broken benches

{photo taken via VSCOCam :: by Rachel Haas}

writing is hard when you're writing.
you become a broken bench, in a way.

there are slats falling down
side
ways.
you're still a bench.
but there are holes and sitting


it's complicated.

writing a book is hard, period.
it's one of those things where you could jump up and down and pat your head and rub your tummy and walk across hot coals to bring back rubies clutched in your teeth

...and it would still be easier than getting those words down.
and yet we do it because we are it.
we are writers who write things.

writers who don't write things are benches made of fog.
you can see us
we just go away when you breathe a little too hard.

writing is complicated
with a lot of parts and pieces and bits and bobs
and upside down handstands.
and coffee.

and you can feel like a broken bench.
but you're still a bench.
when people fall on you, their hands connect with solid wood and scrappy frame.
you're plucky, you are.

they can rest there.
because broken benches are still benches.

the girl I was once

{photo credit unknown. do you know?
tell me, won't you?}

the girls we once were are coming back to us now. 
whispering their stories, our stories, in our ears. 
let us hear.
:: brandy walker

the girl I was once is the Statue of Liberty, standing at the entrance to my path with a torch raised, whispering, give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, except her voice is my own and it's stronger than I remember.

the girl I was once is a shadow turned concrete, the whisper of what could have been turned solid for me to wrap my fingers around and pull in close. she is a monument to growth, a grave-marker for silence, standing cement vigil so that I do not return to the shadows again.

the girl I was once is a blind figure of Justice, a flowing painting of Venus born, a fractured mirror made whole in the Light streaming from behind two beams of splintered wood. she is the fabric of the aerialist, giving wings to the earth-bound. she is the needle and thread in the hand of the Tailor, pressing fresh back against flesh as holy Blood flows in reverse from ground into veins.

the girl I was once is speaking words, repetition on her tongue of phrases once forgotten, turning shame into a dead language and self-deprecation into a dialect that even the Rosetta Stone has scratched from its surface. I close my eyes and she is singing His song, words familiar even if I do not yet completely understand them :: go deeper, little daughter. without borders, wander. 

the girl I was once is cracking. the layer of mud all on the outside is cracking, flaking off in pieces, in powder, in ash, in manure. she is filthy and she reeks of death, of abandonment, of uncovered skin and mocking cries. she is scarred, each line and each raw spot seen clearer when the shell falls away. she hid it once, but no longer, because they are breadcrumbs on the path and she follows them back with a tracing fingertip to remember the way she never wants to go again.

the girl I was once, she is still part of me. she is my calling, the reflection in the looking glass when I don't recognize myself. she is the thing that pulls me back. she runs her fingers through my hair and pats my cheek. I see her reflected in the eyes of my daughter, and I gasp at the way she is beautiful now in a way that was unrecognizable when I looked through her eyes.

the girl I was once, she's coming back. she's a reminder that night brings morning. she shows me that stepping into a dark room can make things muddled for a moment, but there is light peeking through the cracks that cannot be seen when the sun is blinding.

she is renewed. she is Lion-breathed. she is coming back and rising up. she is pressing tentative fingertips into the nail-marks on His palms and realizing that His breath is turning the doubt into straw on the breeze. she is building stone houses on solid ground.

That voice inside of us? She knows where the shalom is. 
May we trust her
and let her lead.
:: brandy walker

{today is National Women's Day. today, we are joining hands across the world. we are reconnecting with the girls we once were, and there is room for you, a space for your flag to fly strong in the Holy wind. join us and share your story, beloved.}

when the f word gets you published

{photo by me, art by Mandy}

I'm being published this coming week. on the eighth. this is a big deal, a long time coming. I'm not sure if I have a lot of eloquent thoughts left in me. in all actuality, I'm pretty overwhelmed.

as much as I'm excited to be out in the world, my work with my name attached being shown to eyes who have never even heard of me or this place before, there is also a strange sort of trepidation. because I did a thing, a big thing, one of those wild things that you don't think about when you're doing it because you don't think it'll go anywhere. and then, all of a sudden, it happens.

