mother of the Holy One. 

and the other sat at the feet of the Man and listened, worshiping there on the ground with eyes turned up to hear away from the business and the pull of others to come and be lost in the grind of life. 

{via pinterest}

both listened. both were silent. and i've done much of that in 2012. 

i learned that brave does not mean unafraid. if it did, no one could ever be brave because fear is there wherever you go. it means exhaling and letting go, leaving the empty to be filled by He who is greater than i. 

starting last year, i gave up resolutions and took a word instead. my word is brewing in me now. i can taste it, feel it stirring so electric and so passionate within my heart. 

2013 is a blank canvas yet. untouched. but oh, soon it will be full of paint and lines and so much colour. i'm carrying brave over and i'm adding on. and my soul will magnify the Lord. and i will declare, oh, He is Risen and Alive and thus, i too will live in the volume and the grace of the King of Glory. 

i will leap barefoot in paint puddles and cry holy holy holy. 

see, I am doing a new thing!
    now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
    and streams in the wasteland.

::isaiah 43:19::

passion seeker :: finder

{via pinterest}

but how do you find your passion?

no, really. how do you find your passion?

:: the sacred life of rain

it's a simple question. isn't it?

i'm an artist, a dreamer. i'm a passionate person with overflowing dreams and an electric surge under my skin. but how do i find my passion? 

i feel like my passion hit a wall this week. we had something in our grasp, something i didn't know i wanted quite this badly until it fell apart. it was a home, and it was beautiful and green, and i heard our future in those walls and planned moments in those rooms. 

but then, it went away. and then i wept until my body ached. i was on fire for this dream. 

and now, i feel swayed by this wind that has gushed through my body and whispered i wanted this so bad. and i wailed to my husband,

this is why i don't get excited

and i opened my mouth and dared to wrestle with the Lion like Jacob.

 why? 

i don't understand

why did you let us get this far?

and i sobbed for all the memories that could have been, and i broke for the passion that i would have possessed there. i stared at drab brown and white walls that i am not allowed to paint, and the too-much-stuff that crowds my corners with not even room for an easel, and i felt my passion compressing down into a cube that barely fit in this tiny place. 

i felt squished. i felt grey, like all the colour had been rung out of me. i felt limp and helpless and empty. no more passion, because i left it in the foyer of this perfect dream.

{via pinterest}

:: and so we wrestled, He and i, until the dawn.  

and then somehow, i dried my tears. my soul woke up and looked around this place, this little corner where he and i and soon our daughter have been placed. and i started to see dark bookshelves in a corner, and swooping dark purple fabric hung like bunting from corner to corner in the back room now-turned nursery. 

we went and bought new sheets for the bed. soft gold fabric to match the flowers on our midnight blue bedspread. and we put down the corners and made up the bed with the gold hidden inside until the blanket got pulled back after midnight. 

i slid my body between those sheets and let out a breath that was more of a prayer than a sob. because my passion isn't dead, it isn't gone, and it wasn't left wrapped around the perfect hardwood banister. 

it never left. i just forgot where it was. i didn't have to find it after all, because it was never lost. my focus had just become blurred. my passions aren't controlled by where i am, by what i have, by what i experience. 

they just are. 

they are in a two story dream, and they are here, in a four room canvas that i just haven't been bold enough to embrace. 

they don't need to be found.

they just are. 

daughter rising

{via pinterest}

i forgot what this felt like. to write my heart, i mean. i've been so tired and so worn for so long that these words seemed to have faded from me, illusive like grass on the wind. and as beautiful as they were, they were lovely to watch float away, too.

and so i let them float, maybe a little too long for some, but just long enough for me. because this life within me, this little tiny heartbeat that we have since discovered beats the warrioress rhythm like mine, has been drawing much from me, and leaving little behind.

yes, i am carrying a girl-child. another daughter for the world, another pair of feminine hands for the Kingdom's banner. and all i can do is wrap my arms around my ever growing stomach and whisper

courage, my dearheart

you are not a daughter alone.

i am almost afraid to bring another woman into this world. the burden already placed upon her tiny shoulders almost breaks me down to weeping at every thought. for who knew that so much would be required of innocent eyes and fragile fingers?

rain has told me to blurt. to impulsively speak my heart to the wind. and maybe that's what this is, a blurting out of my heart's overflowing emotion that has been building up and flowing through my veins at a pace too fast and to the tune of some music that i've forgotten that i've missed for weeks. 

