standing with the five

{via PerceptiveArtista}

two years ago, a soul-sister reached through the letterbox and pressed a book into my hands. the title spoke a name so often spoken with accusing acid within the church :: Havah {Eve}. 

i got lost inside that book. it wove a familiar story into a new pattern and wrapped itself around my shoulders as i wept. it's always the way when you're reading something well-known, where you know the ending like the back of your hand, but somehow, you think if you beg a little louder, things will change. 

:: but they never do. 

she's one of those women that gets a lot of grief from those of us who have carried their stories in our pockets from the early Sunday School days. we point 21st century fingers back with 20/20 vision and wag them back and forth with clucking tongues. tsk tsk tsk. she should have known better. 

all we see is the bite-mark, the belly curved with her father-in-law's unborn twins, the rooftop bathtub. and so we toss our heads and murmur, we can learn from them. we must not do what they have done. i would have never...and we find our paths crossing with modern day women just like us, just like them, and we cross to the other side of the road. 

but we leave the biggest part out :: the mother of He. 

nothing they did erased the lineage of the Lion from their blood. nothing they did made them untouchable or unworthy in the eyes of the One who would one day touch the hand of the broken, bleeding, unclean ones and whisper daughter. 

{via PerceptiveArtista}

you will hear thunder and remember me, and think: she wanted storms. 

the rim of the sky will be the colour of hard crimson. 

and your heart, as it was then, will be on fire. 

:: Anna Akhmatova

a wise friend of mine spoke to my heart this week :: how can we love the ones we avoid? and it made me gasp aloud. i see so much of me reflected back from the eyes of these scarlet-lettered ones. but He tugged and tugged at the sewn-on letter and let it unravel, wild and loose, and tied a scarlet thread into their hair so that the world can see their eyes. 

there is so much existence in Him. i've said it before, and i'll say it here again because i cannot remove this reality from my heart. He is not a statue of marble, rigid and cold. He is breath and blood and Light and Wild. He is touchable-sacred. 

i'm finding my place at His feet, curled up against His warm side. there's me, and there's the five women from His line with their woven stories wrapped around their shoulders. and there's you, too. 

i am telling my Story. 

right beside theirs. 

turning Christmas pages {207-212}

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it's less than a week to Christmas.

i'm having a hard time believing that Christmas is really this close. i'm one of those people who peaks ahead on every new calender, pressing my finger to the 25th of December like a little child and whispers

how many more days are left?

the blessings that flock among these days are more than i can ever begin to comprehend, more than i could ever share in one place at one time. this season seems to be wallpapered with eucharisteo, from head to toe with grace.

but as always, i'm going to raise grateful fingers to heaven, and count...

• 207. this first year of being a family of six. Kyle home for Christmas from the US Army, laughter shared and memories exchanged until our sides split. 

• 208. live pine in the living room. imperfect just like we are. 

• 209. the overflow of love from sisters across the nation found in my mailbox over the past week. books and notes of love, reminders that we're connected, that we're a sisterhood here. 

{via pinterest}

• 210. our first sprinkling of snow. short-lived, but it was here. 

• 211. the sacrifice of a Father to share His Son with the world. the sacred blended with the earthy, Holiness clad in flesh. 

• 212. warm quilts and fluffy pillows and White Christmas. there are some traditions that i will never cease to adore. 

i love Christmas. but to me, there's more to Christmas than just the story found in the second chapter of Luke, more than we see or comprehend with our mortal minds. there's a big picture, a book with more than one page.

so i'm doing Christmas differently this year on my blog.

i'm unfurling those forgotten pages, showing the other sides of this time of year when Love came down and virgin arms cradled Emmanuel against her breast.

to read the first part of this sacred saga, visit here: the first-page :: havah.

because there is more than first glace can reveal. that's the mystery of my Jesus.

there is more. 

He is more. 

and i ache to drown in this mystery.

{linking my blessings with Ann}

the first page :: havah

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i've been reading a book.

it's not all that uncommon for me to be found reading a book, actually. i'm an avid reader as well as an author. can you be one without the other, really? can you write well without the example of fluttering pages and the comparison of knowing where one has gone before you, and soared?

i'm reading Havah. this volume gifted from the heart of a sister to my mailbox this week. and i cannot put it down.

Tosca Lee put pen to paper and wrote this book, her own heart's picture of the beginning and end through the eyes of the first Woman.

Havah. 

Life. 

Eve. 

and as i pour through these pages, overwhelmed with the beauty of the first portion, my heart swells. this connection to the Creator they feel, their bonding with the One who Spoke them to life...it makes me crave this same communion with Him. because the beauty is almost overwhelming to my soul.

and then the anvil drops. and i can see it coming in slow motion because i know the story and i know what's coming and i know, oh how i know what the cost will be, and i want to scream at her to stop and open her eyes because how could she not know?

but then comes a bite. and a second. and feminine hands outstretched toward husband's lips, and another bite. and with simple movements of lips and teeth and throats, their fate is sealed in darkness. but not just theirs -- ours. every last breath becomes thicker, harder, and every last heart is now blackened with sin.

but there is hope. there is Light.

for with darkness comes a glimmer of Hope. for with the disconnection from the Holy One comes a promise of reconnection.

you will bruise His heal 

but He will crush your head. 

even in anger, God knew. and God would not let His people, His newly-broken ones, go without a hope. do we forget this part of the story? we weep with horror and wail if only if only. 

{via pinterest}

but in a week, we celebrate that hope. 

the hope of all things new. 

for unto us a Child is born

unto us a Son is given

and the Government will be upon His shoulder

and His name shall be 
Wonderful Counseler, Mighty God, 
Everlasting Father

Prince of Peace.

and He came to save and live and walk and die as one of us, so that He might rend the curtain and let the Light in again. 

this is one of the pages in the Christmas story that we forget. the darkest of pages that we swiftly attempt to overturn in our hurry to get to the angels singing and the Child coming into virginal arms. but it's a big picture story, this thing of Jesus' coming. 

because even her name -- Havah -- it means Life. a promise from the beginning, a hope so sure as to not be shaken. 

and Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight

the clouds be rolled back as a scroll.

the trump shall resound and my Lord shall descend

praise the Lord, praise the Lord

oh, my soul.