knowing him with the lights on

{via pinterest}

I want to talk about sex.

again.

on Monday, I wrote about Beyonce and her husband-lover and the way they held each other close and moved as one flesh at the Grammys, and the way the Christian world rose up against them. I wrote about redemption of sex and of freedom to wrap arms wildly around the neck of marital lust.

and that was when I realized. I've found a voice and I've started wondering things...more things.

I wonder why we're made so afraid of sexuality, as though being sexual creatures is not something Holy-Created, as though whispering the words or leaning too close on your husband's arm within the confines of Church is scandelous. we look at the wedding rings and we know, we see the pregnant women and smile at their joy, all the while refusing to acknowledge what brought this new life into being.

I wonder why we can read the words laid out in Biblical black and white, but then cringe and giggle and find ourselves whispering the names for our body parts in sheepish undertones, as though they are not there if we don't pronounce them, as though our sexuality is non-existent if we do not speak its name.

there's safety in the darkness, quietly tucking ourselves into dimly lit bedrooms, curtained off like voting booths, every action a secret and never discussed. it's as though we expect our bodies to burst into flames if their flesh is exposed to the light. sexuality is the new vampirism.

but there's that Hebrew word :: yada. that word that comes up whispered in the early pages of the Word, when the first man took the first woman into his arms and knew her. that's yada. that's knowing. and then comes the word, the whispering of be still and know. that's yada. same word, same holy hush falling.

I delight to sit in his shade,    
and his fruit is sweet to my taste.
:: song of solomon 2:3

we as woman are told that we are dangerous. each morning as we dress, we cover the danger, and the more we wear, the safer we become. we press our palms against the man-hands beside us and blush, hesitant in that affection, that rare bit of skin allowed to brush in public. there are expectations, and being Beyonce isn't one of them.

{via pinterest}

and so we go home and turn down the lights and slip down to our skin in darkness and slide under covers, less for warmth of body and more for safety of soul. who are we protecting? is it ourselves, the shame from the outside carrying into this marital room where only you and he will ever lay? are we protecting the man that shares this mattress, that burden placed upon our bodies for all male creatures...how are we supposed to turn it of for him, for one hour or two or six, and then make sure that we put the vixen away, and carry on as normal for everyone else that we are supposed to call "brother"?

I want 
to do with you 
what spring does with the cherry trees.
:: Pablo Neruda

and so we come back to yada. being known, the deepest and most intimate knowing of all. it's holy ground. shaking is appropriate.

so you, oh woman, you are not dangerous. your body is not a wrecking ball and your touch is not acid. your loving him is not a sin, and your wildness need not be hidden. not here, not with him.

did you know that silence is not required here? it is allowed, of course, but not required.

it's in those moments when bodies meet, not passing like ships but merging like an eclipse, that the loudest crashes are heard. because that is the sound of walls tumbling. every move he and I make together is a pass around Jericho walls, and with a mighty shout, the fortress crashes.

so, oh woman, blow out the candle and flip the switch.

he can call me Peaches with the lights on.

the one where I talk about sex

{via pinterest}

I want to talk about shame.

I want to talk about how good it tastes, how easy it is to cut off a slice and take bite after bite, decadent and bloating until your very soul feels as though it will choke.

I want to talk about Beyonce. I want to talk about marriage. I want to talk about sex.

I want to talk about double standards.

I want to ask questions.

maybe I would ask, why so much shame in sex before marriage that we rush to point fingers, gawking and whispering like Ham, son of Noah, running to bring others to look and comment and take a bite of the shame? 

and then of course another question would follow. why so much shame in sex after marriage that we make a point to turn our heads so we don't see, stopping all conversation at the church doorways, making sure we never cross the thresholds with words like orgasm or sensuality?

these questions of mine keep coming, marveling at how we make sex so forbidden, making sure to laud marriage as the ultimate and only place for sexuality, except we freeze it out and make it odd and matronly, using words like intercourse, all the while forgetting that the word used in Scripture is knowing, deep intense provocative knowledge of the one whom your soul loves, and it doesn't get more sensuous than that.

and then Beyonce and Jay-Z performed at the Grammy Awards and the internet exploded and the church rose up in arms. I watched them tear one another apart, throwing mud and stones at the couple's actions, words, lyrics, wardrobe, and I sat in awed confusion.