{me large with our daughter, 18 weeks}

but this much i know well, and i know strong in my soul.

i will not raise a quiet daughter of sewn-shut lips and discreetly bowed eyes. i will raise an earth-pounder, a piller-shaker, and a battle-crier. 

if she is the gentle warrior, let it be and i will love her. ::

if she is the loudest singer with hands raised to broken clouds, let it be and i will love her.::

 i will not dictate her steps; He has that laid smooth without my desperate attempts to push and prod His mighty Hands. 

her path is on Him, and my smile is on her. 

my Marian Abigail. my evening star, her father's joy. 

my little girl growing. my warrioress rising. my unborn champion, my silent voiced miracle. 

my daughter. his daughter. Aslan's daughter 

dive

{via pinterest}

sometimes people ask me how i intend to keep my warrior's heart alive with a baby on my hip. that it seems glorious now to speak of the sacred and of the Light, but that my time will come when infant cries and sleepless nights will overtake me and that i will flicker out from fancies into realities. 

these are the people that set my determination even deeper to swipe the paint beneath my eyes and grip the temple pillars with white-knuckled fingers. 

since when is the sacred a fancy? and when did motherhood kill the Light? 

have i missed something? 

a wise woman once told me that the weight of her son on her back bore her often to her knees. and isn't this how it should be? where children pull on skirts and guide closer and closer to the Cross, because children are warriors too. 

and i am ten weeks with this one, still silent save for the fluttering heartbeat beneath my skin. 

but this child will not blind my eyes from seeing Light or colour or Heaven's kiss along the earth. i know that it will be hard, and perhaps tears will blur or exhaustion with draw me down to my knees, but i will not be made blind.

:: He promised that i would never be blind again ::

{via pinterest}

i feel like i have toes pressed against the dock with water lapping soft beneath, and the wind whispering brave through my hair. 

maybe this dock is higher than i think, perhaps a ship's yardarm. and there is still this whisking, flowing water beneath my bare feet. 

and i could dive, or i could stay on the edge and wonder always what would have happened if i let go and simply slipped from air to aquatic. 

i think.

no, i know. 

i'm diving. deeper than i've dared before. and i refuse to act as though i am unafraid, because i have shaking fingers. but i've put down roots of brave and i will let the still, small Voice whisper in the night.

courage, dearheart. 

for I have overcome the world.

drumbeat :: magnify

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a precious breather occurred this weekend. i was going to apologize for not blogging in two days, but i'm refraining.

i'm honestly not sorry. 

i love this place i'm in right now. it's a breathing place, a place where Light overwhelms and rest is finally accepted.

it's a dancing place, a place of scarves and bells and so much leaping to the music of glory as this soul magnifies again and again.

this year is barely twenty-two days old. and it's already the best year of my life. perhaps a cliche, a redundancy that everyone speaks in moments of joy. but this is more than this heart can bear.

:: i'm pregnant ::

these are words i still struggle to speak because of their newness and the awe that accompany their presence against my tongue. as the weeks are ticking by and my exhaustion is deepening and my appetite for every food in sight grows, i also start to smile broader. as this little one gets bigger within me, i cannot help but magnify.

:: i'm going to Europe ::

i'm boarding a plane to Germany and Prague with my little sister in April. i still am in utter awe to the point of falling to my knees with elation and wonder. in a matter of hours it went from maybe to impossible to official, and this trip is now in the middling stages of planning. and again, i magnify.

my soul doth magnify the Lord

and my spirit rejoices in God, my Saviour. 