I sent in the piece to Literary Orphans because I didn't think it would be accepted. that was risk number one. putting my words out there was the big step, allowing myself to acknowledge that I have to start somewhere, that my words have worth and value.

and then came the hammer. they wanted it, every last word. including that one glaring flashing word right there at the end. that fifth word in the last line. it's the kind of word you don't say in polite company. it's the kind of word that slips out by accident and you find yourself blushing and stammering an apology and wanting to hide.

:: it's a word that starts with the letter f. 

but then, I've been learning to stop apologizing for my words. all my words. including those sharp ones that tend to make the good Christian girl in me wince and recoil slightly. He's used worse things than the f-word.

He put two prostitutes in the lineage of His son. the fully God, fully human Prince of Heaven. He didn't need to take the things that the world saw as lesser, as dirty, as inappropriate, and put them in the line that brought His son to earth. but He did. 

{photo of me, taken by Nikki Jean Photography}

I've started finding myself breathing a little easier. even though I'm mostly rambling, even though I don't have to explain myself to anyone. I learned this last June when I discovered that courage groaned, and it was a beautiful thing.

maybe sometimes, holiness is a little ragged, a little rough. maybe sometimes sacredness involves digging in the dirt until there is mud under your fingernails and you find yourself staggering into the holy places. sometimes the words that come flying from your lips are the ones that don't fit in the world, the ones that get you pursed lips and side-eye glances and tsk-ing under the breath.

so I will tell you this. if the word is going to offend you, if it's going to turn you against me, if it's going to make  you want to throw rocks at me, then please, don't read the piece. I'm okay with that, really, I am.

but if you think that maybe, just maybe, that a Lion's roaring can drown out the profane, then oh, dear ones, give it a chance. sit on the words, let them in.

because sometimes, even the f word can be holy. 

{the piece is live on Literary Orphans as of right now HEREyou can read it or not, that is your choice. I did not choose the artwork behind the piece :: that was up to the editor. if that also offends you, if it takes away your ability to soak in my words, then please, abstain from reading. love and grace to each of you. bear me gently.}

meeting poetry

{photo by jennifer upton}

I remember where she found me, a step beyond the shelves of

appropriate and good Christian girl.

she found me in the place

where technically, neither of us were supposed to be.

she was forbidden, but only a little, because her big sister

was the right kind of words

the kind that might not send me to hell, the kind that King David

penned and approved.

I found her in the wanna-be classroom, the place where

I hid my black lipstick and let the hair hang into my eyes

she was key-shaped angst and a forbidden road to the required

she whispered, “drink me,” and I obliged.

she was sin

or maybe she was water turned to wine

the kind that they disapproved, but that He raised in a glass

and spoke, “this is My blood.”

she turned me into smoke, the good kind

incense and candle wisps,  

the kind they said would send me down a road too wide

and He and She and I were okay with that. 

the f-word

i remember the first time i said the f-word

in front of my mother.

and her face turned pale and she cleared her throat and spoke

“you know we don’t approve of that word.”

i remember the first time i wrote down the f-word

in my journal.

and my fingers quivered and i whispered inside myself

“do I really approve of that word?”

i remember the first time i said the f-word

to my husband.

and he smiled with his eyes from the driver’s seat and said

“good. I’m proud of you.”

i remember the first time i said the f-word

in relation to Jesus, spoken casually about Him, in His direction,

and i  felt power flow out of Him and heard the wind whisper

“that’s right.

I’m a feminist too.” 

{i'm doing 40 days of poetry, a new adventure for me. i'm sharing them with you, little bits at a time.} 

a year of Light :: {my girl}

i wanted to write a post about thrashing. it's been on my heart and mind since my post last week since i allowed myself to exhale about my faith journey publicly. but then, i guess i am going to write on thrashing.

because i'm going to write about my girl.

i cannot believe it's been a year since my soul-wailing warrioress made her entrance into the world. i didn't know such a small being could so drastically change my perspective on life. i didn't know i could be this brave for someone else, not just for myself.

in a way, she brought about my gushing. this tiny one brought me intense volume and the most incredible hush, all once. she's a mystery, my Marian.

she held my hand

walked me into my soul

and said

this is where i want you

to write from.

