the oft-repeated refrain

{photo taken by me}

if you asked me what makes my heart pound, I'd tell you that it's women. if you asked me what pushes me to write when the words feel dried up, I'd tell you that it's women.

if you asked me what's blocking my words right now, I'd tell you that it's fear.

I'd tell you that I'm scared that I write too much about the same thing, that I bombard the world with the same concept over and over again. I'd tell you that I swell with fear when I think about speaking about the way that I've changed, the way that my eyes are wider open now because He smeared mud over my blindness.

but I think you already know that.

I'd like to tell you that I write elegant, put-together and composed ideas about egalitarianism and Biblical feminism. I'd like to tell you that I'm good at gracefully pondering these ideas with highlighter pens and stacks of books that pile around my ankles.

but that wouldn't be the truth. and you already know that, too.

I'm the kind of woman that sits on her couch with her legs crossed while her child sleeps in the room above, sipping a long-cold cup of coffee as she types the words "you are worthy" so many times that she starts to think you might be sick of hearing them already.

and then something crosses my path that reminds me beyond the shadow of a doubt that you cannot remind someone of their worth enough times, that you cannot repeat the same tender invocation too often for the soul to not absorb it like water in the salt pans of Africa. it comes in waves, these whispering calls to arms.

I'm no Joan of Arc, but I think I understand her sometimes, the way she sat with the unpopular call of God shivering through her very blood. and that's where I am today, sitting on the edge of my soft green couch while my child sings her own made-up songs to herself above me. I'm walking with Joan but in the opposite direction. because today He's calling me to put down the sword. there's been enough blood today, enough caustic words burning acid marks into souls.

today I'm letting the sword rest beside the water. and I'm holding you close and whispering the words I've said a thousand times. I'm dipping my fingers into the sea and running them through your hair, smoothing down the edges that can cut us both if we're not careful.

I'm resting against the Lion's side, and it's warm and good. and I'm speaking the words He spoke in oft-repeated refrain.

all things are made new. 

in His image, we are created. 

female, yes, female too. 

He is worthy. 

and you, beloved daughter, are worthy. 

art is for you

{via pinterest}

i remember the first time i saw the ocean. i was a little girl, landlocked from birth, with a swimsuit that matched the ocean and short hair hacked by even younger hands. and my soul inhaled the salty air and murmured,

:: i am home. 

it takes diving into a pool and sinking down to rise up into the place He sang into Life. it takes cresting the ocean's wave to even catch a glimpse of His eternal country. there's something powerful about this idea, that it takes deep immersion until all you can see is the Light hovering on the surface of the water from down below.

we are all soul-creatures, made to be seen, 

created to be tenderly cradled and adored, 

yet we tremble at the thought of it.

love like water :: wild rain

so often i wish i had a mermaid tail tucked away in the closet, shimmering and waiting for me to slip inside and dive into the sea :: to return home, in a way, to a place that i never truly held but always flowed through my fingers.

i think it's part of why i've gone back to being an artist in recent days. it was something i had given up after comparing myself to others who were "better" even though all we were was different. i was seventeen when i put down the brush. all it took was an art teacher's slightly raised eyebrow and the words, maybe art isn't for you. 

all i can do is reflect back on words i've written before :: it's those moments in the dark where we wrap our arms around our knees and kneel within ourselves to the waves of crashing Love that threaten to overwhelm us. it's a tremble, not a cringe. it's a breathing, not a hyperventilation. 

{sketch by alexandria for dramaticelegance}

this is for me. and my mermaid soul is seen by the One who wove kelp into my hair and called my soul to love of depths.

there is a seacove of my own, tucked gently beneath the waves at the edge of Aslan's Country, that place that hums a familiar melody and whispers of one day, forever. there in that place is a set of paintbrushes made from the mane of the Lion who gave it up for me to Live freely. 

it's a metamorphosis of sorts, a shedding of the ugly and the embracing of the mantle of glory.  it's stepping away from the shadows that confines my feminine soul into certain boxes that aren't allowed to stand here because it might not be right. 

it's being brave and letting down my hair. He promised to come to us like rain, and like water does He fill my soul to overflowing. 

and this is where i am :: tucked in my cove surrounded by sisters of soul and ocean, the crash of the ocean and the roar of the Lion harmonizing tender. 

because He promised
art is for you,
My mermaid daughter. 

