catalyst

{photo by Rachel}

there's nothing like the word "catalyst" finding you during a vulnerability hangover.

it's one of those "mysterious ways" kind of circumstances where you really just want to draw away from the world and from the eyes that are peering in at you through your literary fishbowl. that's what writing is, in a way. it's being a fish in a tank, and people are staring, and sometimes they ignore the sign that says, don't tap on the glass; it frightens the fish.

people like to tap anyway.

writing is the epitome of vulnerability. there's that quote by Red Smith :: there's nothing to writing. all you do is sit down at at typewriter and open a vein. and we chuckle and shake our heads in that funny way we do when something is true and it amuses us. but then, all of a sudden, it's not so catchy and amusing anymore when you poured yourself out and you're a little weak and wan and woozy and the little glass of orange juice just isn't cutting it.

it's that thing of wandering into Smaug's mountain and realizing that I haven't brought a sword at all.

and then comes that word, glaring big from the upper right-hand corner of the sermon notes. catalyst. it's a perfect pairing with my word for 2014 :: precipice. 

a person or event which causes quick change or action. 

I've been writing big brave scary words already, twelve days into 2014. and it's left me feeling like I'm outgrowing my comfortable skin, like I caught myself sipping a little too much of Alice's drink me potion. it's growth, and it's intense, and it hurts. 

{photo by Rachel}

but there's something causing quick change and action. and it's not me. I'm not powerful enough for that, not on my own. I'm shedding all the garbage that's been collecting all over me, cleaning all around the battery connection cables that tie Him and I together. I can feel the glowing, the arcing when He and I meet.

and this is what makes the thrashing all worth it, every last bloody filth-plastered moment. 

sometimes it takes an emptying of words to realize you have so many left. sometimes it takes a visceral precipice looming up straight ahead for me to remember that His breathing is more buoyant than wings.

because it's because of feeling so completely stripped raw, down to nothing at all with barely even my own skin to keep me warm, that I can find myself sharing story -- my story, your story -- and breaking bread with dragons. 

the quivering curtain {on being published}

{photo by Jennifer Upton}

I bought a calender on Saturday.

actually, technically, I bought two of them. one is the kind you hang on the wall, with beautiful pictures to look at each day of the month. and then there's the day-planner sort of thing, with each day marked out in lines with space for me to write my plans for the day, the week, the month.

we're at that midpoint. the darkest night is behind us and the bright burst of Epiphany is in front of us, coming closer and closer. closer still is the new year. I always marvel at the way a new year can feel so incredibly fresh, how burning one calender and hanging up a new one can conjure up such a profound change.

and I'm wordless.

I got the email one hour into Sunday morning. the one that started with "dear Rachel," and then the words blurred around me and my blood started pumping so loud in my ears that I could barely focus on anything else. I zeroed in on certain words :: thank you for submitting, we'd like to accept your piece for publication in our next issue...

it's surreal, I think. I say I think because I'm not even sure how I feel about this yet. 2014 is coming, fast, and it's the year I've pledged to open my mouth and put my words out there. I've decreed myself a writer, claiming the title that has been waiting for me to accept it for years. and then, right before the end of 2013, it started.

it's that light, pressing around the edges of the door. we're in the middle between the darkest night and the startling light of Epiphany. it's eager, excited, whispering of magic and wonder and intense power. I can't remember the last time I have felt this level of anticipation and enthrallment over the idea of a new year.

{photo by Jennifer Upton}

it's been a wandering year, a year of thudding and pulsing and weeping and keening and throwing things away and putting others in places of honour. and the further we get, the deeper we slip. I'm starting to understand why.

the stripping isn't over. the pruning and the baring and the birthing is far from over. in some respects, 2013 was the prologue, the overture, that quiver of the cast moving behind the curtain. He and I, we've done battle this year. and we're not done. it's been that slow peeling, that agonizing flailing. and I've stopped apologizing...at least, I think I have. but it's not like He and I are backed into our own corners just waiting for the next bell that supposedly comes when the bell drops. that's not it at all.

it's just the end of one calender and the start of another one.

it's huge and wild and sacred and so intensely huge. I can feel the ground shaking

and I can hear Him roaring.

{more is coming in regards to my being published  by Literary Orphans on January 8th. I'm still processing the joy and the fear that comes with this. words are brewing.}

laughing at Jesus

{photo by jennifer upton}

I remember the first time I went to the mission. I don't remember how old I was, but I remember it was cold. I was with my grandfather and his friend, a chaplain whose name I can't recall. I know I was young.

and I remember the first time I ever heard someone laugh at the name of Jesus.