Soul/mate |Tapiwa Mugabe

the poem above made its way into my inbox this morning, so early, on this day, a gift from a soul-sister far away.  and i wept like rainwater with each word. because a year ago, i would have read those words so differently. i would have found something romantic, something sensational in those words. i would have imagined something far away. 

but now it's personal. 

because the she is now both of us :: this tiny little blue-eyed dove daughter that whispers the most luminescent nonsense into my heart. it's been a year of this whispering, and i look back now with impossible awe that i have survived, and what i have done, and what she has pushed me to create with those tiny fingers. 

i didn't understand this feminine roaring, this brave standing, until i held something made of Light in my two hands and trembled, i don't know what i'm doing. 

sometimes she cries. and sometimes i cry. and sometimes, i sit and weep while this tender-souled love touches my cheek and hums some strange infant-turned-toddler song while we rock. sometimes she soothes me. she's radiant and intense and such a jumble. 

in the darkness, while she sleeps with lashes on my cheek and mouth drooping open like it did the night she entered this world, He whispers, she needs you. and you need Me. 

dearheart, it's okay. 

He gave me her in a time when i didn't know who i was, let alone how to mother something so small and innocent. i'm still thrashing {oh, that word. prepare to see more of it around here}, and i'm still growing. but He knew i needed her like she needs me :: a picture, born of blood and love. 

so we'll keep walking. her and i and Him. 

happy birthday, Marian Abigail. 

your momma loves you. 

when thrashing isn't a thumb war

{photo by dramaticelegance]

these past several months have been all about the Story for me. the funny thing is, despite the fact that my entire being is storytelling, it's really never been something that has met the criteria for my focus.

i've heard that phrase "let Him write your story...only you can tell your story" over and over as long as i can remember. i was raised in the Church; it's one of those things that fit in our little dictionary of words we all know. but it faded. and in some respects, my faith began to fade, too. 

writing that phrase made me nervous. i am loathe to write anything about shaky faith because i tend to hear the same things in response. it makes people uncomfortable, edgy, to think about faith being anything but concrete. we talk about it in whispers, as though it's a very dirty secret, casting furtive glances over our shoulders just in case someone might hear. 

my precious friend Mandy {who has written a book about her own personal thrashing which can be found here} wrote these words on her Facebook page ::  I don't have answers. I can't prove a thing. My faith is custom fit. Messy and mysterious. This is all I've got. 

ever since i read them, they've been humming in my soul. there's a strange sort of freedom when someone else speaks that same thing that's been sitting in your heart for a long time, maybe even before you knew they were there. 

part of telling my story is lifting my head up and acknowledging the road i've walked instead of keeping my eyes down to study the cracks in the sidewalk. the thing is, i didn't trip. i faded. Mandy uses the word "thrashing." and that's a good word. it brings up a picture in my head of a man on a mountain in the throes of a wrestling match with the Son of the Most High, from the darkness until the dawn. 

{photo by dramaticelegance}

and damn, that's powerful. the thrashing, the wrestling, the wandering....it happens in the night. that dark night of the soul. and then comes the dawn with Light shining down on the flattened grass and the bruises and bumps and bleeding places. thrashing isn't a thumb war. it's a guttural cry as you charge into the complete darkness. and sometimes you run into a tree. but you pick yourself back up and snap off a walking stick and pull yourself along.

sometimes pruning leaves you messy // right there on the inside //

and it's that moment in the shower // when you're crying to match the water 

// but then you come out // and the steam pours off //

and you're coffee and tea and warm blankets from the drier 

// fragrant and steaming and clean

words by me :: #mypoetryseptember

:: and it's all part of my story. 

it all comes back to the Lion. it's in that dark place where you have no idea what might come skulking out of those darkened doorways that He curls up quietly at your back. and sometimes, when you need him the most, when fear threatens to consume you and has crawled down your throat

He roars. 

