i want to be the moon

i write poetry. it's what i do. and it's a gushing of sorts, a ripping of my soul wide wide open and exposing myself in a personal way to eyes that don't even know me save for the words i put down here. 

and there are parts of me that i want to just display so proudly on the wall of this little sacred chapel-circle we have built together, but i refrain and i hold back. not in a bad way, per se, but in a way that ponders things deep within. 

speak us a song, they clamoured, ceaseless. sing to us of all you know.
and she opened her mouth and gave all He had.
Light :: Life
{storygram by me, property of dramaticelegance}

and i started yoga three weeks ago yesterday, and i started storygrams a week ago today, and these little parts of me are slowly chipping away from the scarred marble and leaving something that is so painful and so breathtaking that i can hardly bear it all inside. 

and it's bursting from my fingertips with head tipped back and mouth open in a scream of something so glorious. a birthing, of sorts, because He promised that He bring something so beautiful through the pain. 

 i look at you and see all the ways a soul can bruise, 

and i wish i could sink my hands into your flesh and light lanterns along your spine 

so you know 

that there’s nothing but light when i see you.

:: shinji moon :: 

i refuse to ignore the Light. after all, how could i with the way it beams into my eyes and whispers in the most brilliant beams, I am here, daughter Mine. and it's baffling to me how i can feel something so powerful and so deeply and yet be utterly helpless as to how to put it into words. 

oh how i need You

oh how i need You.

:: all sons and daughters

rarely do i write and weep at the same time. but tonight, in the darkness, i am writing here, and i am weeping. and it is so beautiful. because this past week has poured me out like a drink offering in ways that might be trivial to some but have been so wrenching to this heart of mine.

but there's something about this emptying that leaves room to be filled, and He is sinking deeper into the core of me and my cup is running over and becoming a pool into which i am diving. and there we are together at the bottom, where the whole world is alive and humming to the never-ending notes of Lion's song. 

shine Your light from the inside out

:: You are the Sun, i want to be the moon ::

{phil wickham}

moon-howler // be still

{via pinterest}

daughter

be of great courage

for your faith has made you whole.

i forget He said that.

it's funny, the more i pour through familiar words, the more i'm okay with passing them by. maybe because they whisper a little too close for comfort, maybe i'm afraid of what they say. 

am i afraid of being made whole? 

am i too comfortable with brokenness? 

because being healed takes more work than maybe i want to invest. maybe this thing of building wings while falling is too scary...too many of the "what if's" clouding my eyes like midnight fog on the windshield making it hard to see through the night.

after all

i might drop the feathers

howling at the moon is a brave thing, but what if my voice cracks? what if i'm less of a Lioness and more of a kitten on a rain-soaked back porch? the scars make a pretty picture, but they tell a story too, and what if i don't like the words they speak? 

:: because if i start, then i have to finish. 

{via pinterest}

oh

He will fight for you

you need only be still

so sometimes you have to leave your shoes somewhere in the blackberry patch and just run out in the soft dew-damp grass. because you have wings hidden in your hair and stars in your eyes, and the Son who made the moon wants to dance with you because you're His lady-love. 

and He'll hold your hand while you howl at the moon, brave-hearted beloved, fingers curled against His pierced palm while He sings His song in your ear. 

the world might whisper 

do you know Him? really?

and i sing

He knows me.

woman ablaze

{via pinterest}

i am the girl on fire. 

i am the woman ablaze.

or at least, i want to be. i want to walk a path once dim and watch it glimmer as the lights flicker into being and line the steps so that others can come after and not trip on the stones. 

i love the moon and the stars 

almost more than the sun.

it's a softer light, not blinding. i can gaze upward when the moon shines gentle and whispers hope better than when the sun leaves spots behind my lashes, even when they're closed. 

and that's what i want to be the world. soft light pointing to the Son that comes in the dawning, not a second sun that comes where it shouldn't and speaks too loud and too blinding for the world to understand. 

there is beauty in the soft light. beauty in the candlewick as it flickers in the night, the softest glow that illuminates the eyes and the heart and the soul. the Word was penned by light of wax and string dipped and twisted together, gentleness on fire. 

{via pinterest}

because we're all about the megaphone these days. all about the fist-banging to startle the sleepers and frighten them from their daze. 

but don't you rather it when a hand gently touches your shoulder, a soft shake to rouse you and guide you from pillow to daylight? there is a time and a place for the brightness that overwhelms, and there is a time for the caress of tenderness. 

we forget. yes, He toppled tables. but there was soft weeping, too. 

oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem. 

how I longed to gather you to Me....

i am the girl on fire. 

i am the candle ablaze. 

and oh, i long 

to be the moon that heralds the Son. 

dark light

live in the light

{via pinterest}

stand in the sun

never look back.

these words have been whispered to me by a thousand voices in a thousand languages for the course of my entire life. and i think if you were raised in the church, you heard it, too. 

there is a place in this world where dark reigns supreme for six months of the year. the earth is tipped and the light cannot reach it there, not for all those weeks of night. and the people there wrap in furs and tangle fingers together and wait...

because they know that there is an end to the darkness. and then comes the six months of light, and the darkness fades into a place of echoing radiance that spills from fingertips and spiraled ends of hair.

but they feel the light because they knew the dark. they cannot appreciate one without the other's balance. 

it's the same with us, the same with the life we live and the breath we inhale every single day a thousand times without even realizing. and the voices that whisper never look back are wrong to wish you blind to the past and wide-eyed to forever. 

both are needed. we have a moon to cool the sun, and a sun to warm the moon. we must have both for tides and seasons and growth.

what matters is how you breathe in the night. do you stare at the midnight and scream light is dead, and never will come back again?

or do you look at the stars and say there is light here. 

for you were once dead in your sin

but God, rich in mercy, made us alive.

:: ephesians 2:1, 4 ::

i refuse to stop loving for fear of the night. i will dance below the stars instead, fingers spread toward the moon and inhaling beam after beam of silver light. 

for i was once dead,

but God...

reaching moonward

{via pinterest}

do you know how often i wish i could touch the moon?

it's the way i feel when a worship song slides down my spine and nests in my soul, as guitars strum and soft voices lift a single Name from Earth to Heaven. and all i can do is reach upward, fingers stretching out as though to grip the rafters and rise.

it's especially true on nights like this, when quilts and pillows comfort the sniffling and the sneezing. on oddly warm winter evenings when the sky is purple and orange and it's like watching the Saviour take a sacred moment to fingerpaint the sky.

and i reach out trembling hands, overcome with awe and wonder, up toward the mast where the albatross in the windstorm has roosted just long enough to roar in Lion's tongue

you are safe

you are loved

and you are Mine.

it's then that i ache just a bit inside. because like a wife who misses a husband gone with only telephone dials and cyber connections to keep them joined over seas and county lines, i ache for my Jesus. 

:: and so my fingers reach moonward ::

and i feel that overwhelming peace as moonlight shines down and i cry, oh, how i want to be brave. how i want to understand. and i am, because that's what He promised. we linked fingers, He and i, over a glass of merlot and black ink promises of lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. 

He promised me brave. He promised me warrioress. He promised me daughter. 

and so i still reach moonward and sing to the darkness where my Saviour lingers

oh, i'm running to Your arms.

Light of the world,

forever reign. 

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