I had never seen a prostitute before. I don't think I even knew what the word meant. but I remember her clothes :: black leather jacket, hot pink shirt that plunged lower than anything I had ever seen. I remember her hair, box-blonde with obvious dark roots, piled up on top of her head. I remember the cigarette dangling from her fingers.

she was sitting behind me on the plastic chairs. the chaplain asked, when you hear the name Jesus, what do you think? and the woman laughed and screamed, holy schmoly. effing Christians!

the chaplain kept in stride, never breaking for a second. I remember that. he pointed to her and repeated the first part of her words like a teacher accepting answers from a crowd of boisterous students, glad they were speaking at all.

I don't remember anything else that was said after that. 

I had never heard someone respond that way to Jesus. I never even knew that existed, never knew that people thought that way about Christians. I was confused, hurt, a little girl who had grown up with Jesus from day one and never even dreamed that someone wouldn't like Him. why didn't she love Christians?

{photo by jennifer upton}

and then I grew up. and I started seeing that woman more often.

obviously it wasn't the same face. but the eyes were identical. I saw her everywhere, in crowds and in churches. I found her in the supermarket. I noticed her at the post office. I realized that I was friends with her.

and now I understand that laughter. I hear it differently. it was mocking, caustic, and was laden with so much pain. it was the sound of a woman who had been slapped and kicked and knocked down a thousand times, had reached out her hand, and had someone spit in her face.

she had been given up on by the ones who were supposed to be the hands and the feet. I don't know every step she took. but she is familiar to me now. her story is one I understand, her words are ones I completely comprehend.

He didn't come for us to look down, to refuse to meet the eyes of humanity. He was born for lifting up. for getting dirty. for putting on skin and blood and pain. He touched.

can't we?

when you haven't written a book

{photo by Jennifer Upton}

I'm the blogger than hasn't written a book.

it's funny, and then, it's not, because everywhere you look anymore, having a book with your name on the cover and your picture on the back is becoming the norm. at least, in my circles, it is. and it's damn intimidating.

it's hard to feel like a lioness when you're mewing and scratching at the door in your own head.

recently, I wrote for Preston Yancey about what women want from the church. my answer was voice, the chance to stand up and speak on par with all the other masculine heads that tower above me. and then i start to get a good look around me, and I start to think, well, maybe my voice doesn't count because it's never been between two covers. 

I am Alice, tumbling down the rabbit hole with nothing to hold onto, finding myself flat on my face in a strange sort of Wonderland. I'm a flower with the wrong kind of petals, they whisper...or am I just imagining it because I'm too scared to admit that maybe I might fit in here after all?

I don't have an MD, but then, I'm not a doctor. I'm a healer with a satchel of words. I feel like a midwife in a world full of modern medicine. and it's not wrong, because there's a time and a place for those who have greater experience in other areas than me. but sometimes you just need that silence, the hands that wrap around your shoulders and whisper, breathe through this. I've got you. 

this is how I will {eventually} write my book. this is a vow to myself. it's a pledge that my words belong in hands, shared over coffee and firelight, breathed from one mouth to another.

I just hope that I'll eventually find my corner and admit to myself that I myself am breathed from the lips of Holiness, that every fibre of my being hums with the chorus of the Spirit-Song composed before the dawn of time.

I'm the blogger that hasn't written a book.

yet.

i want to tell you

{via pinterest}

i want to tell you my story. but i'm scared.

i want to tell you that my parents tried, that they were wonderful people who heard a word and let it twist inside the wrong direction. i want to tell you that i still love them, and they still love me, even though i'm still healing from some of their raising choices. i want to tell you that they're changing too, and they're not the people they used to be anymore either, that they're beautiful people with His hand-print etched deeper than it ever was.

but i'm scared.

i want to tell you that i grew up in purity culture where modesty was more important than personhood, where my worth as a woman was measured by the length of my skirts and the height of my neckline. i want to tell you that i followed blindly because i was too scared to take my sunglasses off inside the Church.

but i'm scared.

i want to tell you that i courted my husband and we have so much regret from the way we were guided into love. i want to tell you that i look back and i think, why didn't i just kiss him a thousand times before i finally took a breath of courage, and why did the fear have to come so strong afterward? i think, why didn't i press that Joshua Harris book back onto the shelf and whisper, it's okay. i'm going to hold his hand and we're both going to chase the Lion instead of legalism...why didn't i?

but i'm scared.

i want to tell you that i found a way back into love surrounded by a tribe of women who helped peel the duct tape off my mouth that the well-meaning Church slipped over my lips when i wasn't looking. i want to tell you that i've sobbed my eyes out for the nearly twenty-one years lost in blindness before i dared to look straight into His eyes and whisper, i don't know You. but You know me. 