{via pinterest}

because I didn't see something raunchy or scandalous. I saw something transformational. they're celebrities, rubbing shoulders with people who last barely sixty days into a marriage before filing for divorce. they live in a world that tabloids feed on, plastered up and down the grocery checkout lanes where separation, break-ups, and divorce are bread and butter to that brand of so-called journalists.

this April is six years of marriage for them, six years of til death do us part in a world of broken vows. yes, this couple and their faith differ from mine. yes, their actions in the public eye were far more erotic and intense than I would venture with my husband between the eggs and the milk of the local grocer's.

were there issues with the words, a few rough edges regarding a metaphor or two? were they explicit to the nth degree? yes, and yes again. but in this world, promoting it all before and nothing but ice and high collars afterward, that love is refreshing and inspiring.

there is no shame in nakedness. there is no shame in that passion, that marital lust that flows when skin touches skin and eyes meet. I'm no Beyonce, and he's no Jay-Z. but there's music when we meet that rivals theirs in beauty. when I get behind the door with my husband and I hear that latch click, there's no more veils there.

and you won't be hearing any apologies from me. you might just hear a little Beyonce.

the end of passe love

{photo via dramaticelegance}

i am a voice on the internet.

it is sacrilegious to say that i feel like being as blogger has given me a deeper understanding of John the Baptist? i can identify with the sand and the voice and the wildness, his voice echoing in a wilderness, bouncing off rocks and scrub brush in an effort to reach the ears of those who needed to hear :: the Kingdom is at hand. 

the final result of John's words were a sword that severed his head from his body. bloggers deal with words. it's a different kind of pain. 

i knew that when i wrote this post, and especially this one, that there would be backlash. it's to be expected when you put your heart on the expanse of the internet :: you're not always going to get a gold star. but there are things i didn't expect.

:: i didn't expect to be told that Jesus didn't want me anymore. 

it's culture shock to hear words like that, be it from a stranger's anonymous mouth or from lips that have smiled at you in friendship time and time again. it's hard to wrap your mind around, hard to appear strong when your mouth is opening and closing and your brain is spinning and the tears are coming without permission.

i grew up in a place where the words Jesus loves you was repeated almost without meaning, to the point that it became as parroted as a lunchtime prayer. it had purpose, of course, to comfort and assure and fix the broken hearts that surrounded us. it was almost part of the liturgy :: stand up, sit down, pass the plate, Jesus loves you.

{photo via dramaticelegance}

i wonder when we stopped believing the chant. when did the fact that we are loved become so passe?
when did it become easy to tell the ones that we disagree with that maybe it's good that they're running, that they're scared, that they are turning down torn and battered labels because He didn't really want them anyway. when did that happen?

it's killing me.

i'm not sure when love became synonymous with damnnation within the Church :: to be used with care, only in appropriate situations, but most often directed toward those who are headed toward a path that doesn't "look right."

maybe the path is a little bit darker because His wings are spreading a broader shadow.

i'm over the debates of whether heaven is meeting earth unforseen or sloppy wet. i would so much rather drown in the sea that whispers against the sand, oh, how He loves.

even me.
especially you.

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. 

broken lines // mosaic

{via pinterest}
artist unknown. if you know, share it with me? 

i couldn't pass this one by.

not when my entire life has been broken from the start, and not when my passion is reaching out the broken ones and tucking them in close against me.

we've been made to think that broken is a bad thing, something to be ashamed of, to coil around and huddle in the darkness. but being broken makes mosaics, those little intricate lines and cracks that make up the letters into words of our own deep stories.

being broken hurts. it's not something anyone wants. we don't set out each day wonder, oh, how might i break today? :: but maybe we should.

i hate being broken. but it's not a shame thing. i'm pulling back the cover on my heart, the thick woolen blanket wound around my shoulders and whispering to each of you, come here, dearheart. let's sit together and put it all together.

it's what sisterhood is all about, taking the bits and showing the bright Light that gleams from between each little crack. it's what the Lion does best, breathing soft Life onto hearts and watching them mend, but leaving the soft marks behind.

and the Pharassees chant, "all you need is Jesus. but then, you need this...and this...and this thing too..." and the milestone hangs heavy and all you can do is collapse.

no dress code or stand up sit down or running away from the shadows. because He's in the shadows.

