i want to tell you

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i want to tell you my story. but i'm scared.

i want to tell you that my parents tried, that they were wonderful people who heard a word and let it twist inside the wrong direction. i want to tell you that i still love them, and they still love me, even though i'm still healing from some of their raising choices. i want to tell you that they're changing too, and they're not the people they used to be anymore either, that they're beautiful people with His hand-print etched deeper than it ever was.

but i'm scared.

i want to tell you that i grew up in purity culture where modesty was more important than personhood, where my worth as a woman was measured by the length of my skirts and the height of my neckline. i want to tell you that i followed blindly because i was too scared to take my sunglasses off inside the Church.

but i'm scared.

i want to tell you that i courted my husband and we have so much regret from the way we were guided into love. i want to tell you that i look back and i think, why didn't i just kiss him a thousand times before i finally took a breath of courage, and why did the fear have to come so strong afterward? i think, why didn't i press that Joshua Harris book back onto the shelf and whisper, it's okay. i'm going to hold his hand and we're both going to chase the Lion instead of legalism...why didn't i?

but i'm scared.

i want to tell you that i found a way back into love surrounded by a tribe of women who helped peel the duct tape off my mouth that the well-meaning Church slipped over my lips when i wasn't looking. i want to tell you that i've sobbed my eyes out for the nearly twenty-one years lost in blindness before i dared to look straight into His eyes and whisper, i don't know You. but You know me. 

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but i'm scared.

i want to tell you that i realized that i was a Jesus feminist when they placed my daughter into my arms and i looked at her face and thought, i can't let her endure what i did. i want to tell you that stepping out as a feminist was like my own personal closet with helpings of shame and grief that came alongside the breathing.

but i'm scared.

i want to tell you that i love you. i want to tell you that i love Jesus. i want to tell you that i see Him as a Lion because He isn't safe, and i can't do safe faith anymore. i want to tell You that i'm messy, and so is Jesus, and that's why i can lean on Him so fully, because i'm not afraid that me will rub off on Him. :: if anything, He's rubbing off on me. 

and like i've said, i'm scared.

but i think i'm going to tell you anyway. because He has made me a wild thing, a lioness renewed with the wings of an albatross at her back.

*deep breath* 

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. 

permission to not have answers {page five}

i realized something today. i realized that i've been talking so much about all the permission i have found in telling my story :: but i haven't really told you any of my story. which is actually relatively funny, seeing as how i've become more and more free with sharing my story with the world in recent months.

there's a certain level of fear that comes with telling my story. it takes bravery to stand up and stammer out, i grew up Christian because i was supposed to, not because i chose Jesus above everything else. it takes a strange amount of courage to admit that from a very early age, i was that person, the one that gripped people by the throat and dragged them to the feet of Jesus whether they wanted to be there or not.

i made sure they knew they were sinners. i made sure they knew they were going to hell. that is, unless they became Christians.

i remember the girl in the department store, the one that i cornered at the age of five and asked, if you died tonight, do you know where you'd go? and then came the words that scarred the little missionary in me for a very long time :: uh, yeah, why are you asking crazy questions? 

that was my persecution, i was sure. and so i soldiered on, relentless in my pursuit to change the world for Jesus. i was on fire. or rather, i thought i was on fire. but i had no idea what i was doing. i had no idea what i believed. well, i believed what everyone else around me believed. i knew what i was supposed to think, and that was what i thought.

it wasn't until i was seventeen and i experienced the quietest moment of my life that things started to change. and it wasn't until even later still that i received permission from myself and from the One who sees me to question everything. i never would have dared to even think the things that now are the mantra of my entire existence.

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not too long ago, a precious soul-sister sent me beautiful words, etched in paint and ink, that i have held close from the moment my eyes first beheld them :: He is not threatened by your questions. i grew up in a place where my questions meant my faith wasn't sure, and that wasn't okay. i was just supposed to trust, to lean, to go with what i knew, and knowing equaled faith.

there wasn't any mystery. there wasn't any wrestling. there weren't any questions.

except i had a lot of questions that didn't have answers. i didn't understand why those around me shouldered these heavy chains and walked with their heads down, murmuring about joy in their souls but with such strange oppression on their faces. this is what God says, they chanted, this is what we must do. but they wouldn't touch the broken ones that lined the road. and they looked me in the eye and held out their hands to me, Christian me, church me. the one that fit.

and then i had to wonder, what if they knew my story? would they hold out their hands then? because i know what i was, before this strange thrashing freedom came, and i would have crossed to the other side of the road. 

and it was then that He made Himself known to me, this strange Voice that loomed out the darkness.

:: dearest daughter, I have known you long. 

and this Voice, this Lion...He didn't seem threatened by my not-knowing. in fact, it seemed to fit. because He wasn't safe, which felt so foreign. He was supposed to be safe, to be full of facts and thick black lines, and there weren't supposed to be any questions.

but i had so. many. questions.