{via pinterest}

but i'm scared.

i want to tell you that i realized that i was a Jesus feminist when they placed my daughter into my arms and i looked at her face and thought, i can't let her endure what i did. i want to tell you that stepping out as a feminist was like my own personal closet with helpings of shame and grief that came alongside the breathing.

but i'm scared.

i want to tell you that i love you. i want to tell you that i love Jesus. i want to tell you that i see Him as a Lion because He isn't safe, and i can't do safe faith anymore. i want to tell You that i'm messy, and so is Jesus, and that's why i can lean on Him so fully, because i'm not afraid that me will rub off on Him. :: if anything, He's rubbing off on me. 

and like i've said, i'm scared.

but i think i'm going to tell you anyway. because He has made me a wild thing, a lioness renewed with the wings of an albatross at her back.

*deep breath* 

standing with the five

{via PerceptiveArtista}

two years ago, a soul-sister reached through the letterbox and pressed a book into my hands. the title spoke a name so often spoken with accusing acid within the church :: Havah {Eve}. 

i got lost inside that book. it wove a familiar story into a new pattern and wrapped itself around my shoulders as i wept. it's always the way when you're reading something well-known, where you know the ending like the back of your hand, but somehow, you think if you beg a little louder, things will change. 

:: but they never do. 

she's one of those women that gets a lot of grief from those of us who have carried their stories in our pockets from the early Sunday School days. we point 21st century fingers back with 20/20 vision and wag them back and forth with clucking tongues. tsk tsk tsk. she should have known better. 

all we see is the bite-mark, the belly curved with her father-in-law's unborn twins, the rooftop bathtub. and so we toss our heads and murmur, we can learn from them. we must not do what they have done. i would have never...and we find our paths crossing with modern day women just like us, just like them, and we cross to the other side of the road. 

but we leave the biggest part out :: the mother of He. 

nothing they did erased the lineage of the Lion from their blood. nothing they did made them untouchable or unworthy in the eyes of the One who would one day touch the hand of the broken, bleeding, unclean ones and whisper daughter. 

{via PerceptiveArtista}

you will hear thunder and remember me, and think: she wanted storms. 

the rim of the sky will be the colour of hard crimson. 

and your heart, as it was then, will be on fire. 

:: Anna Akhmatova

a wise friend of mine spoke to my heart this week :: how can we love the ones we avoid? and it made me gasp aloud. i see so much of me reflected back from the eyes of these scarlet-lettered ones. but He tugged and tugged at the sewn-on letter and let it unravel, wild and loose, and tied a scarlet thread into their hair so that the world can see their eyes. 

there is so much existence in Him. i've said it before, and i'll say it here again because i cannot remove this reality from my heart. He is not a statue of marble, rigid and cold. He is breath and blood and Light and Wild. He is touchable-sacred. 

i'm finding my place at His feet, curled up against His warm side. there's me, and there's the five women from His line with their woven stories wrapped around their shoulders. and there's you, too. 

i am telling my Story. 

right beside theirs. 

the start of the melting

{via pinterest}

i remember the day that i melted. i think i will always remember. it was the very first day that i dared to question what was laid in front of me. i was seventeen with eyebrows tinged white from the missionary mime make-up. it was merely days after the quietest moment of my life. my toes were on foreign soil, in a land that has forever woven a spell over my heart.

it was the night of the talk. you know the one. we were gathered together, boys and girls and men and women. the words spoken to us were inspirational. at the time, they conjured something different than they would now. it was a type of shame, it made us blush. but we knew the drill :: we'd all heard it before, and the feeling it brought was familiar. they talked about shirts too low and jeans too tight, they looked us dead in the eye and told us to protect our brothers.

they taught us how to hug, arms draped around the shoulders from the side, never too long. they taught us about closed doors and warnings and dreaded plane trips home should we embrace too long, should a boy-toe ever enter the room of a girl. 

and then the talk ended and the mood changed. there was laughter and friends chatting during a short break, an appropriate hug exchanged here and there, but everyone was careful. it was ingrained. we knew what to do.

and then came the mention of the yearly mother-daughter cruise. there were cheers. there was excitement. and then the lights dimmed and the slideshow started to roll. and something inside me melted like wax.