:: in which i'm Tangled up in Brave-ry

{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}

every time i breathe, i am reminded what is like to be a woman in this day. every time i put my toes outside my own little circle, i find myself attempting to be swallowed by this creature that is confusion.

it's why i have so deeply adopted release as my precious word for 2013, and why it has been so hard to live the words i speak. or, in this case, type. more often than not, i feel like my soul competes for a place against the modern definition of "sense." in faith, in life, in motherhood, in the very essence of womanhood itself.

i found a poem someone anonymous had left with magnets on the bookshelf at the library today, as i sat and pondered being a woman, being a mother to a little dove-daughter who has woman brewing at her core. it fit, deeply, like a puzzle piece locking in a secret sacred place within my heart ::

worship Light through enormous shadow

rain, mist, storm will be

swim above

never beneath

dream

drive on

smoothly

luscious life can shine

:: author unknown, and they want it that way :: 

i sat with my little one today and watched Tangled. and sometimes we watch Brave and sometimes it's Beauty and the Beast. they're tales of princesses and true love and beautiful dresses, and people beat down my soul-doors and cry, how can you stand strong as woman but embrace fluffy dresses and princes on white horses?

did you know it's possible to acknowledge love and still embrace myself? because we all need someone, after all, and it's okay to have a bow and arrow in your back pocket but still look out the window and whisper, someday...

warrioresses have two hands, one for the bow and one for the Words.

{via pinterest}

:: but needing a warmth to curl against when the nights are cold doesn't make you a traitor to strength or a backstabber to progress. it makes you created with God-breath in your lungs.

because we all know He spoke truth when He murmured like breeze among Eden's leaves, it is not good that {s}he should be alone. 

and sometimes we just need to sketch the solar system on our palms and look down and realize that we are held in more than ink and skin but in Light and Breath from the lungs of Glory.

it's okay to release what you think you know and turn your neck so that you look behind you just to make sure that the Breath will carry you when you take that step off the cliff. and maybe you have to build your wings on the way down using the string from your bow and the feathers from your arrows.

but you're still warrioress.

beautiful {a fae*rie tale}

{via pinterest}

finding beautiful was something she found almost impossible. really, it was something she had to pursue, something she had to chase down. but it was always so far away.

and then she tucked herself in among running water and air-light bubbles. and the chaos still continued outside, the television murmuring and little baby whimpers as sleep claimed her bright blue eyes. but there was silence and stillness and fragrant beauty in the candlelight with the water splashing.

she felt a mermaid there, nestled among the sea-foam that would consume her if she was not careful. her skin glistened and her the ends of her hair dripped sandalwood and night-blooming jasmine. she started to hum, she couldn't help it, in tune with the soft flickering light that swooned around her.

she pondered the grace and wonder of the candle flame, how the light faltered in the breeze of her own lips but then returned stronger and brighter. was that beauty, not something with skin and eyes and hair and the curving shape of lips?

that it was the gentle bending, the fingers curled into hair and lips parted with the harmonizing of a familiar growing Song that was more than just a strain of notes and melody, but a state of being. 

was beauty a sort of surrender? 

:: it was, in fact, the ultimate. 

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}

listening ::

{photo property of
and used with permission
by gypsymothsol}

when i was little, there was a poem i used to whisper

:: is anybody listening, listening...

and i said it in little-girl hush, and giggles accompanied each little word as i held my fingers against my lips and whispered. and sometimes i say it in adult groan where there is no one listening, no one seeing me. i mean, i'm here, don't you know that? but no one listens.

and i feel tiny. everyone does sometimes, but in this blogging world, it's hard not to be drowned out by a crushing roar of words that overwhelm and make me feel like my fingers are reaching up for a tiny bit of oxygen and i'm whispering

:: is anybody listening, listening...

but there's something profound about the whisper, even if no one else hears the words that leave your lips. because Lion's ears are acute and they pick up on everything. i swear the little tears that plink against the glass in His hand are the loudest chimes to Him.

and i haven't written a book. but something i wrote earlier this week made a splash and my brokenness was heard, louder than i anticipated. and i'm learning that there is someone listening, just the right someone. it doesn't have to be kings and queens up on the high places, but that tear-stained momma tugging herself to fit the mold that doesn't fit on her like it does on the other "hers" across the street.

and maybe it's just the plink of a tear in the bottle. one little drop.

but i promise
He is listening, listening...