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and i found myself standing on the edge of the sea, feeling the spray from the waves soaking every inch of me, through to the skin. and He murmured, deep into my soul, oh dearheart, I know there is a sea of questions. but I AM the great bridge-builder. and I can wait for you forever. 

i've never felt so fragile, as though a wind might knock me over. but then, i've never felt so free, as though i'm riding on the back of the warmest, wildest One i've ever known. i still have so many questions. but answers are slipping in, finding their places, one little scrap of wood at a time. and slowly, a bridge is forming.

i am fragile. the wood is strong.
and i can feel the flames building inside me again.

{this was written as part of a synchroblog to celebrate the release of Addie Zierman’s book When We Were On Fire. i'm honoured to stand beside her and a thousand others as we speak our stories, share our pieces. won't you join us?}

permission to write {page four}

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ever since i started writing, i've had that little itch. the one that leads to names on covers and best-seller lists and signings in book stores where people match face to paperback and whisper, "that's her. she's the author."  

i can't help it :: i want my writing to mean something. i want to make it onto lists and to be seen, for that hand to go around another's shoulder and point, "see her? she writes for Glory." i just wish i knew how to leave the fame-wish behind and put the influence dream in my pocket for later.

but then, maybe i don't want the fame. because i'm messy, and messy is it's own thing. see, people want to see that woman behind the table as someone put together, something just like them except way more collected and tidy. they want the ones with the smooth hair and perfectly straight-lined scars, the ones that speak softly, i was broken, but i'm okay now. everything is in place. 

but i'm not like that. my scars are jagged, messy. there's nothing tidy about my story, no straight lines and smoothly paved roads. my roads are the country ones, up and down with hills that keep the valleys invisible until you're in them, with twists and turns and the occasional pothole. there's paint in my hair and one of my heels broke on the way up that last cliff. 

it's like there's an invisible line of church people, queuing out the door, murmuring in that way that blends together in that strange buzzing roar where the words can't be distinguished. i don't have know what they're saying, not really. i can see it in their eyes.

she has a lot of questions. she said...that word, that one i can't say. she doesn't fit, not anymore. her veil is falling off, it's sideways. someone should go fix that for her. 

my hair is a mess because i've been wrestling, and there's dirt on my face and tears in my eyes and it's streaking down and dripping muddy water off my chin. i'm wearing Grace and not much else, and there's fingers pointing from all directions. and sometimes, i'm so raw that it hurts to be touched because i've been clawing off one layer after another and it burns like Fire. 

then it comes, the ripping, the throbbing, the tearing. and it's not pretty, it's bloody and messy and there's scales on the ground like broken glass and i don't recognize myself. and then i see the flash of gold behind me, and i know. i'm being reborn, and everything is shredded and sideways, and those scales are gone, right off my eyes and i'm blinking into beams of Glory.

and that's how i know i need to write. how i know the permission that has been set in my soul since before i learned to hold a pen. i need to write :: for the imperfect, for the ones clinging to the hem of the only One who sees them. for the dirty, for the messy, for the thrashing. 

for the ones like me. 

permission to drink {page three}

two years ago, i wrote this post. i didn't know how much this post would affect me. i didn't know how much it would linger, even in the years that followed.

i don't think i realized just how little permission i was giving myself in my own femininity and my own faith. the more i write, the more i tell my own story, the more i discover secret links of the chain that was holding me down. this post was another inch of the door, another chapter of my story that i was letting into the open.

:: i was learning to let my story breathe. i was learning how to have faith. 

but there was still that guilt. there was this whispering little tug at the back of my mind, pulling me away from the freedom and reminding me just how much more comfortable the darkness was...how much safer i felt when no one could see me.

i was like the kitten that hides under a couch, the tip of her tail poking out, but absolutely sure that no one can see her. she was invisible, and that was okay. 

but i never had permission to be unseen. isn't that funny? i didn't have permission to tell my story, and it felt safer when i wasn't seen, but then, i was an extrovert. being seen came with the territory. tucking myself away wasn't okay, it wasn't part of the plan for me. was it? i grew up in the church, and that was my faith, and that was my way, and i didn't ask questions because i was just supposed to know. right?

the other day, i told someone about this book i was reading, thrashing about with God, and she gasped. it was obviously unintentional, soft and completely without drama, but it was there. she looked at me and said, oh, is that okay? to do, to read, for you, i mean?

and then they came, the inaudible words, soft and bitter, clawing at my confidence.. is it okay? are you sure you know what you're doing? what does He think of this? you're too wild. what would they think if they could see you like this?

i'm learning for it to be okay. i wanted the floor to open up and swallow me whole. and she smiled and made a few more little comments before she found a reason to slip away into the crowd. and then i realized :: it's okay. i'm okay. He sees, He knows.