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there are times when i feel that my level of blessings overflow above and beyond anything i could have ever anticipated.

and then in the moments of darkness when hope seems barely fingertips from reach, i remember this.

these dancing moments where glory brushes the earth and i find myself streaking cheeks with earth in lines of warrior paint and the drums of pounding hearts set the beat for my soul to leap.

oh, i am brave, soul doors thrown open to let the sun warm the broken corners.

oh praise Him.

:: EDIT :: Europe has fallen through. and though my heart broke all afternoon and tears flowed like water, i am still rejoicing. because there is something here for me, something to which i should cling. and home is where i should be now, i see. and i am still magnifying. 

big picture details

this is one of those days that i wished i painted.

because this day has been a canvas already flooded with too much colour for one heart to bear.

it took a distant voice down a telephone to soothe a frazzled soul like mine when batteries stop working and computers become electronic nightmares. when the sweet woman with the tender voice soothed the tears of this flustered pregnant woman, i felt a embrace from Heaven.

this entire day, these few hours that i have been awake from a sleep of strange dreams and tangled thoughts, i have had a reminder that it's okay to focus on the little lines instead of the bold strokes for a change.

because it's hard to see the forest for the trees and the trees for the leaves and the veins for all the big picture being pressing against our noses.

and sometimes we need to look past the image in the stained glass window and let the colours swirl over skin.

because it's not always about do.

:: it's about be :: 

and even He whispers of the simple things, like love and hope and grace and brave. do we forget that He knows, that He lived like us and stepped in our path? that He wrote the story and already has the ending etched on His palms?

most of all

let love be your guide

and so i'm not looking at my computer with the broken battery that i cannot unplug for lack of power. i'm looking at the pools of glory in the wood between my worlds of chaos and Light.

and more moments of barefoot wading, and sacred moments of colour and peace.

sacred :: remembrance

i awoke with a pull. a voice in my head, whispering things undecipherable and beautiful.

He's trying to tell me something. 


because as i opened my laptop and began to read, soak myself in Lion's song and sister's words, i began to sense a pattern. again, a pull.

because rain wrote of truth in the thin places, of memorials of the sacred moments. and sarah wrote of love up to the dark, of life written out and remembered in Glory.

and i felt my soul crumble, not in the way of broken stones and shattered dreams. but in the way, the way you only understand if you've felt it before.

that crumbling of release and refreshment that comes when walls of fear and shame come tumbling down and all you can  see is the sun and Son, both shining down on your face, but One brighter than the other.

sacred spaces worth remembering etched in ancient lines across palm, 

and did you know that remembrance is synonymous with love? 

love-marked space says 

something special is here, 

something mysterious 

and worthy

 and holy.

:: rain: lullaby for light ::

and oh, how those words pounded tribal of brave to me. 

because memorials frighten me, sometimes. i'm apt to step into His shoes, into that place of writing in the dirt, scribbling hard with bleeding fingertips of every shame and every broken moment. somehow, i feel i must remember my shame, remember why i am unworthy. 

and then come sandal-clad feet, pierced and bleeding. and they are not the silent feet that some focus upon...

no, these are the pounding Feet that stood on the neck of Death and ground him to powder at the base of the Cross. they belong to the Gentlest Warrior who holds Hands high and cries in Lion's roar

Mine. 

and He destroys my memorial to shame. because He did not die so i would remain. oh, He died that i would rise with Him. and together we gather stones with carvings strange and markings still unfamiliar. 

grace. 

forgiven. light. 

eternity. brave. warrioress. 

Mine. 

and on this altar, i burn my rags and stand scarred and unashamed beside my memorial. i am barefoot, in the sacred place. 