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. 

:: kinsman redeemer

{via pinterest}

i wish i could reach down and smear my fingertips with paint and streak them across your eyes so you can see what i see.

i want to look up and count the stars, the ones tucked away in a sacred place that even my own human eyes cannot find them. the ones that were there the night among the piles of honey-toned barley where a whispered exchange passed between the lips of a man and a once-cursed foreign beauty.

spread your cloak over me, for you are my kinsman redeemer. 

and she slept that night on the threshing floor at the bared feet of a man who swore to save her, joining the ranks of the world-forgotten women that reached up and wept to be seen.

she was third of five, this Moabitess who begged for the covering from her saviour-turned-groom. they all bore the familiar shame, the whispers and pointed fingers. they were stamped with an ugly word, one too quickly spoken still two thousand years down the road. but from their blood, oft murmured "tainted," came the Life-Bringer.

:: the One who spoke to the slave in the wilderness, 

who rested hands on the unclean and whispered

dearest daughter

I knew you would not be long...

{via pinterest}

there's a reason that Lewis wrote so often of the breath of the Lion on the face of those He treasured. the wind from the mouth of the Risen One against the cheek of His bride, the whisper in the night that He is coming to bathe me in Light. i am not forgotten.

the rocks on the seashore, grit and earth and dirt

until they are picked up by the fingers of one who knows

and then they are treasures. 

so i'm finding my own place on the threshing floor, under the stars with the moon as a witness, and speaking to the One who is not safe, but oh, so good

spread Your cloak over me, 

just let me touch the hem

// for You are my kinsman redeemer 

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.

if you dare

it's the one about revelation. it's the one about life unrestrained and the stuff that comes along with it, day by day.

it's the one about renewal and restoration. embracing the challenge, living in the freedom we craved and received and now are almost too afraid to reach out and take.

{via pinterest}

i thew my hands in the air and said

"show me something"

He said

"if you dare, come a little closer."

stay // rihanna

and i'm digging in my heels and shaking my head back and forth because i'm afraid. but arrows have to be pulled back to fly forward, and so i'm releasing my grip and letting my head lean up with mouth open to taste the rain of His goodness and mercy. 

sometimes i feel like a collage, scrap paper pieced together like little girl dreams of this and that with glue sticks and glitter, except with bigger girl dreams that are just as fragile and just as deep.

it's like holding that match to newspaper, watching the flames expand and the statue turn from stone to new living skin and blood and breath. the thunder rolls like the churning mantra in my soul, and i find
my way to stomping and lifting my face to the sky.

if you dare, come a little closer.

hesitant on the water's edge, whispering, i'm thirsty...will You promise not to hurt me? 

and He says that He can make no such promise, but i come and dip my hand in the stream anyway because the Water is living and i am dying slowly without Him flowing through my body like liquid Light.  

:: because i begged Him to show me something.

and He did. 

{linking with dear emily where we rejoice in imperfection} 

metamorphosis

{via pinterest}

metamorphosis. this has become my state of being, my mind-set.

there is so much about this place, this condition of womanhood set upon me, that i have grown to fear and grown to loathe. but this cannot be. how can i raise my daughter to love herself, to face the world with a lifted head and a cry to the heavens, if i do not believe it myself?

i ache to redefine womanhood. i am more than tatted lace and teatime socials. i yearn to let my hair down and dive in, swim down deep, to drown in His spirit and rise anointed from the ashes holding the hands of those who walked before me. 