the fabric was bright. blues and whites and yellows and greens and pinks. typical bikini colours. it was a cruise after all, all full of mothers and daughters bonding together. and they were on a ship in the ocean, and BarlowGirl was singing, and the girls were wearing bikinis.

i felt his hand on my shoulder, my friend, my heart-brother. i remember the look in his eyes, the way he whispered with head buried in hands, peering up at me through his fingers,

are they watching me? is this a test? i don't know where to look.

i remember when the lights came up and the burst of courage filled me. i was seventeen. i had never questioned anything before, not like this. but i couldn't let it go. i couldn't forget that look in his eyes.

with shaking fingers, i walked to the woman who ran the show, the one whose face we all knew, the one who smiled at the door each morning and spoke God to us each night. i touched her arm and took a deep breath.

"i'm sorry. but that didn't seem right. not after what you just said. all those girls in bikinis, the guys were confused. i was confused. i don't understand. it felt wrong."

i knew what i was expecting. i was expecting an answer, an easy one, some sort of explanation as to why. but she looked at me and pursed her lips and said, the Devil likes to cause turmoil at times like this. we don't need that kind of attitude here. 

i cried that night into my pillow, my roommates gathered around me with their hands on my back. it didn't feel right to them either. they told us not to look, they told us to keep our eyes closed and bodies covered. they whispered shame but screamed contradiction in our faces.

but what could we do? we were just teenagers. we were just girls.

i was so confused, everything all twisted up inside. was this what purity meant? i always thought it was something holy, something bright and white and glorious. i didn't know it then, but this was the start of my uncovering. my casting aside the millstone and taking a lighter yoke on my shoulders.

at the airport, two days later as we all winged our way from South America to long-missed families, my soul-brother hugged my neck.

i've never forgotten.

this is why i'm a Jesus feminist.
this is why i fight.

slow-stepping out the shadows, allowing the dark soul-night to teach me something. i'm learning how to put a face to the shame, slipping a voice against the palm of the voiceless.

{this is a piece of my journey. join with the wild mystics for a deep journey into the dark night}

permission to not have answers {page five}

i realized something today. i realized that i've been talking so much about all the permission i have found in telling my story :: but i haven't really told you any of my story. which is actually relatively funny, seeing as how i've become more and more free with sharing my story with the world in recent months.

there's a certain level of fear that comes with telling my story. it takes bravery to stand up and stammer out, i grew up Christian because i was supposed to, not because i chose Jesus above everything else. it takes a strange amount of courage to admit that from a very early age, i was that person, the one that gripped people by the throat and dragged them to the feet of Jesus whether they wanted to be there or not.

i made sure they knew they were sinners. i made sure they knew they were going to hell. that is, unless they became Christians.

i remember the girl in the department store, the one that i cornered at the age of five and asked, if you died tonight, do you know where you'd go? and then came the words that scarred the little missionary in me for a very long time :: uh, yeah, why are you asking crazy questions? 

that was my persecution, i was sure. and so i soldiered on, relentless in my pursuit to change the world for Jesus. i was on fire. or rather, i thought i was on fire. but i had no idea what i was doing. i had no idea what i believed. well, i believed what everyone else around me believed. i knew what i was supposed to think, and that was what i thought.

it wasn't until i was seventeen and i experienced the quietest moment of my life that things started to change. and it wasn't until even later still that i received permission from myself and from the One who sees me to question everything. i never would have dared to even think the things that now are the mantra of my entire existence.

{via pinterest}

not too long ago, a precious soul-sister sent me beautiful words, etched in paint and ink, that i have held close from the moment my eyes first beheld them :: He is not threatened by your questions. i grew up in a place where my questions meant my faith wasn't sure, and that wasn't okay. i was just supposed to trust, to lean, to go with what i knew, and knowing equaled faith.

there wasn't any mystery. there wasn't any wrestling. there weren't any questions.

except i had a lot of questions that didn't have answers. i didn't understand why those around me shouldered these heavy chains and walked with their heads down, murmuring about joy in their souls but with such strange oppression on their faces. this is what God says, they chanted, this is what we must do. but they wouldn't touch the broken ones that lined the road. and they looked me in the eye and held out their hands to me, Christian me, church me. the one that fit.

and then i had to wonder, what if they knew my story? would they hold out their hands then? because i know what i was, before this strange thrashing freedom came, and i would have crossed to the other side of the road. 

and it was then that He made Himself known to me, this strange Voice that loomed out the darkness.