He's in the Light. He's in the dark. 

:: He IS.

the marks are art, lines of ink on the page. they speak of a greater story, a deeper grace. they show that you are strong, wandering through fire but held tender and close. it's stepping off the cliff and standing on air, hovering gentle on Lion's breath.

{linking five minutes of unedited "broken" writing at lisa-jo's today.}

the gasp :: much

{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}

:: in what ways have you found your way out of the depths? where is your appreciation and sensitivity? what makes you beautiful?

oh, to ponder these words above. what makes me beautiful? from what depths have i climbed? but, to speak of that would be making myself oh-so vulnerable. and that might be where the beauty is hiding, tucked away in the tender wrappings of a heart so easily swept under. 

i used to think that being broken was ugly. not in other people, you understand, because their broken pieces made breathtaking mosaics and all i could was stare in wonder. but my broken pieces were fragmented, distasteful. my being broken was ugly.

but then there was this metaphor, one that i've had in the back of my mind all my life but only recently jogged into remembrance :: that picture of a woman with a hand over her mouth, eyes wide as though she wanted...needed...to speak but could not. and then there was a whisper, what if that hand is your own?

and then a poem found its way into my fingers from the heart of a friend. words that made me catch my breath because they related to my soul. 

because the soft season will come

it will come 

loud

ready

gulping

both hands in your heart

up all night

up all of the nights

to drink all damage into love.

:: therapy // nayyirah waheed

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it sank in like water to the most-parched soul and i realized. my soul is trying to drink it all, reaching up my fingers for selah merging with beams of Light streaming from the eyes of the One who stopped and spoke into the pressing crowd, someone touched Me. 

i'm only twenty-two, told often that i have not experienced enough life to know pain, to appreciate what it means to wait and experience and cling to something. i won't pretend that i know, but i know my share. and it's not a competition as to who aches the deepest or who needs the water the very most. what makes me beautiful is my past, my broken cobblestones and the scars on my toes from trying to climb a mountain with bare feet. 

but i reached and i gasped with eyes wide and pleading, fingers clutching His robe while His eyes meet mine and whisper, you love much, and you are forgiven much. 

and so i'm gently gathering the jagged and the broken and the cracked into my pockets and laying them out like sea glass on the sand. my heart is there, twisted like wrought iron and molded like clay. and there's a word there, humming soft with Lion melody to mingle with my soul's gasping inhale of Light. 

:: much. 

our Father :: glory

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yesterday was Father's Day. and i meant to write, i did, but the crush of the do and the laughter and the ice cream and pizza and s'mores in the glow of a low-setting sun overtook my inspiration.

there were hugs from the man of God that raised me, and from the man of God that gave me his son as my love and calls me "daughter," and from the man of God who looks at our tiny evenstar and calls her daughter.

and i inhaled family instead, and oh, it was so good.

and then i woke up this morning with sunrays on my cheeks and some strange realization brewing soft in the core of me. because on Saturday night, our pastor spoke familiar words that the whole room of worshippers repeated back to him, not just because he asked but also because we couldn't help it, really.

our Father
hallowed be Thy Name. 

and these words, just those two short phrases, had lodged themselves in my mind and hummed at me in the dawning. i've felt the stirrings my entire life, the pull from the place where my faith journey started where nothing was personal. it didn't feel right even to my little-child heart who grew up in the church.

why call Him Father and then be afraid to touch Him?

and i've been chided more than i can really comprehend for daring to touch the spiritual, for being so irreverent as to reach out my fingers toward His robe and even just brush the fabric. and i use that strange word so often :: sacred. and the intensity i feel scares even me sometimes, because what is there that pushes me in such a powerful way?

{via pinterest}

He does. 

and i reach up my fingers with a kind of hesitant bravery, that kind of courage that groans in the silence when we know what must be done, but there is a shakiness somewhere down deep. and it's overwhelming and we know that it might lead to something else...something bigger....maybe something  that would hurt.

our Father, 
glory. Your name is glory.

and so i grasp, tight, and i'm lifted onto a Lion's back and the roaring laugh reaches my hesitating soul. fingers in His mane, we leap to salvation, and i am so close i can feel His heart. and oh, it is a thunderstorm and a tidal wave and a comfort and a peace.

it is all of these, and a thousand things more.

and i beg Him to write His name as deep as it can go, because i don't want to forget. and i want to throw back this strangely terrified warrioress heart and howl glory at the coming moon, early seen at twilight, and radiant in the darkness.