Hosea whispered, 

He will come to us like rain. 

and i want to dip my head back, mouth open and eyes aglow, and take Him in with my whole heart. i want to be baptized in the water and fire that is His glory. i am unwilling to wrap myself in a veil that He tore in an impossible way for me, and if only for me, it would have been enough. 

and so i am breaking from this place of stagnant dwelling, this place of sit here silently. i am a Lioness, He promised, and renewed i shall be. 

paint scales on my skin, for i shall be a mermaid. 

no fear of depth, great fear of shallow living. 

:: a paraphrase of a quote by anis nin

i will be a mystic, with candle light and war paint mingling on my cheeks. and i will lift my small hands and place them against His pierced palms and speak bravely. 

mermaid girl come to drown

to rise again. 

to live mightily. 

for my God hears me. 

alive underwater

it's a funny thing, this concept of drowning.

to be entirely underwater is a fearful thing on its own. to have the water close over your head and to sink down so low that the sun is a glimmer above your head, and the waves playing the oddest of games with your head.

and then you come up again, dripping and gasping for breath. and then you laugh and do it over again. and it feels like drowning, when your lungs are screaming for air and your eyes are fogged with water and far-away sunbeams and something else...something mysterious that i'm not sure i ever want to figure out entirely.

and it's a fear thing, to let go of the dock and sink when every corner of your mind is screaming

don't let go. 

don't you dare. 

and so we haul ourselves out of the water for dry land instead, preferring the solid turf beneath our feet to the ever-changing waves that could take us down and out of control for even just one second too long. 

and so isn't it funny that He stands on the edge of the pier, holding our hands in His, eyes fixed deep into ours and speaks a message that seems so foreign to our hearts. 

trust Me.

let go. 

you don't dare not to...

and the way to Aslan's Country lies over a river. and it lies below the surface of the darkest of pools with no bottom to speak of...

and it takes so much bravery to just dive right in. and to get there, you have to let the waves sweep over you and 

and He whispers

die with Me. 

die to live. die to self, arise in Me. 

and then we arise from the bottom of the sea, dripping wet and pouring glory from head to toe, hand in nail-scarred hand. the dove wings brush against my cheek, and the Voice from Heaven speaks a roar in my soul.

this is My beloved Son. 

in Him, I am well pleased. 

and He's holding my hand. 

life breath :: water living

{via pinterest}

today, a dear friend posted of love like water. and i wasn't planning on writing today, simply breathing the light and the breeze into these lungs and resting in silence. but i was gripped tight by words from an unmet friend.

we are all soul-creatures, made to be seen, 

created to be tenderly cradled and adored, 

yet we tremble at the thought of it.

this has become my life. this thing of trembling at love and in awe of tenderness. it's a gift to be a bearer, to the world as well as to this child i carry. 

and so i curl on this couch with breeze ruffling my hair and my eyelashes too, and i inhale tenderness. 

a repeated in out in out in out of life. 

i felt this child move last night for the first time. 

it was nothing more than a single poke to the right side of my navel, and then a pause into silence. and then one more, a tap against my skin, a reminder that this baby is there. a reminder that i am waiting, and i am carrier, and i am life-giver.

and knowing that i am almost halfway there...it's a breath that i can barely handle to take. 

{17 weeks. my own photograph}

but i am living in a place where love washes over, and i'm covered in the tenderness and the trembling. and that's alright, to find the awe in this. 

it's those moments in the dark where we wrap our arms around our knees and kneel within ourselves to the waves of crashing Love that threaten to overwhelm us. it's a tremble, not a cringe. it's a breathing, not a hyperventilation. 

it's a knowing of preciousness that is incomparable. 

it's a breathing, a resting. a perfect trembling.  

 

thin places

spring brings me to the thin places. those places that the Celtic speak of in reverential whispers in the silence of the night when the stars are close enough to be touched and the moon has a face of love.

the place when the line between Heaven and earth is thinner than three feet, and everything seems wispy and sacredness seems to overwhelm.

these are the shoeless places, holy ground, where sandals fall from calloused feet and the grass slips between toes. that's a prayer, right there.

i feel like these places come out with the spring breezes and impending April showers. they bring me closer to the ground, all laid out with palms flat to the earth.

