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.

{via pinterest}

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.

week seven :: brushing mother

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and this marks seven weeks, and one week, too. because it was a week ago today that i discovered that my body was home to another, that i was no longer one person walking the earth. i was now two.

but the little ticker that changed from sweet pea to blueberry today made my heart do a flip, and a smile pull my lips upward and left them unshaken for the majority of this day.

even among the frustrations and the irritations that life brings, i touch my stomach and remember that it's one week less until i meet my long-awaited stranger.

looking at my body, you can't tell that i'm expecting. not really. it's a secret that i carry from the rest of the world, from the people passing me on the street or at the bank.

the exhaustion is expected, and i'm learning to breathe through it as it crashes over me in waves.

because i'm sand being molded, harsh edges worn down until i'm smooth and ready with each wave and each new facet that reminds me that i'm thirty-three weeks away from everything changing.

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but hasn't it already? 

it's more than just cravings for macaroni and cheese with hot sauce, or Asian asiago chicken salad. it's more than the water that i'm chugging by the bottle and the deep desire for the caffeine that i am slowly abandoning. it's more than vivid dreams and restless sleep.

it's this realization that sacred has taken up residence in my body. it's as though He's whispering to my soul on the daily basis

be full of Me, daughter

as you are full of this. 

do you see, even a little

how much I love you?

and i'm still singing the Lion's song. note by note from His heart to mine and into tiny ears that are just beginning to form. 

and it's seven weeks when i've only known for one. and that amazes me daily as i'm seeking to walk this path of sacred realization. a warrior now fighting for two with a King fighting for her. 

and i whisper to this tiny blueberry in my tummy

please know Him. 

know Him as you know Him now. 

learn His Name outside as you sing it within.

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.

joy :: the Lion's song

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someone told me you need to be happy always now. 
and i laughed.

because that's not possible, pregnant or not. understand me this, i am filled with such feelings of elation that i cannot fully put into words, writer or not.

but there's other things too. there's life that keeps happening outside my sheltered world of expecting motherhood. there's frustration and hurts that well up, and hormones that fight me to explode free from fingertips and lips.

this is complicated, this thing of morning sickness that turns to ravenous hunger and late night tossing with vivid dreams that are almost impossible to rationalize to reality. and then there are the tears that well over at insurance commercials and late-night episodes of Grey's Anatomy. 


and i cannot be happy always.
no one can.

but i find the joy in the quiet moments when i press earbuds to my stomach to teach this little one the best of music, or when i pour words from favoured pages into little forming ears. and there is courage in knowing that i will be okay, because i am not alone.

:: i never have been :: 

because even in this strange ship at sea, there is a gull on the masthead whispering courage, dearheart to my thudding heart. and there is a lilting song on the wind that i can barely hear, but i know it is coming. and i am teaching this Lion's song to my unborn.

not of happy, but of joy.
not of fearless, but of brave.

there's an expression i've heard: barefoot and pregnant. and that is me, overwhelmed in the sacred to the point of no shoes, curling safe at the base of the cross.

weary solace

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understanding why does not make the weariness easier.

i can tell you this from experience. as joyful as i am at this new knowledge, this growing beneath my skin that now occupies my every thought and action, i am still weary. and that is hard for me.

 i knew that it would come, this tiredness that seems to allow my energy to drip like water from every pore. but i wasn't ready for how powerfully this feeling would strike, and how i would feel when it did arrive.

i keep hearing His voice whisper rest and my frustrated self crying out please don't make me.

i started catching myself drifting toward the negatives, toward the nervous self-reliant what if's that can make a pregnant woman crazy without the hormones to help her out.

my soul waits in silence for God alone; 

from Him is my salvation. 

He only is my rock and my salvation, 

my stronghold; i shall not be greatly shaken.

it's not just my body that i need to rest. it's my mind, the one that crumbles sometimes when i hear a story of another life that isn't mine, but maybe could be...maybe. i can be assured a thousand times, but words can fall on deaf ears if i'm set strong to worry.

and so i find my place in the sacred corner. the place where i wrap shaking arms around body and womb and curl up there with woolen quilt and quietly repeated Words that come from the Holy Places. 

and i'm just inhaling. because there's so much worry in which i could loose myself, if i chose to be afraid. 

but this word is not afraid. it is brave. 

and rest takes brave. and motherhood takes double brave, even when the child is as small as a sweet pea and curled up safe in my body. 

even now, i seek solace and brave.

 in the quiet places of barefoot and holy, i find His peace. 

awaking mother

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{five minutes. refusing to over-think or over-complicate. in these moments, we write for love}


when i went to bed on Wednesday night, i was a me. single tense, just one body.

or was i really? 

because this little one was already growing within, without me even knowing that i wasn't just a me. but a we.

but this morning, i awoke. and it was different.

because i was mother. i could feel the change. maybe not physically yet, maybe it's too soon. but i found my fingers pressed against skin, whispering good morning to the lentil in my tummy.

because i awoke new today. 

no more will Friday the 13th speak of bad luck. it will be the first full day that i knew i was mother. 


today was the day my mother hugged both me and her grandchild at the same time. the first day that i wandered through my home with Harry Potter in hand as i read familiar words to the tiny one who can already hear me.

i awoke different today, though i have been doing it for six weeks without realizing.

today, i knew. and i awoke mother.

{thank you so much to each and every one of you who wished us well. we are so incredibly excited. 

we are due on September 3rd, 2012. expect lots and lots of updates as the weeks progress!}

expecting brave

and now i know, this is why my word is brave.

because in a moment when a stall door slams behind me and trembling fingers tug silver and paper away,  life changes forever. when stomach is now cradle and fingers now press against soon-taut skin.

because he and me are becoming we.

and this is frightening, in the most beautiful way. i'm not me anymore. it's we, me and little one curled against my innermost parts as He weaves and crochets little eyes and fingers all together.

{via pintrest}

we are expecting a child. 

:: our first ::

and i feel unworthy. this vessel filled, and maybe now i understand my own mother a bit more. because i love this child fiercely, and it still lingers with only six weeks of life beneath my skin and bone. 

we don't know daughter or son, we don't know eye colour or richness of hair. but we know we love this tiny babe growing deeper and stronger. 

and so i press discovering fingers to my abdomen where my little one grows and i whisper of the Lion's song to these developing ears. 

mama loves you already, dearheart. 

and so does daddy.

and so does Abba. 

and i saw the light in my own father's eyes as we held hands today, a grandfather already to the unborn. and i heard the laughter in my mother's soul, a grandmother long awaited. and i heard my sister's gasp of disbelief and cry of joy as sissy turns mommy. 

and i watched my husband's eyes light up with the strangest sparkle as he pressed lips to tummy and whispered sweet dreams, baby. 

september comes fast. thirty-six weeks to go before a ring of fire and blood and life in infant cry. 

and i now know why He wanted me brave. because i'm becoming warrior of a new sort. 

:: mother ::