thanks in the strings

{via pinterest}

i almost didn't blog today.

it's the day after Thanksgiving, and i still feel weary from the length of the day and the busy swirl of family and laughter and oh, so much food.

normally, this is the day of five minute fridays with the gypsy mama. but somewhere between my waking and my resting, i have forgotten everything.

this thing of gratitude -- eucharisteo -- this instrument that i grip between my unquestioning fingers, knowing each twist and curve of the smoothly polish wood...

...it's familiar. i can speak of it with knowledge, share with others in times of need and emotion, feeling truth spring to my lips in the appropriate time.

but somewhere during the year, the violin finds a place in the back of my closet. the curving head cracks from lack of caresses.

i rationalize within my ever-hardening heart

it's only to protect the music 

to make this thing more precious in the 

right time.

and so i forget until the fourth Thursday in November. and then the sheet music lays on the stand again, and my fingers trace the familiar strings so that the music kisses the air again.

my soul floods then, with recollection and resolution to not let things go as they were before, to always dwell in the miracle of gratefulness. 

{via pinterest}

but then comes the conflict that only family closeness can bring. there is some sort of push and pull that eventually tears the music and sends the bow crashing to the floor.

and the music dies 

unfinished. 

is this what i want? year after year after year of the same old broken dance, the same old shattered moments that never reach the finish line?

because each sour note hurts His ears. 

i slap His face when i withhold my thanks.

 when i play my own frenzied melody on broken instruments that no longer hold value. 

there is nothing so great in holding onto all my grateful thoughts until a certain day, and then letting them pour out like water onto the parched ground. 

where is the blessing here?

i refuse to touch the finale's score. i will live in the now, in the yesterday and the tomorrow.  

these melodies. 

these drops of eucharisteo. 

submerged

{via pinterest -- America's Next Top Model}

for the past week, i have been singing the same song.

lead me to the cross by Francesca Battistelli 

it's been following me, actually. i keep hearing it everywhere i go. 

they haunt me, these words. the simplest of truths, locked into this precious melody. it makes me weep every time i hear the first few notes of this song float from my speakers and fill the room. 

and this morning, as i sat and listened to this song, as the tears flowed again down my cheeks, He whispered to me then.

do you see now? 

do you see Me better?

because this is what I want you to understand, child. 

you must be SUBMERGED into Me. 

and i wept anew. because this is my whole purpose.  

no other religion has this sense of relationship, this place of community with the Holy One. 

it's a lake in which i yearn to drown. i don't want to stand at the bank anymore with my toes just brushing the surface. 

i want to be drenched in Him. i want to hear Him everywhere i go. i want to fully grasp His humanity and His Godship into my soul. 

i want to fully lose myself into Him. 

because there is the calm beneath the water. i am held so close to the heart of Christ. i crave this silent rush that comes when i allow myself to slip beneath the surface of this Living Water. 

drowning to survive.

death to self to life in Him.

i wish i could express to you the passion burning in my soul. i weep as i write this with the realization that i have allowed myself to remain in the boat. i merely live on His surface. 

{via pinterest -- America's Next Top Model}

do the waves frighten me too much? is my faith that small, that fragile, that i cannot trust myself into the Hands of the One who has carried me thus far? 

have i forgotten that He is no stranger to this place of struggle?

You were as i, tempted and tried. 

human. 

the Word became flesh, bore my sin and death

now You're risen!

i need to step out, hands spread and eyes fixed only on Him.

i need to let the chaos fade to black and let my focus burn onto His eyes. 

He broke the ground for me to follow.

this is my inheritance.

time // gratitude {160-164}

{via pinterest}

i'm slowly reading A Thousand Gifts.  


i started it on September 10th. i only just finished the fifth chapter.

and i'm never wearing shoes again.

everything urgent about this life is starting to fade away into something manageable. people complain that life is too short and that time moves too fast.

i disagree now. life moves the same length, the same time. we're the ones moving too fast and being far too short in our sight. we've stopped savouring this sacredness of life, of eucharisteo.

the most urgent necessitates a slow and steady reverence.

--Ann Voskamp

she's right. 