{linking five minutes of uncensored stream of consciousness with the gypsy mama}

sparrow maps

sometimes life becomes about the push and the shove. it's impossible to avoid, as much as i wish as i could burrow down into the silence and inhale the sweetness of rest into my lungs. but instead, there's smog in the air, and it's heavy and there's traffic here and there and everywhere. 

and sometimes i feel upside down and i've forgotten how to straighten myself out. and that expression "pulling my hair out" becomes reality as the brush rakes that little bit too rough in the effort of working the knots out of my soul from where the footprints left their marks. 

looking around, i realize that i've been tying knots in other souls too. because i can't always keep my mouth shut, and i leave crater-holes where i've ripped love out by the roots and left gaping bleeding patches in my wake. and the ones i love hold hands to their hearts to keep what little i left behind, because i'm brutal in myself. 

you are a box with fragile written on it, 

and so many people have not handled you with care. 

and for the first time, I understand that I will never know 

how to apologize for being one of them. 

:: Shinji Moon

we all have the books, the pages worn around the edges from the turn and turn and turn and the press of the ink against every line. we have scrawled our lives there in our own secret language made of whispers and moments. we have a map tattooed in invisible ink on our palms and sometimes we just run out of compass points to decypher. it's hard work to walk alone, after all.

{via pinterest}

i think that's why we raise our hands so often in that moment of emptiness. He already knows the road, but it's okay to remind Him where we are, because He likes to be asked. and my palms are bleeding from the twisting and the wringing and the clawing. and so my hands go up with a soft sob of oh Abba, i don't know anymore.

and that's when the drums of brave start to their thudding, their sweet heart-beating glory finding the cadeance of love and light and forgiveness. and i'm going to hum so sweetly of sparrows under my breath, because if He sees them, He sees me. 

it takes an ocean not to break

hums birdy

and she's right. 

but for me, i'm resting on the hands of the One who soothed the waves to glass-calm and dove into the depths of fire to remind me that i am worth more than the scars on my arms would lead me to believe. i am seen by the One-Who-Sees, and i've said it a thousand times, but one more time is needed, i think. 

i sing because i'm happy

i sing because i'm free

His eye is on the sparrow

and i know He watches me.

women :: wild-blessed

{photo via pinterest}

i speak about the wild here quite often. sometimes, i'm not even sure myself how to find that perfect grove of trees. and the smudge of dirt on my cheeks feels a little foreign, almost like a virginal bride awakening that morning to find her husband-love in her bed with a blush of blessed now.

i'm embracing that wild with shaking fingers, the wild that is woman, that is me somehow strange. the whisper of woman that was in the forefront of His mind, composed with God-Daddy smiles and sunrise-stained fingers that i cannot comprehend without weeping. because He formed me, hips and hair and eyes and mouth all in one, and whispered I see that you are good, wild daughter. 

and i can't help with the pinching and the frowning and the clumsy fingers clutching a chisel to gouge away the parts of me that He must have made wrong, the spots where the Wild-Maker slipped. and the mirror laughs and the sky cries as the Lion lets tears fall as i wrap myself in filmy black mourning cloth and block out the Light.

but He comes in the morning, like a bright-eyed groom with fresh unchanging love in His holy gaze and scissors to snip away the veils until i'm exposed and raw and maybe even bleeding just a little because pruning is pain, but it's beauty too. and then He spits on the ground and smears Heaven-made mud mixed with the Blood of the Lamb on my soul and whispers see again, for your faith has made you whole.

