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. 

Dawning

Hope is a thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings a tune without words
And never stops at all. ~Emily Dickinson

I've spent a lot of time dwelling on hope this morning.

I think it's a combination of some of the most recent occurrences in my life that have drawn me up toward this elusive sunrise...

...this phoenix rising from the ashes, arching for its comet-like dash across the night skies...

...this White Stag calling me from the thickest and darkest parts of a seemingly endless wood.

Come chase me. 

Try and catch me. 

Watch me.

I want to have more hope than I already do. I have a tendency to turn my back to the sun to stare at the shadows...those foolish, changing images that I am now taking as truth.  

One moment, my future is tall and stretching past the treetops. The next, I am gazing at my own frail feet and thinking, "where did my beauty go? I must have none."

This strange wing'ed thing...this mystery that is hope...it is not an ever-changing shadow.

It is the sun itself, always there even when hidden by a cloud of doubt or a storm of grief. 

It is the moon streaming into my bedroom, dancing over the soft piecework quilt, only to give me a kiss on my freckled and tear-streaked nose and whisper

courage, dearheart.

Hope is dawning. Hope is rising. Hope is there behind the clouds and in the darkest of nights. 

Hope is a Lion. Hope is a King. Hope is a Savior. 

Jesus. 

"Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail.They are new every morning; great is Thy faithfulness.I say to myself, 'The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him.'"~Lamentations 3:22