{via pinterest}

but it makes me feel fragile. as things get thinner, i feel that i get thinner too, easier to break. and that's a frightening reality sometimes, when things feel so close so shatter. but it's worth it when the world gets wispy and my fingers can slip between the veil.

what i need is the dandelion in the spring. the bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. 

the promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. 

that it can be good again.

::  the hunger games :: suzanne collins ::

i'm learning to love these thin places. these little gaps between light and dark, and open and shut. i like this barefoot season of scared and holy. 

it's the glass of ice water, Life Water, beneath the spreading branches from a thousand trees. it's the whisper in the wind that sings of courage and strength and rest. 

it's the thin places. 

dive

{via pinterest}

sometimes people ask me how i intend to keep my warrior's heart alive with a baby on my hip. that it seems glorious now to speak of the sacred and of the Light, but that my time will come when infant cries and sleepless nights will overtake me and that i will flicker out from fancies into realities. 

these are the people that set my determination even deeper to swipe the paint beneath my eyes and grip the temple pillars with white-knuckled fingers. 

since when is the sacred a fancy? and when did motherhood kill the Light? 

have i missed something? 

a wise woman once told me that the weight of her son on her back bore her often to her knees. and isn't this how it should be? where children pull on skirts and guide closer and closer to the Cross, because children are warriors too. 

and i am ten weeks with this one, still silent save for the fluttering heartbeat beneath my skin. 

but this child will not blind my eyes from seeing Light or colour or Heaven's kiss along the earth. i know that it will be hard, and perhaps tears will blur or exhaustion with draw me down to my knees, but i will not be made blind.

:: He promised that i would never be blind again ::

{via pinterest}

i feel like i have toes pressed against the dock with water lapping soft beneath, and the wind whispering brave through my hair. 

maybe this dock is higher than i think, perhaps a ship's yardarm. and there is still this whisking, flowing water beneath my bare feet. 

and i could dive, or i could stay on the edge and wonder always what would have happened if i let go and simply slipped from air to aquatic. 

i think.

no, i know. 

i'm diving. deeper than i've dared before. and i refuse to act as though i am unafraid, because i have shaking fingers. but i've put down roots of brave and i will let the still, small Voice whisper in the night.

courage, dearheart. 

for I have overcome the world.

understanding brave :: being

{via pinterest}

it's the first of three sixty five. 

i woke up this morning and laid in bed, staring at the curtains as they fluttered in the frozen breeze. 

:: and i didn't feel brave ::

i made coffee, the first strong pot of a new year, steaming in my mug with fragrant wisps of steam. 

 :: and i didn't feel brave ::

and i looked out the window at the snow-less ground that could perhaps be confused for spring. 

:: and i didn't feel brave ::  

but brave isn't feeling, is it? because feeling lie and emotions betray and too often hearts don't know what they should, and minds know too much of what they shouldn't.

no, brave isn't feeling.

it's being. 

it's not about awakening and leaping from bed to floor with sword in palm. it's about living, all on its own. about thinking less and meditating more. about inhaling and exhaling and repeating the action a thousand times with barely a thought. 

that's my first portion of brave. 

the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud

was greater than the risk it took to bloom. 

:: anis nin :: 

{via pinterest}

because brave isn't a battlecry, not really.

it's a love song. 

it's those halting, lonesome notes that ring over the night. it's the sweetness of a Lion's song, of a call to come and drink. 

because brave isn't something that comes naturally. it's waking, and knowing. it's living and breathing and standing and clinging to the mast in the storm and knowing that there is an end. 

it's watching the gale blow from the shelter of His arms, and knowing that a Lion's mane is stronger than a thousand storms. 

it's not being unafraid, because fear comes and fingers shake and there's so much unknown in the silence. but He promised a rainbow, and it makes me brave to know that colour comes again and grey is broken like shards of glass that slice the bonds between Life and death. 

it's brave to be His.

submerged

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

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

lead me to the cross by Francesca Battistelli 

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

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

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

do you see now? 

do you see Me better?