:: my Father. 

Your name. 

oh...glory. 

broken stems dancing

{photo by dramaticelegance}

today is the day i forgot my laptop. all i have is twenty-four coloured pencils in their brand-new packaging, and a black ink pen, and the new shinji moon book from rain. and i'm sitting here, tucked neatly away in the corner of the coffee shop, in the frustration, and i've decided to exhale instead.

because i'm eternally grateful for this life, to the One who breathed life in the whispering silence of nothing. and i have hands and fingers and the knowledge to write at all, and that's something alone.

and the homeless man from under the bridge came in with barely enough quarters for hot coffee, hold the cream, and i didn't look up from my phone. because the way he spoke made me uncomfortable. he spoke poverty and a world i didn't know, and it hurt my pride.

and then i looked up and saw the two flowers in the vase in the window, and one was whole and the other was broken. but i didn't judge the broken flower like i did the homeless man. and neither did the other flower in the same vase, in the same world. and their stems touched and draped one over the other.

and i judge me now. silly backwards upside down heart.

:: He promised, after all.

{via pinterest}

come to Me

all you who are laden-heavy

and I will give you rest. 

and He brought the long-haired one into His temple as perfume dripped down from the strands like material world whispers of love. and the men murmured under their breath with priestly robes clutched tight in holier-than-thou fingers,

"He must not know what kind of woman is touching Him."

and He reaches down and lifts her chin, and i catch her eye for the barest second. and i realize, she is me. and i am touching Him. and He loves, oh how He loves.

sometimes, i don't know who this woman is, either. the one who dares to remember His death until He comes. the one who wraps the scarlet chord -- yes, that simple sweet melody written in the blood of the spotless Lamb, the Lion of Judah -- around her soul and clutches there, tight. the one who wanders with the moon to the tune of clucking tongues and shaking head and scolding words.

and i wish i could write the way this music feels when He reaches out and takes my soul in His hand and softly whispers,

daughter
may I have this dance?

upward gaze ::

{via pinterest}

i've decided to stop looking down

because all that's down there is grass and dirt and my feet and the path less traveled. 

and He's not underground anymore, because He's risen and now sits among the stars. and i'm going to spend my hours in the stars this spring. no more shame with downcast eyes and hesitant steps that aren't exactly sure, that aren't exactly steadfast. 

now that she's back in the atmosphere

with drops of Jupiter in her hair

she acts like summer and walks like rain

reminds me that there's a time for change ::

drops of jupiter // train

people are living on the "even the..." too much these days, while i'm rubbing the eraser over those words until they disintegrate into thin rubber strands on the paper and get brushed away as far as the East is from the West. 

i'm resolving and loving regardless. and that includes loving you in the skin you're in, and looking past sex and race and orientation because those are words but they're are who you are, too. because He didn't stop and pass out checkboxes just to make sure the crowds were lovable before He stretched out His arms and poured out pints and pints of redeeming blood. 

so why do i?

so no more looking at the crowds with pointed fingers, Church-Bride. no more figures where faces should be. see the dove daughters and rainbow hued sons and paint-streaked kings and offbeat queens, just like He did. 

and that means loving you too. it means loving me like i'm worthy of His death and rising and loving and sword to the throat of Hell for me, oh all for me. and for you. and them.

:: amen.

so let it be.

:: 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.  

metamorphosis

{via pinterest}

metamorphosis. this has become my state of being, my mind-set.

there is so much about this place, this condition of womanhood set upon me, that i have grown to fear and grown to loathe. but this cannot be. how can i raise my daughter to love herself, to face the world with a lifted head and a cry to the heavens, if i do not believe it myself?

i ache to redefine womanhood. i am more than tatted lace and teatime socials. i yearn to let my hair down and dive in, swim down deep, to drown in His spirit and rise anointed from the ashes holding the hands of those who walked before me. 