:: dearest daughter, I have known you long. 

and this Voice, this Lion...He didn't seem threatened by my not-knowing. in fact, it seemed to fit. because He wasn't safe, which felt so foreign. He was supposed to be safe, to be full of facts and thick black lines, and there weren't supposed to be any questions.

but i had so. many. questions.

{via pinterest}

and i found myself standing on the edge of the sea, feeling the spray from the waves soaking every inch of me, through to the skin. and He murmured, deep into my soul, oh dearheart, I know there is a sea of questions. but I AM the great bridge-builder. and I can wait for you forever. 

i've never felt so fragile, as though a wind might knock me over. but then, i've never felt so free, as though i'm riding on the back of the warmest, wildest One i've ever known. i still have so many questions. but answers are slipping in, finding their places, one little scrap of wood at a time. and slowly, a bridge is forming.

i am fragile. the wood is strong.
and i can feel the flames building inside me again.

{this was written as part of a synchroblog to celebrate the release of Addie Zierman’s book When We Were On Fire. i'm honoured to stand beside her and a thousand others as we speak our stories, share our pieces. won't you join us?}

permission to drink {page three}

two years ago, i wrote this post. i didn't know how much this post would affect me. i didn't know how much it would linger, even in the years that followed.

i don't think i realized just how little permission i was giving myself in my own femininity and my own faith. the more i write, the more i tell my own story, the more i discover secret links of the chain that was holding me down. this post was another inch of the door, another chapter of my story that i was letting into the open.

:: i was learning to let my story breathe. i was learning how to have faith. 

but there was still that guilt. there was this whispering little tug at the back of my mind, pulling me away from the freedom and reminding me just how much more comfortable the darkness was...how much safer i felt when no one could see me.

i was like the kitten that hides under a couch, the tip of her tail poking out, but absolutely sure that no one can see her. she was invisible, and that was okay. 

but i never had permission to be unseen. isn't that funny? i didn't have permission to tell my story, and it felt safer when i wasn't seen, but then, i was an extrovert. being seen came with the territory. tucking myself away wasn't okay, it wasn't part of the plan for me. was it? i grew up in the church, and that was my faith, and that was my way, and i didn't ask questions because i was just supposed to know. right?

the other day, i told someone about this book i was reading, thrashing about with God, and she gasped. it was obviously unintentional, soft and completely without drama, but it was there. she looked at me and said, oh, is that okay? to do, to read, for you, i mean?

and then they came, the inaudible words, soft and bitter, clawing at my confidence.. is it okay? are you sure you know what you're doing? what does He think of this? you're too wild. what would they think if they could see you like this?

i'm learning for it to be okay. i wanted the floor to open up and swallow me whole. and she smiled and made a few more little comments before she found a reason to slip away into the crowd. and then i realized :: it's okay. i'm okay. He sees, He knows.

i gripped the book a little tighter and smiled, maybe more of a grimace, but i managed to turn up the corners of my mouth and choke out,

it's okay.

the more i tell my story, the more pieces of me i let out, the more i feel like i'm being poured out as almost a literal drink offering on the ground. and it's exhausting. i see all these things happening around me and i feel pulled in a thousand directions. but who's doing the pulling?

there's no handbook laid out for exactly what the qualifications are to be "good enough." except there is, and everyone else seems to know every single word. and here i am, sitting at my computer, with my hair in a messy ponytail and feeling so much wild-er than is considered "appropriate."

but He isn't safe. He's good, oh, so good. and i have a Lion at my back to roar bravery when i'm the stammering clumsy mess who can't make my story come out right. it's pressing myself against the banks of the river and lowering my mouth to the water. unsure, but drinking deep, because He has swallowed up much and i am thirsty.

i have permission to drink.

{day one} thirty one days of Story-telling permission

{via pinterest}

:: this is a post of deep breathing // this is the start of 31 days of Story-telling permission ::

until last week, i had no idea i would be undertaking this project. i attempted to do 31 days of sacred seeking motherhood this time last year, but faltered very shortly after starting, due to my pure exhaustion + the change of having a newborn.

but now, i'm starting fresh. i read a post by Elora this past week that gutted me, sent me to the floor. and in it, she wrote six powerful words that have thrummed deep in my soul.

let's be writers?  

yes. let's really be. 

:: elora nicole :: 

and then i had a conversation with her, a beautiful meeting of souls. it was her that turned my floundering words into something concrete. she didn't put her words into my mouth, not at all. instead, she took my words and put them back into my mouth in a way that flowed. she laid His words and mine together on my tongue, and said, 

now write them down. 

you have permission. 