{photo property of DramaticElegance, taken via instagram}

He writes His name on my eyelids so when i blink, i remember. and every flicker of the eyelashes is a flicker of the Spirit-flame sent down after forty days of waiting from the day He rose. He calls me woman, He calls me daughter. and it's not a dirty curse but a whisper of admiring glory woven in Light.

and Heaven to earth is only a whispered prayer away, a half-step to glory. and for so long, i've been loving and living like fire and ice, never touching without burning and melting. but now i'm flying close to the Light and i am not burned, for the One at my side is like the Son of the Most High

so i'm leaving my shoes on the threshold because this place is holy ground, and the dirt feels good between my toes and the wild is calling my name.

run further up and further in
for this is the place of which you have dreamed
for which you have been waiting all your life.

:: be wild, dove-daughter
for your faith has made you whole

red string

{via pinterest}

:: i am wind woman ::

:: air daughter ::

:: dove child ::

i am bleeding ink and whispering prayers in the same breath,
learning to lean on windowpanes and not so much on sinking sand.

this is a Solid Rock kind of moment,
barefoot at the burning bush with knees pressed to grass.
leaning on me is futile. leaning on Him is essential.

they say that soulmates are connected by an invisible red string
and no matter how far they go apart, the string pulls them together in the end.

my Saviour and i are tied by the red rope of redemption,
drenched in His blood, one end around my wrist, one end tied to the cross.

and so i'm learning to rely
on red strings and winds from the east
on Lion's breath and eagle's wings.

blessed assurance

Jesus is mine

ink smears

do you know what it's like to hear the voice say

flip the pages and flow

but to have no idea what the flow means? black and white in sunless nights without the urge to fight anymore?

did i forget my passion once again, like the strummer with the broken strings who forgot how to sing in the night we mentioned before?

it's battlescars from movie stars who pinch invisible rolls and wail "i'm fat" and nothing can heal that but reality.

and it's hard to get past that when the mirror speaks lies and the world speaks water for truth but the reality is wine, but we tossed it out with the trash because we counted the calories on the back.

do we remember who we are? 

the chosen people with broken telescopes that won't look past tattoos and high heeled shoes and conceiling black robes that leave everything to the imagination?

we forgot our before with empty shores of seashell glass and glassy eyes and one footprint where two would have failed.

because it's nothing we can done alone. because silence is okay, but pushing the door shut and crying don't let anyone see, don't let anyone in

i feel more broken when i turn my back to Him.

because He already sees, and it's broken hearts that He heals and tattered scrapbooks that paint His portrait when we couldn't even see the road.

so black and white is okay, i think, in the long run when all we have is the sun at our back and the Son at the front where the ink flows and we can acknowledge our broken pieces.

so pick up your pen, dusty traveller,

the dawn is here and the ink is flowing.

{linking imperfection with emily}

colour drops :: five minutes

{via pinterest}

five minutes

five minutes to write my heart without stopping, without editing, without over-analyzing every word. 

it's about being free here, about writing for love here, every Friday. 

******

half the time, i forget about colour. 

i focus on the black and white and loose the technicolor in the religious right and leave the relationship to fade from sight until we're back again to shades of grey.

it's the stand-up sit-down, learn the ABC of You and me and just forget the mystery that the Pharisees just couldn't grasp. 

but that night, it wasn't black and white, but RED with Life and GOLD with the broken heart of Soverign Father slashed across the sky in lightning slash. 

and those shades of grey died with Death in the space of three days when colour was risen from the ice-cold rock and Life burst forth into rainbow drops of GLORY and WHITE.

because it's important to pick up the crayons of childlike faith and streak the colour bold and wide from side to side and cover the page in infamy and reality of the truth that set us free in the space of three days with Red that turns us White again.

so we just have shut up, sit back, and let Him flip the mental switch to bright and drop the harshness and swallow down the mystery of the unseen and oh, glory be to the Painter of celebrates eternity. 

do we remember colour now? 