Hosea whispered, 

He will come to us like rain. 

and i want to dip my head back, mouth open and eyes aglow, and take Him in with my whole heart. i want to be baptized in the water and fire that is His glory. i am unwilling to wrap myself in a veil that He tore in an impossible way for me, and if only for me, it would have been enough. 

and so i am breaking from this place of stagnant dwelling, this place of sit here silently. i am a Lioness, He promised, and renewed i shall be. 

paint scales on my skin, for i shall be a mermaid. 

no fear of depth, great fear of shallow living. 

:: a paraphrase of a quote by anis nin

i will be a mystic, with candle light and war paint mingling on my cheeks. and i will lift my small hands and place them against His pierced palms and speak bravely. 

mermaid girl come to drown

to rise again. 

to live mightily. 

for my God hears me. 

trying on shoes

{via pinterest}

i'm walking a mile in your shoes. it's a hard thing to do. it's stepping out of the comfortable, away from the familiar and the normal.

but it's something we've forgotten to do, even as Christians. our greatest commandment is love Him with everything, the inhale and exhale, the lightbeams from the ends of our fingers and from each strand of hair. 

but that second one. why do we have so much trouble? 

love your neighbor ::

and don't try to ask the question the man at the fire asked, the one i'm never sure if it's heartfelt sincere or hesitating sarcasm. i can almost see that gentle look in His eye, the one that i'm sure that He wears often. the look of sorrow, the unspoken, 

oh child, can't you see Me? 

because 

your neighbor is everyone.

it is those that we have made untouchable, unlovable. the wallflowers and the window-washers. the soiled doves, the bastard sons.because the noblemen sat at the table with upturned noses and gags held back in the throat at the distaste, at the horror, at what kind of woman was touching Him. and He reached down and touched her back. 

i'm aching at this church, this city on a hill turned smudgy and dark because we're content with only tending to the pretty candles and letting the other ones burn out alone. 

He washed their feet. down on His knees, a servant Messiah, He took off their shoes and got their dirt on His hands. 

so i'm trying on your shoes, and my toes are a little squished in some and my feet too tiny for others. and my eyes are adjusting to seeing through your lenses for just a minute. because i want to understand what He did. i want to see your world through your eyes, through His eyes. 

i want to stop in the street because i felt the power. 

someone touched me.

{linking early with emily to celebrate LOVE}

a letter to you

{via pinterest}

dear you,

yes, you. you beautiful one, you earth-shaker, you mountain-quaker. you with the feathers in your hair, you with the baby on your hip. you with the tattoos on your skin, you with the long hair and the ankle-length skirts.

you tucked in the corner with the tsk tsk tsk ringing in your ears because you said that one thing too loud when they said to be seen but not heard. 

women of the world, you are real. 

 :: don't let them force you to disappear. 

they're the ones adding millstone to millstone in a necklace of death that will end with a broken-hearted "depart from Me." 

they're all about death, these shadow voices that would rather keep you masked and silent. He was all about life and broken stones with the keys of Hell in His fist.

they made their list and ran off with fists raised high and left Him standing at the table with tears running down and a gentle you left Me behind. 

they don't read the red letters, do they? if they did, they would know that there was a perfume vial --the most expensive, the most precious. and it spilled over His feet as a broken woman with whore on her forehead in invisible ink and invisible fingermarks of men who were not her husband covered her body. and she prophesied to the world of His dying. 

{via pinterest}

and that was a woman.

and you are a seeker. 

i wrote it before {here} and i'm writing it again now, word for word.

we are women. we are vessels, full of Him and aching to overflow.

we are brave and strong and beautiful and beloved.

we are more.

///

{this thing of beauty, of strength, of true womanhood has been on my mind these days. i'm praying ceaselessly as a project begins to form in my heart and soul for the coming weeks. would you join me on your knees before the Throne, sisters, for wisdom and grace and so much unceasing might from the Hand of the King?}

in which i release

{via pinterest}

i was awake at midnight this year. surrounded by family and friends and so much food and laughter. and at the stroke of 2013, my father in law raised a glass and bowed his head. and in the silence that this prayer brought, Heaven's breath fell on my ear.

and my OneWord365 for 2013 was confirmed.