{photo by dramaticelegance}

and those words came slipping back in. let's be writers? and there it is, my Story, curled up like a cat at my back i'm finding that i've always had permission. it was waiting, resting at the edges of my soul, holding sacred space and waiting for me to realize that it's been there all along. 

and so i'm exhaling and doing something i'm not sure that i'm brave enough to undertake. i'm starting thirty-one days, barely into my twenty-third year of life, and i'm quivering inside. i know it's going to be messy and i know it's going to be vulnerable and i know there will be times that i simply will not want to do this. 

i am giving myself permission to miss a day. or ten. i am giving myself permission to live, to breathe, to tell my Story in the time and the space i need. 

this is less of a rule book, less of a laundry list of "31 ways to give yourself permission to tell your story." this is a journey, hand-in-hand. and if you want to sit down here and hold space with me at the edge of the water, there's room, right here. 

so this is day one. a messy, wild mishmash of faith and thrashing, of art, of writing, of freedom. expect to see Aslan here, because this is far from safe, but He is good. 

day one :: i have permission to tell my Story. 

do not dare not to dare //

{photo by dramaticelegance}

i feel like the world has been chasing me with this thrashing. honestly, i think it's really comical that this thing that i have been hiding from for so long is now pursuing me, or at least putting itself in my path. i turn twenty-three in little less than a week, and i am just discovering. someone told me that it's because i'm aware of it, in tune with myself now.

but i don't think that's entirely the reason. i think that my eyes are finally open enough that the calling, the pulling, has finally allowed itself to crawl out from the cave and whisper i'm here. i've always been here. can you see me? 

part of me really wants to write about this. i feel like i've been waiting for my entire life to feel this strange warring freedom. but then comes that fear, the familiar flavour that weighs my soul down. it almost makes me want to let go and let the current pull me the safe way, the way that doesn't make my arms ache.


i wrote some time ago about taking off the veil and looking darkness in the eyes. i don't mean evil darkness :: the Lion already holds the key. i mean the strange unknown, the part that lingers in the  shadow when i've been too scared to pull back the curtains and let the light trace over my skin.

i'm not ashamed. i am afraid. but i am pressing my forehead against the stone wall while i seek solace from the din.

sometimes being on the ground // means a new season is coming

{photo by dramaticelegance}

it's autumn. there's a lot of death associated with the falling leaves and fading grass. but there's something resurrecting about this season. it's been hot, pressing, almost suffocating, with air so thick that i almost wanted to push it off myself like a constricting garment. 

and then comes the whispering cool air, taking my hair and floating it across my face. it's like some ethereal veil reminding me, you are seen, if only by He that holds the Wind

and He is not threatened by your questions. 

it's a digging in. it's painful. it's reaching deep into yourself with gently curling fingers and digging into the dirt. and it makes me shudder and gasp. it's gorgeous. 

sometimes He digs in His claws and flays me wide. but that's not what He's doing right now. my soul is whispering, echoing soft Lion-growl :: do not dare not to dare. (lewis) i am humming His name like it's the last melody i know. i am reaching up.

{to learn more about Mandy's book, visit messy canvas. to read all the posts in my personal thrashing journey, visit here}

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. 

the elephant in the room

{via pinterest}

i want to talk about elephants.

there's something about them {as anyone who follows me on instagram will notice} that captivates me. i've started to notice this metaphorical parade of these creatures following me, never too far behind. people ask me all the time, why elephants? what do they mean? and my answer has shyly, sheepishly been :: i don't know.

i hate not knowing. really, it's one of those things that i struggle with the most. my favourite question is "why?" and i ask it perhaps more than i should. i want to know why, i want to know what. i just want to know. and so when these elephants began to appear in my life, stepping into my path one at a time, i wanted to know why.

and then i found a secret message, tucked in-between words gifted to my heart from my dearheart friend Teresa. and the rest came in a Lion's-breath whisper straight into my very soul.

:: it's okay to quiver. baby {elephant} steps count. 

fear. oh fear. it's the elephant in the room, to use the cliche. it's the thing we aren't supposed to do, but the one with the deepest-sinking claws. and it buries itself in and snarls and refuses to let go. and i'm holding out my hand, begging and pleading for Him to take it away, but then He reaches out and i jerk back my hand. i'm afraid to let go of the fear.