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

you must be SUBMERGED into Me. 

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

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

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

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

i want to fully lose myself into Him. 

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

drowning to survive.

death to self to life in Him.

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

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

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

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

You were as i, tempted and tried. 

human. 

the Word became flesh, bore my sin and death

now You're risen!

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

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

He broke the ground for me to follow.

this is my inheritance.

Crash

And then, when the Empress ran aground / And my eyes turned blue and green / I heard a gorgeous sound / And that's when it became a dream / When the sky fell in / When the hurricanes came for me / I could finally crash again / And that's how I became the sea ~Owl City, How I Became the Sea

I am a mermaid.

An ocean obsessive.

Ever since I was a tiny girl, vacations at my grandparents' home in Florida spelled one thing for me: a visit to the salty seas that never seemed to end...a variable fairytale for a land-locked Midwestern farm girl who had only Lake Michigan as her large water experience.

The sand between my toes....sand castles to be woven from bits of broken shell and rock..the elusive conch shell to be found and taken home for a salty day reminder.

And there were the waves. The beautiful, powerfully frightening force of nature...the swelling water that rose

and rose

and rose

until it came down with a thunderous crash upon the land, dragging everything back into the depths with each pass of its aquatic fingers.

As this girl grew up, the ocean changed.

No more was it a place to play and race along the shore...now it was a place to dream. To stand on the edge of the shell-scattered sand and letting the sea breeze rustle my hair...it was a place where the voice of my God could echo with the waves.

It was the place to let the mercy crash...

...it was the place to drown.

And even now, as I find myself landlocked once again with my next oceanside visit two months yet to come, my mind drifts seawards.

Rock bottom is the perfect place from which to rise.

The waves are still crashing hard on me....dragging me back into the ocean until I feel as though I might let go and drown without a trace...

...but then I catch His swell.

I do not drown. I crash to the shore...and rise

and rise

and rise

The crystal wave holds me...

...safe in His hand.

"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched, Nor will the flame burn you. “For I am the LORD your God, The Holy One of Israel, your Savior..." ~Isaiah 43:2-3

(Guest posting over at Love August today. You can find me here.) 

Overflow

Yet I will exult in the LORD, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. The Lord GOD is my strength. He has made my feet like hinds’ feet, and makes me walk on my high places. ~Habakkuk 3:18-19


At this moment, I am overwhelmed.


So many things have come at me at once...and I am simply lost in the glory and incredible love of my Savior.


The response to my giveaway within in the first eight hours of its posting caught me entirely off-guard. The way my family, friends, and followers have showered me with love and support is beyond anything I could have ever anticipated...


...and I cannot wait to see what the next month has in store.


My sister, who is currently overseas in Germany for the next three months, has made a true effort to stay connected with me...even though we have both been struggling in recent days with our relationship.


People in my life who have covered me in prayer...loved me and wanted me, despite my endless list of weaknesses and insecurities, and made an effort to keep me in their lives...their love is remarkable.


The reality of all of these incredible occurrences is enough to draw me to my knees and bring tears of joy pouring down my face.


This is more than I deserve.


I cannot even fathom it fully.


I am undone.


This entire process, however, has put something powerful in the forefront of my mind.


I no longer want to be happy.


Being happy comes and goes...emotions fade in and out like flower petals in a gale.


I want joy.


I want lasting peace and enduring love that stays at my side, regardless of what pain I endure....regardless of what is said to me, or thought of me...casting aside the happiness that only the world can bring.


I want to rejoice.


In light and in dark...in life and in death...in love and in heartbreak...


...I want to overflow in peace.


In joy.


In Him.


He has made me strong. He has FLOODED me with Himself in ways that my human mind flounders to understand.


And that is where I want to stay.


Overcome by joy.


The very nature of Joy makes nonsense of our common distinction between having and wanting. ~C.S. Lewis