:: release :: 

to free from confinement, bondage, pain

to let go

i've been striving upward and onward, you see. chasing Aslan's breath before i knew fully what i was chasing. i sought Him, and He sought me. 

but there is luggage. trunks and suitcases, all with labels affixed to them that gnaw and tear at my soul. words like shame and regret and mistakes and broken and guilt. and these are things i know all too well, because i packed them up myself when i started out. and slowly, i have added to them. twenty-two years of neatly folded bundles of brokenness. 

but this is the year for renewal. this is the year for release. the year for freedom. 

back in June, i wrote real beauty // you are not fat. this was the iceberg's tip into the shame and insecurities that i carry back with me from my early years. and now i have a little one, a child with fairy-blue eyes and the strength of a young warrioress with a song to be heard. and i will not allow my shame to crush her light, to bear her down before she has even begun. 

and so i'm leaning over the cliff with suitcase wide open and tears gushing down my face as i scream to the One who knows before i speak

{via pinterest}

You can have it all. 

it's far too heavy for me. 

and i won't deny, i'm afraid. there's a lot there, a lot of unpacking to do. and there's more than just the bad things, you know. there are good things too, lumped in with the rest. there's half-finished canvases smeared with black not-good-enoughs and dreamcatchers smashed and twisted. 

but i'm releasing. and He's going to fix them, restore them. they will be drenched in the blood of the One who broke for my wholeness. 

and i will be made new. 

i don't have time to maintain these regrets when i think about

the way

oh, how He loves

and yet she sleeps

i have the future of the world in my arms.

and she's sleeping with little mouth open and tiny eyes shut. she makes the tiniest little snuffling noises and wiggles slightly against my chest. i wear her these days, or else i get nothing done, wrapped in green cloth as i pace the floor, browning ground beef and singing it is well with my soul, to remind me as much as to soothe her.

and she's a drop in the next generation, one grain of sand that could form a pearl in the mouth of the universe if she just gets under their skin enough.

and she's my daughter, and so i know she will be. this is not a child born to be silent.

and she's sleeping.

so often i take these times to stare at her face, to memorize her every feature and dimple, the tiny roll of her chin and the long flutters of her dark lashes. it makes my heart clench, to know that she is a month old today, and i will blink and it will be twelve and she'll not be a baby any more.

always my baby, not always a baby.
and my mountain-mover will grow up and hold the world in her tiny fingers grown long and feminine and womanly.

no...no, not yet.

:: for now, i will let her sleep ::

:: for when she wakes, she will move mountains :: 

my word for 2012 was brave. it was my plan, my goal to start my new year with a new measure of something i struggled to possess. and then twelve days later, i received word that my world was changing, and nine months from that, my gift was delivered into my arms wailing as loud as my heart.

{via pinterest}

they say your child is your heart born around outside your body. and with a wild child that already sings of bravery at one month old, she is truly my heart. my wolf-child and my dove girl, still a puppy, still a fledgling with down for feathers.

and she wakes with the sun and coos in my ear and gazes with wide eyes at the world around. and i think...this is the future of the world. and i hold her now, and she sleeps now in my arms wrapped in green and pink and softness all over.

a lioness in training, still a cub but with a roar of her own.

Aslan's daughter, the weaver of her own dreams who holds the hand of the One who holds the loom that bears her one-of-a-kind pattern.

my woven warrioress.
my brave little girl.
my sleeping shaker who teaches me with every snuffling breath...

...she teaches me to be brave.

Narnian almost-newborn

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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.

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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. 

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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?}

please stop

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this one's for the lonely

the ones that seek and find

only to be let down

time after time

this one's for the torn down

the experts at the fall

come on friends get up now

you're not alone at all

:: comes and goes // greg laswell 

dear world, please stop. 

stop battering down my door with a thousand voices telling me just how i should mother, how i should parent, how i should be. 

it's breaking me down before i've even begun.

dear fashion designers, please stop.

stop teaching us to hate our bodies, because we already fall down enough and we need to love this thing that carries our souls and hearts and breaths and dreams. it's okay not to be a size 2. 

it's killing our daughters. 

dear mothers of the world, please stop.

stop hating one another because one holds a baby to her breast and one chooses another form of life-giving food for her little one, because one chooses to return to work and another can hold her baby from dawn to dusk. 

i can't bear it any more. 

dear church, sons and daughters of the King of Kings and Lord of Love, please stop.

stop screaming hate when He said love, stop twisting words to mean what He never meant. put down the torches and the pitchforks. 

it's making Him weep

and He doesn't recognize you.

what else can i say but please. please, from the bottom of my heart, cloaked in all the love i can muster...