{from my own art journal. photo by dramaticelegance}

and those elephants, so big and bold and strong enough to even take on a lion in the wild, quiver in fear at the sight of something whiskered-small. they have fear too, these mighty things.

i've started to realize more and more, as i reach in and take hold of the story deep within me, that there are fear-chains wrapped around each word. it's being held down, tight, doing its level best to keep the Story stiffled. it tried to do it once already. have i forgotten that it failed? the Story ends with broken chains.

and so these elephants follow me, a sweet gentle parade, trunks swaying and nudging my back. and the Lion leads the way, a strange and beautiful party. we're walking, and inside we're quivering a little, because our Guide isn't safe. but oh, is He ever good.

and something is churning deep inside with each light barefoot step of mine, and each plodding waltz of the elephant feet.

i can hear the chains snapping.

rejection of the Story

{via pinterest}

there is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you :: maya angelou 

i haven't started a blog post with a quote in a long while. but this quote...mm, this one, i felt was all too appropriate for my soul-season right now. 

i have a lot of emails sitting in my inbox right now. one of them is one that has been sitting there since February of 2011. i can't bring myself to delete it, even though i really really really really want to, more than even i realize. 

it's my very first novel rejection letter.

frankly, it wasn't all that surprising. the publisher had asked for my first fifty pages of my {still} unfinished fantasy novel, and i had sent it along with a small shred of trepidation in my heart. and i heard back. they thought it was wonderful. they used words like "brilliant" and "beautiful imagery" and "radiant." 

but it just wasn't for them. 

and i cried. it was the strangest most painful compliment i'd ever received. it was as though they were saying :: your work is good, great even. it's just not good enough. 

i never finished the novel. it's still sitting in my WORD file, completely untouched since that rejection letter arrived in my inbox more than two years ago. 

part of me wonders if it's because i needed to let it die, like a stone-pile monument to the moment i realized that i was officially a rejected writer {rejected as in, a right of passage to have your words turned down}. but then, maybe it was because i got scared. maybe the idea of a monument, a reminder, was romantic in a strange sort of way, and i was okay with leaving it like that instead of facing that fact that rejection sucks and i wasn't looking forward to dealing with it ever again. 

which, as a writer, is laughable. 

which, as a human, is laughable. 

rejection comes, like brutal hammers or like shards of glass in your shoe. it's there, banging down your door, right in your face. it's there, whispering quiet doubts that borrow deep into your soul and lodge there, eating you up into nothing until your story shrivels away into broken twisted stems. 

no light, no air, no water :: the story dies. 

{via pinterest}

and so i'm writing again. it's September. there's a thousand things happening this month, so many challenges laid out on the road in front of me like Turkish Delight, tempting and covered in powdered sweetness. it's a luring concept to take them as excuses to just not write, to just let the story lay "one more day." 

but there's a table laid out before me, gleaming and right, brimming with love and light by the Hand of the Lion with enemies and rejection pressing at the edges. but He growls so low into my soul. 

courage, dearheart

I have known you long. 

and i dine for strength. and my laptop perches gently on His broad back. i write, and He leaps over the kingdom of darkness until we rest on a beach with the gently cresting waves giving me glimpses into His Country across the sea. and i dip my toes into the Light-Water. 

and the Story puts out leaves. 

{want to enter a community of Story, of grace, of Jesus, of growth? Jesus found me in story 101. are you ready to take the leap? you won't regret it.}

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. 

the second page :: foreshadow

{via pinterest}

{to read the first chapter, visit here}

another page now to turn, when books and words show more than we dare to realize. because we get stuck, i think with away in the manger when no one really went to this quiet manger where cattle are lowing and babies don't cry.

because there's more to this than just picture-perfect nativity and glowing mother and oh so proud father and stars and a Star that shine down over this little Kodak moment where someone should have had a camera.

sometimes it seems like they did, but they didn't.

there was blood. there was tears and there was pain. and there was a crying child who lay in a pile of straw, wrapped in strips of clean linen,  because the world who should have opened their doors to Him shut them tight and shouted

no room 

no room 

no room 

a hundred thousand times over until a cave cut into rock was His only place to be born.

and then His only place to lay when the hearts of every Pharisee shut tights and cried

no room 

no room

no room 

{via pinterest}

a hundred times over. and they wrapped Him in strips of clean linen -- and they laid Him in that cave to rest. not in life, but in death.

and then there were the seekers. the shepherds and the Magi from every walk of life, coming to behold and kneel with gifts of wealth and gifts of hearts.

 because the shepherds were disciples that came and laid their nothing but praise at His feet, because it was all they had. and a man named Joseph was the Magi who gave his garden and his herbs and his never-used tomb. because that was his honour.