He's right. 

this is holy ground, this place of thankfulness. this place of finding communion and eucharisteo with the King of Kings. have we forgotten who He is? 

time the essence of God. I AM. this need to consecrate time. 

i may never wear shoes again.

--Ann Voskamp

this is a place for shoeless wonder and for eyes that blink in awe against His glory. this is not the time for traffic jams and to-do lists that stretch for miles.

{via pinterest}

this is the time for slow sips, slow breaths, and slow-growing lists of all those gifts from Heaven to earth. 

• 160. time. this gift of seasons and time, preordained but loose and free 

• 161. community with artists who love to write like i do, sharing words and coffee over hardwood tables.

• 162. so many smiles from freckle-faced children as they bury me in hugs and bring me orchard-sliced apples with autumn-flecked grins. 

• 163. one extra hour of rest. something so small, but so needed for this weary one who seeks until the stars have been out for hours. 

• 164. truth spoken twice, confirmed. 

i'm finding peace in this place of gratitude.

reaching out to touch the hands of the clock, old friends learning to tick-tick-tick slowly. to savour each moment that comes our way.

to be covered with this essence of God.

shoes left at the door.

{continuing these steps of gratitude with Ann}

hermana

{my sister}

i've blogged about my sister before.

my hermana. my best friend. this beautiful fellow artist with whom i have tangled paintbrushes and inspiration for the past eighteen years.

i wrote about her just this morning. my blonde-turned-violet companion.

she photographed me for my birthday just last week.

and now she joins me here in this world of blogging.

i spent the afternoon teaching her. designing for her. smiling and laughing with her. 

i could not be more delighted. more honoured. more excited for her as she begins this new process.

would you join me in loving her?

you can mingle with her heart here.

she pins here. 

she photographs here. 

she's just starting out. just testing this waters for herself. 

so please

love on Abby with me. 

my best friend. 

my sister. 

fellow blogger. 

hermana.

{photo shoot ~ 21}

tomorrow i turn 21. it's almost impossible to believe.

for my birthday gift, my amazing photographer-sister {Abby of PinkStudios Photography}did a photoshoot of me.

the results?

 1. i have strange ideals of beauty. i generally never wear makeup or really do any sort of fashionable shopping. it takes my sister a lot of convincing to get me to put on something super stylish or wear more than mascara and lipgloss. also, i'm continuously in the same pair of flip-flops from March to about mid-November {or until it snows}.  

2. i have dreamed my entire life of being the first plus-sized "mini-model" to be on America's Next Top Model. but then again, i realized how much that would change me. and so that dream died. but somehow, i think i'm okay with that now. i can change the world from my little corner. right here. ordinary me.

3. i dream in black and white with only the occasional pop of colour. seriously, it's like an old noir film in my head 24/7.

4. my sister and i never dreamed of being artists. we never saw ourselves here when we were kids. and now we're living out dreams we never even knew we had.

 and so this is me.
turning 21 tomorrow.

i promise a post of more sustenance with my dwellings on the day tomorrow.

but for now

picture this.

Eté

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass on a summer day listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is hardly a waste of time.  ~John Lubbock

I feel so enraptured with summertime this afternoon.

Sitting here on the couch, my short legs tucked up underneath me...

...shoulders and feet bare to the caress of the wind...

...sunlight streaming in through the partially-opened screen door...

...two very energetic dogs playing beside me...

...sipping at the tart sweetness of a pomegranate IZZE soda and nibbling at the corner of a dark-chocolate-raspberry swirled square of decadence...

...I feel lost in the wonder that is summer.

There are sweet and beautiful memories that I have already made with people that mean the world to me, and those that I will continue to make in the coming months.

There are pictures to be taken, green tea to be sipped, and shady trees to be climbed.

There are new novels in which I must lose myself, and an end-of-an-era premieres at which I must weep until my eyes ache.

There are fresh strawberries to be bitten and savoured, and the aroma of flowers to inhale.

There is so much sweetness to take in before the silvery winter with its peppermint snow comes again.

Summer is barely half over, and there are still one hundred and one dreams to be chased.

Estate.

夏

Verano.

Eté.

Summer.

I question not if thrushes sing,

If roses load the air;

Beyond my heart I need not reach

When all is summer there.

~John Vance Cheney