:: please stop :: 

alive underwater

it's a funny thing, this concept of drowning.

to be entirely underwater is a fearful thing on its own. to have the water close over your head and to sink down so low that the sun is a glimmer above your head, and the waves playing the oddest of games with your head.

and then you come up again, dripping and gasping for breath. and then you laugh and do it over again. and it feels like drowning, when your lungs are screaming for air and your eyes are fogged with water and far-away sunbeams and something else...something mysterious that i'm not sure i ever want to figure out entirely.

and it's a fear thing, to let go of the dock and sink when every corner of your mind is screaming

don't let go. 

don't you dare. 

and so we haul ourselves out of the water for dry land instead, preferring the solid turf beneath our feet to the ever-changing waves that could take us down and out of control for even just one second too long. 

and so isn't it funny that He stands on the edge of the pier, holding our hands in His, eyes fixed deep into ours and speaks a message that seems so foreign to our hearts. 

trust Me.

let go. 

you don't dare not to...

and the way to Aslan's Country lies over a river. and it lies below the surface of the darkest of pools with no bottom to speak of...

and it takes so much bravery to just dive right in. and to get there, you have to let the waves sweep over you and 

and He whispers

die with Me. 

die to live. die to self, arise in Me. 

and then we arise from the bottom of the sea, dripping wet and pouring glory from head to toe, hand in nail-scarred hand. the dove wings brush against my cheek, and the Voice from Heaven speaks a roar in my soul.

this is My beloved Son. 

in Him, I am well pleased. 

and He's holding my hand. 

the guy

i'm not sure how to start this post off. i have a lot to say, so much that it's brimming over and twisting my tongue into knots with the magnitude of how to begin. i feel like whatever i say, no matter how carefully thought out and prepared for your eyes, will fall entirely too short.

it's about this guy. this man i've spoken off in bits and pieces, mostly because he doesn't mind being waiting offstage while i write my soul in the center.

this man i call "husband."

and i'm ashamed to say, i've had the sun in my eyes. too blind to honestly appreciate just how much this man has done for me, and is doing in days of exhausted wife with piled clothes and unwashed plates.

he works in a factory, fifty hours of grind, and still has a volunteer's pager strapped to his belt for when fires start and cars flip over. he works all day, and sometimes late at night when the beeping wakes us both and he grabs for boots with bleary eyes and tousled blonde hair, barely time to press a kiss to my sleeping lips before he's gone out the door to save a life.

now he takes the piled jeans and puts them in the machine, and washes dirty plates and knives when my feet ache too much to stand. and when my stomach churns, he sits outside the door because it makes him sick too. but he does what he can because he doesn't want to leave me alone.

there's late-night runs for grape slushies and onion rings with ranch dressing, and countless nights of sleep disturbed while his wife tosses in discomfort and leaves little room for him in bed with the thousand curving pillows and left-side sleeping.

and still his strong fingers find that one spot in my back and press for relief, and rub my neck and brush my hair. this is man i share a booth with, pancakes and bacon and root beer every Saturday morning. the exhausted man, the hard-working man.

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the one who kisses my nose and brings home chocolate when he knows i'm overwhelmed. the man who holds me in one arm with the other hand on my stomach, waiting to feel the kicks for himself.

and my daughter carries his genes. oh, how honoured i am to carry the strength of this man's flesh and bone merged with mine to create a whole new tiny warrioress for the world. she is not all me -- she bears more than my feeble strength. she has his too, and i am so glad.

this is the man i'm having a baby with, the one i'm sharing my life with. the one that waited in a white suit with a red rose on his lapel at the end of a long aisle two and a half years ago.

this is my husband. this is my hero.

so the nights will still be long, but he will still tangle his legs with mine and run his fingers through my hair while he rubs my back and waits for a little kick to remind him that he is "daddy."

 he is altogether lovely.

this is my beloved, this is my friend,

    daughters of Jerusalem.