one thing // i want to see

{photo taken by rachel lee
property of dramaticelegance}

{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}

sometimes i wonder if i ever have a one thing. all my life, i've been the she of a million hats, that girl that does it all. i raised my hand more than it sat on my hip, ever since i knew how.

i've been working, plowing a strange sort of furrow on the ground and dropping a handful of seeds in the dirt. and they grew, up like fingers reaching toward heaven. 

and then as all my things grew up twisted and tangled and strangely beautiful but all too close together, i sat and sighed. because it was beautiful and perfect, but it felt foreign. like something you go and look at that another has done, without the personal connection.

and again, i whispered,
// do i even have a one thing?

and then i find myself in the darkness under the light of the beaming supermoon, and the lyrics flow in: now you do, now you do.and i start to realize that maybe i do have a one thing. a trend that has followed me all my life. 

:: words. 

and i think i know what i'm doing, some of the time. and then something inside me slips, a cog tripping out of line, and i start with the assumption that actually i have no idea. and then i get scared and scarred and i pick up my skirts and i run away, because shadows whisper too much of the unknown. 

and this thing of the unknown is unsure and viciously uncomfortable. and i told a friend, the kind of friend that grips your heart and gathers close to your soul, that it was an awful gorgeousness, and she felt it because it's true. 

i want to be Lucy, brave Lioness steeped in renewal. but then, i find a mirror and i choke. 

{via pinterest}

i'm Edmud. ugly, traitor, viciously sucked in by tempting sweets laced with poison lies until i am pale and and empty. i'm Eustace, trapped and afraid, clawing at myself because i cannot get free of this scale-wrapped fear prison...the one that holds the words back. 

and all i can manage is a cry, one so much less than a roar and more of a squeak from a mouse who forgot what it was like to have a tail after all. 

if You are willing, i want to see.

and He finds me there at the pool alone and touches my cheek and murmurs my name in the light of dawn, His love roaring like a Lamb. 

dearest daughter, 

I AM willing. 

and i can see. laid before me like a banquet of starlight from His secret garden, i can see my one thing.  

:: words. 

messy, aching, beautiful words. 

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}

final notes :: in review

{via pinterest}

tomorrow is 2012. 

honestly, it's hard for me to believe that another year is so close. i can almost feel the smoothness of the chalkboard, that clean slate that lurks so near. it's refreshing. 

this year has been remarkable. 

and you've blessed me. 

and life has changed for the sacred, for the beautiful. 

i'm humbled to be surrounded by such incredible brothers and sisters as you, once strangers turned beloved friends who have held my hand as this year has tossed and turned. in the beauty, we celebrated. and in the darkness, we held up the candleflames. 

it has been a year of Light in this place. a year of drawing closer. 

and so, here they are. 

:: the ones that blessed you ::

woman 

//

we need more than our silent allotments of stand and sit and worship and listen and nothing more than this. we crave Him. we ache to go deeper. we want to search His will and see His heart and wrestle with Him in hand-to-hand until we find ourselves undone and exposed before Him. because He chose us too. 

grace alone

//

i am walking on Grace alone.

Sometimes, I find myself at a loss for how much poetry I dream and then promptly forget upon my waking.

It is a powerful ache to realize just how much this world of chaos, of tears, of sleep-stolen moments and overbooked days has ripped my art from me.

dreaded souls :: imperfection

//

if He makes all things new, all things good, all things beautiful -- then this i ache to emulate. i want to follow in His footsteps, stepping down the path with the ambition to dwell in His mercies
to make all things beautiful. to take my imperfections and make them into Art.
to make them dreaded. 

ink of wait

//

the three years worth of familial well-meaning words cut like the lies mixed with truth that they are...because really i'm not wasting anything.

why don't i go? i'm not called.

but i have wasted nothing.

this is rebirth, i would say. and it's painful.

three things

//

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 cannot thank you enough. the blessings that you have poured over my head like anointing oil in this past year has been more than i can understand.

it's been a walk into sacredness, toward gripping the hem of the Son of the Most High. a walk into adventure, hand in hand with my Abba.

it's been the vigil of death with candles lit and joy coming fresh in the morning. it's been a path with more stones than i expected, and more joys than i could even fully pen.

be blessed in 2012, dearhearts. 

{also, for those of you that have been following my OneWord journey here and here, i have found my word. 

tomorrow, it will breathe. and it will begin. 

so much gratitude for all your prayers and all your blessings.}

Soul

You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body. ~C.S. Lewis

I haven't posted for two days.

Yes, I know this goes against my plan to post every day in the month of February.

Honestly, though, I couldn't bring myself to post.

I just wasn't inspired.

And I couldn't force myself to write meaningless posts that didn't come from my heart just to fulfill a "goal."

Because, you see, when I write, I don't just scribble down random, trivial things for no reason.

I just can't bring myself to write like that.

Everything I write has a purpose.

I pour part of myself into everything I write.

I never understood writers who used their writing as a cover...

...a disguise to hide themselves from the world and remain anonymous.

Maybe it's my personality, but I am unable to separate myself from my writing.

I want those who read my blog to be as observers gazing through a picture window, gazing up at the stars and moon set in the black fabric of the night sky.

I want them not to see mere words -- black marks upon a page.

I want them to see into my heart.

I want them to see my soul.

I want them to see Him through me.

So read with caution, gentle reader...

...for what you see here is my heart.

So please, handle my soul with care.