and there was the angel in the sky singing "you will find Him lying in a manger. Emmanuel. Jesus." and the seekers ran to Him after waiting all their lives to find this Messiah, this one to save them, their land and their souls.

and then there was the angel again. who sat this time, no singing or multitudes. just the one. but this one's message was just as full of power, if not more.

this time,

He is NOT HERE.

because He is risen.

so the writer in me finds the foreshadow, finds the promise in the silent night and the holy night and the bright and the calm.

and so as i sing, the tears will fall down my face because there is more than sacred touching earth and life being changed as we know it forever by an innocent child soon to become the darkest with our sin. not His, but ours.

fall on your knees,

oh, hear the angel voices.

oh, night divine. 

the first page :: havah

{via pinterest}

i've been reading a book.

it's not all that uncommon for me to be found reading a book, actually. i'm an avid reader as well as an author. can you be one without the other, really? can you write well without the example of fluttering pages and the comparison of knowing where one has gone before you, and soared?

i'm reading Havah. this volume gifted from the heart of a sister to my mailbox this week. and i cannot put it down.

Tosca Lee put pen to paper and wrote this book, her own heart's picture of the beginning and end through the eyes of the first Woman.

Havah. 

Life. 

Eve. 

and as i pour through these pages, overwhelmed with the beauty of the first portion, my heart swells. this connection to the Creator they feel, their bonding with the One who Spoke them to life...it makes me crave this same communion with Him. because the beauty is almost overwhelming to my soul.

and then the anvil drops. and i can see it coming in slow motion because i know the story and i know what's coming and i know, oh how i know what the cost will be, and i want to scream at her to stop and open her eyes because how could she not know?

but then comes a bite. and a second. and feminine hands outstretched toward husband's lips, and another bite. and with simple movements of lips and teeth and throats, their fate is sealed in darkness. but not just theirs -- ours. every last breath becomes thicker, harder, and every last heart is now blackened with sin.

but there is hope. there is Light.

for with darkness comes a glimmer of Hope. for with the disconnection from the Holy One comes a promise of reconnection.

you will bruise His heal 

but He will crush your head. 

even in anger, God knew. and God would not let His people, His newly-broken ones, go without a hope. do we forget this part of the story? we weep with horror and wail if only if only. 

{via pinterest}

but in a week, we celebrate that hope. 

the hope of all things new. 

for unto us a Child is born

unto us a Son is given

and the Government will be upon His shoulder

and His name shall be 
Wonderful Counseler, Mighty God, 
Everlasting Father

Prince of Peace.

and He came to save and live and walk and die as one of us, so that He might rend the curtain and let the Light in again. 

this is one of the pages in the Christmas story that we forget. the darkest of pages that we swiftly attempt to overturn in our hurry to get to the angels singing and the Child coming into virginal arms. but it's a big picture story, this thing of Jesus' coming. 

because even her name -- Havah -- it means Life. a promise from the beginning, a hope so sure as to not be shaken. 

and Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight

the clouds be rolled back as a scroll.

the trump shall resound and my Lord shall descend

praise the Lord, praise the Lord

oh, my soul.

breathing phoenix rain

{via pinterest}

sometimes i wonder just what i am. i wonder if all this writing i do ever amounts to anything, if all it will ever do is sit in the recesses of my computer.

every time i read over my old work -- those worlds of my own creation, those characters whom i love like pieces of myself -- i wonder if anyone will ever see them, ever treasure them like i do.

and if they did see, would they love? or would my mountain become their molehill, lost in translation and unconveyed in their importance to me, to the world?

this fear almost cripples me. it's almost enough to jerk my words from me into darkness and shut the light tight on all my aspirations.

but without words

i wouldn't be able to breathe. 

not really. because see, that's what He gave me. to some He gave song, and to some He gave paint, and to others He gave a stand.

but i received words. He poured them into my soul, wove my spirit from ink and parchment and inspiration that i have yet to fully uncover. and He begs me

be writer, dearheart.

be this thing I made you to be. 

:: be writer ::

{via pinterest}

and so i keep writing. not for money or fame or any sort of plans set in stone.

but for love. 

only for love. 

and in this darkness, in the silence of night, my fingers grasped something and held on tightly. and i set my fingers to paper, and the ashes parted to reveal that which was hidden.

phoenix rain.

right now, there is so little. but it's enough to pull at me. for love, for wings, for future and dreams.

i have my breath. my paint, my canvas.

my story. 

her story. 

:: His story ::

all together now.

{unwrapping this glory today with emily}