{linking five minutes of my day with Lisa-Jo}

three things :: spoken word

sometimes i wanna write what i feel.

i want to take what i see and do the undone and fix the unfixed and light the snuffed candle all over again. but then i look and i say, do i even see? do i even know anything?

and so i take my pen and my paper and my too-many thoughts and i sit and i wonder just what might happen if i knew something, anything at all.

i watch the people, feet on pavement and pavement on feet. and i realize what i know.

i know three things, because sarah kay says good things come in threes, and she's right, after all.

:: i know that light kills the dark ::

and when you're walking in the dark and there's nothing but a match in your pocket, it's a good thing to know. and when you're walking in the Night and there's nothing but a verse in your mind reminding to be still and know that I AM...it's a good thing to know.

:: i know that art is the voice even when it never speaks ::

i know that sometimes the silence of a paintbrush screams SEE ME and the whisper of just one wavering note in the empty concert halls cries I CAN DO THIS AFTER ALL and the raised arm on a stage is the salute to all things undone and all things done over and over and done well.

:: i know that mystery is just that, and it's okay to not know ::

{via pinterest}

i know that knowing is part of the battle, and when you don't know what you know that it can crush and scare and be unsure. but it's okay to have a mystery that you don't understand.

and it's okay to let Him be the mystery of Love and Flesh and Man and God all in one small infant bundle, growing up up up to be Death and Life and Salvation and Water and Broken Bread with Wounds that Heal.

that is what i know. no more shaking ground for i stand on What, on Who i know.

because i write what i feel and i feel what i know. and i know Him and little else. but that's power, okay? that Light is more than enough. that Water is more than enough.

because i know these things. Him and Him only.

everlasting, time over time, from age to age.

Alpha and Omega, You answer. because You know

more than three things. 

but not

for love of You

i'm a sky on fire.

and for love of You

i come alive. 

it's Your sacred heart within me beating

it's all for You.

~Audrey Assad

sometimes, the above truth is all you have.

the reality that life is complicated. and hard. 

but i am a sky afire. 

all because of Him.

and right now, i'm feeling extremely frustrated and defeated. 

but i'm not my own.

hard-pressed but not crushed

perplexed but not in despair

struck down but not destroyed.

i am in awe of Him. 

this girl is a sky on fire.

all for Him.

i live in this world of but not. 

i am in this world but not of it. 

i am His. 

all for Him. 

this sky afire.

{this playdate with my King}

am

dear self: 

you have to hear me now.

this is what i am not.

because this is what you keep telling me i am. 

knife-point. razor edge. whispered screams that never stop chanting this mantra, as though you are tucked between my earlobe and my throat. 

i'm sick of hearing what i am not. 

your voice is too sweet. too smooth. too easy to take in, this poison pill.

empty. broken.

measured in loss.

worthless to all. 

you have been weighed. measured. found wanting. 

no. one. loves. you.

i hate to break it to you.

but YOU. ARE. WRONG.

because you have failed to take into consideration

the other voice.

the stronger voice.

the gentler voice.

the voice of Love. 

Strong. Beautiful. 

Fixed. Repaired. Adored.

Loved THIS much. {arms outstretched to fit the rugged cross}

I love you. 

Mine. 

your voice will fade to white noise.

you will be one day be forgotten.

it is His voice that will endure 

through eternity. 

Linking up with Emily: imperfect prose on Thursdays
Yes, this now a weekly song for which I wait each week. 

skyeyes

Remember being a little child

lying on your back with your eyes wide shut

staring ceaselessly at the floating clouds above.

Giraffe. 

Ice cream cone.

Hero dragons with mouths of flame. 

These are the things we saw

more than just puffs of gathered precipitation floating in the

atmosphere.

Angels bowling

Cameras flashing.

Roads to Oz.

These are the things we heard

more than just rolling thunder

or whirling tornado clouds.

Child ears. Child eyes.

Nearly twenty-one and never forgotten.

I want to keep my

innocent eyes

to look up at the clouds.

(Note from Rachel: After penning yesterday's post of imperfect prose, I became so inspired to turn my hand at the poetry wheel again. It had been so long, and I felt so deeply that this was something God was telling me I was supposed to undertake once again. And so here it is...uncensored and unedited. 

Spoken word. Living truth.)