He and i both. 

brave life :: on skin

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i read a quote today, the first line of a blackout poem from the seeker heart of a girl whom i would call an inspiration and a friend. 

life printed on skin

a self-portrait must follow

this quote curled up and nested in my soul from the moment the words passed from eyes to mind. 

for a long time today, i sat and pondered, because i wasn't sure why these words spun silken threads of Light around me and held so fast. 

life printed on skin. 

and then i was drawn back to brave. 

because everyone sees your skin. 

yes, you can cover certain areas with clothing, even bundled from head to toe if you so choose. but you know what's there when the lights go out and the garments slip from shoulder to floor. 

it's not tucked away under flesh and blood and bone like secrets that even x-rays can't reach. it's like the tattoo that stands bold on my wrist, thick black lines that the whole world can see. 

and it's a choice we have. 

a self-portrait we must follow. 

we can tuck down and hide, ducking behind the blankets and begging the world to close its eyes and just look away, just for another minute of invisibility. 

but i feel like He holds out fingers to those corner-clingers, the ones that ache to hide in shadow. and He speaks of sacredness found in freedom, those footprints in the sand when we let Him left and carry. 

i'm brave now, or at least, i'm striving. 

striving hard to live eyes to the sky with outstretched arms, bare with scars and marks. 

because He's in love with them, and so i must be, too.

in love with those lines and lines, thin and thick in black and white and whispers of technicolour of this self-portrait that whispers to His mercies, His glory, and His salvation. 

freedom :: press send {220-227}

no one told me it would be this hard.

barely two days, and this thing of brave already has my fragile fingers shaking. and all it took to make my heart beat faster was pushing that button. 

:: send ::

because the first thirty pages of my book just went to an interested publisher. it took a precious one in my life to get me to get the courage to click that mouse and let it fly from security to unsure. it's my fragile soul, a month of bleeding onto the paper and turning thought into word and imagination into fiction. 

and now it's out of my hands. and i'm petrified. because i don't do rejection well. 

really, does anyone? 

but i'm bad at counting blessings etched on my soul when i'm too busy shaking in the corner with fingers draped over eyes whispering

please don't let me fall

i can't do this.

but i count anyway, one and two and three and four...

• 220. courage. knowing that courage is more than doing, it's being. 

• 221. vulnerability. 

• 222. the voice of a precious friend, urging me to be brave and leap. press send.

• 223. grace. so much grace when i deserve it not. 

• 224. warm soup on a day so cold that noses go numb and fingertips shiver. 

• 225. fresh starts and clean slates. brand-new year, 2012. 

• 226. puppy kisses and The Bachelor on winter nights. 

• 227. healing tattoos, eternal reminders of my place on His palms. 

so i still count. because nothing stops my racing heart more than drowning in eucharisteo, in letting the focus slide away from fear and up further, in further. 

because it's being brave. it's being, all on its own.

it's surrendering in the darkness, waiting for the Light to come again.

{linking with Ann and my sisters in gratitude today}

understanding brave :: being

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it's the first of three sixty five. 

i woke up this morning and laid in bed, staring at the curtains as they fluttered in the frozen breeze. 

:: and i didn't feel brave ::

i made coffee, the first strong pot of a new year, steaming in my mug with fragrant wisps of steam. 

 :: and i didn't feel brave ::

and i looked out the window at the snow-less ground that could perhaps be confused for spring. 

:: and i didn't feel brave ::  

but brave isn't feeling, is it? because feeling lie and emotions betray and too often hearts don't know what they should, and minds know too much of what they shouldn't.

no, brave isn't feeling.

it's being. 

it's not about awakening and leaping from bed to floor with sword in palm. it's about living, all on its own. about thinking less and meditating more. about inhaling and exhaling and repeating the action a thousand times with barely a thought. 

that's my first portion of brave. 

the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud

was greater than the risk it took to bloom. 

:: anis nin :: 

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because brave isn't a battlecry, not really.

it's a love song. 

it's those halting, lonesome notes that ring over the night. it's the sweetness of a Lion's song, of a call to come and drink. 

because brave isn't something that comes naturally. it's waking, and knowing. it's living and breathing and standing and clinging to the mast in the storm and knowing that there is an end. 

it's watching the gale blow from the shelter of His arms, and knowing that a Lion's mane is stronger than a thousand storms. 

it's not being unafraid, because fear comes and fingers shake and there's so much unknown in the silence. but He promised a rainbow, and it makes me brave to know that colour comes again and grey is broken like shards of glass that slice the bonds between Life and death. 

it's brave to be His.