i gripped the book a little tighter and smiled, maybe more of a grimace, but i managed to turn up the corners of my mouth and choke out,

it's okay.

the more i tell my story, the more pieces of me i let out, the more i feel like i'm being poured out as almost a literal drink offering on the ground. and it's exhausting. i see all these things happening around me and i feel pulled in a thousand directions. but who's doing the pulling?

there's no handbook laid out for exactly what the qualifications are to be "good enough." except there is, and everyone else seems to know every single word. and here i am, sitting at my computer, with my hair in a messy ponytail and feeling so much wild-er than is considered "appropriate."

but He isn't safe. He's good, oh, so good. and i have a Lion at my back to roar bravery when i'm the stammering clumsy mess who can't make my story come out right. it's pressing myself against the banks of the river and lowering my mouth to the water. unsure, but drinking deep, because He has swallowed up much and i am thirsty.

i have permission to drink.

permission to rest {page two}

{photo by dramaticelegance}

sometimes i feel like i'm on the edge of this giant stone wall, a step of sorts, doing my very best to climb up and reach my long-ingrained goal. and there's the Christian crowd behind me, cheering to the point of a din behind me, that's it, you can do it, keep climbing. don't stop. 

what i need, though, is someone to come alongside me, grasp my hand and whisper, it's okay if you need to stop. it's okay to breathe. it's okay to stop. then comes the gasp of horror. they're telling you to stop? no. wrong. no.

stopping is not what we Christians do.

but maybe it's what i need to do. i feel like we so often focus our magnifying reading glasses on those words of Jesus teaching and walking and travelling and performing miracles and doing that we forget the resting. 

come to Me, and I will give you rest. 

i forget that i am Lucy. i am Peter, plodding diligently ahead, ignoring the signs and never resting, only ever traversing on. but He came to her at night, in the selah of the woods, and called her lioness. He promised her great renewal. 

as she rested. 

sometimes i wonder if we can even hear Him anymore through the din of our own good intentions. there's things expected of us if we bear that moniker of Christian,fingers intent on pointing out exactly which stones should be walked on, and which ones are too sacred to touch. 

we have made Jesus untouchable. and in turn, those of us who find the gasping bravery to reach out and grasp Him have become the whispered ones ourselves. we've wandered into the building wearing sunglasses and perish the thought we take them off and actually see. 

we have made following Jesus less important than following the rules. 

in telling my story, i can look back at where i've come from. i wish i could reach back and tug the sunglasses off my eyes and take the gloves off my fingers and whisper, Jesus doesn't mind fingerprints on His face. you can touch Him, dearheart. 

you can stop and breathe. it's okay. 

twenty-three :: the year of shedding

{photo by dramaticelegance}

it's six'o'clock in the morning. being awake at this hour wasn't exactly my plan today. after all, it's my birthday. but there is something about this year :: this twenty-third year. it cries to be remembered. there's something impending, something important about this year. and i have no idea what it is.

// this is the year of shedding. 

i haven't seen a sunrise in such a long time. i treasure my sleeping. it's a very rare commodity in this house, what with a sweet small one who sets the time clocks with her precious voice. but this morning, i'm awake at six'o'clock. and i'm more than alright with this change of plans.

i've written a lot about thrashing in the past couple weeks :: this concept of letting go of answers and letting questions become acceptable, of having no idea what i'm doing...and it being okay. it's this flailing thing, dipping my arms to the elbow in the paint. it's that trying to dance, the learning, the splashing. and it might be more ridiculously awkward than i care to envision at this point.

i'm learning more about God than i ever did from my fundamental seat. i finding myself more undone by Him than ever before. i'm feeling like i've had a blindfold on, and i'm lifting it up, one inch at a time, and letting the Light in.

it's releasing my inner selkie soul. selkies are seals, magical and ocean-dwelling, emerging from the sea to be all woman, wild and beautiful. and that's what this twenty-third year will be for me. it's an emerging, a releasing. i'm reaching in deep and drawing my wild out. this time last year, i was holding a week-old baby girl in my arms, too overwhelmed and too afraid to mess anything up for any sort of awakening. i was where i needed to be.

{via pinterest}

and now i'm still where i need to be. it's all new and fresh, a one year old daughter curled into the curve of my arm, and my shoes left far behind on the path. it's holy ground, this venturing, even if i have no idea just how holy this space might be.

part of me is still sitting in grief from the loss of my grandmother on Saturday. my soul is still kneeling, sitting in a quiet shiva. but there is that low Voice in my ear ::

grief is great. only you and I know it yet.
let us be good to one another. 

and i feel the breath on my neck, and i know that twenty-three will be a year to remember. i am selkie girl in a year of shedding. and He still holds me there. not safe but good. He's been there for twenty-three years, curled at my back. i don't think He's going to stop now.

i'm right by the window.
and oh, this sunrise...it's luminous.