today you are seen {for International Woman's Day}

Dear woman,

You are seen.

Today is a day, one of three hundred sixty-five, that has been ordained for you. I find that funny, strange even, that we have to pick one day to acknowledge women around the world. Because without women, without you, without me, there wouldn't be a world.

{via Unsplash}

So dear woman, today, on this one day. This day of womanhood. I want you to know that you are exactly the right kind of woman.

You are strong even when you taste dirt on your tongue from your face pressed against the ground one more time, yes, one more time because standing became too much.

You are valiant even when the world has decided that you don't fit the Joan of Arc model because of this or that or the other thing. Warrior isn't defined by the sword you lift but the way you wield what is placed in your hand.

You are royal even when your throne room is the inner most parts of the bathroom, tucked behind frosted glass while you hum and moan and groan contractions of physical birth and soul-rushes alike.

You are woman. Wild fighter weeping on the battlefield, blood-soaked between your legs as you pour out life month after month after month. Your body is a warzone, the kind that leaves you gasping and reeling and realizing that fertile ground is so often watered by tears and blood, ploughed by fingers gouging rich soil.

Boardroom to kitchen to backyard garden to podium. You are Malala and Mary Magdalene and Jael and Lady Liberty. You are lioness, re-born and re-birthed and re-breathed with breath that only comes from one place. Because words echo across time: little girl, Arise. And rise she did, little girl dead to woman alive, with her fingers against the palm that would one day pit deep with marks made for the love of her.

For women.

Because He loved women. When He rose, Hell left bleeding in His wake, it was woman that saw Him first. It was woman who understood the moment He said her name. Because she was worth those four letters on His tongue. First she was woman, then she was Mary.

So woman, today, you are seen. Be you standing strong with hammer and nail for nation-saving or crouching low beside a desert scrub, you are seen.

the blessing of more

{via pinterest}

"can you show me the sign?"

my own words hit me in the face as I asked my toddler daughter to recreate the ASL word for "more," tapping her tiny fingertips against one another. she was asking for another cracker, another drink of water. we've been teaching her these simple little signs since she was barely old enough to hold up her head on her own. and now here, as we approach the second year of her life in a matter of weeks, she still knows every gesture.

please. thank you. milk. more. 

that last one still takes my breath away.
let me tell you why.

::

I remember seeing her, sitting casually on a too-tall barstool, her tattoos clearly visible, her blonde hair fresh with pink and purple streaks. she looked like a vision of everything I wanted to be. there was about fifteen of us gathered around her, listening to her speak over us.

her words caught me off-guard.

I want you all to see me as more than just the founder, more than your coach, more than a published author. I want you to see me as more than just that. see me as me, okay? 

the concept was so foreign. it didn't feel right. surely she misspoke. because how could any of us do that? she was all these amazing things, this powerhouse badass of a woman who had come up gasping from grief + destruction + hardship. she was a phoenix. how could I see her as "just her"? that was a disservice to her greatness.

wasn't it?

and this thing of her -- just her -- being more. I didn't understand it.

except then I sat down on the couch with her and looked into her eyes.

// how are you? 
// how are you? 
// how are you?

and then it started to click.

::

"can you show me the sign?"

that simple little phrase knocked me back. as I watched my daughter's baby fingers form that word in the chaos of my lunchtime kitchen, I found myself breathing a blessing over her.

you are more, Daughter of Eve. 

you are allowed to ask for more

and that more is you. 

you are Lion-breathed, filled with wild Holy breath from the lungs of the Most High

what more does anyone need but 

just simply you? 

dwell in your muchness, your more-ness. 

oh my daughter, accept the blessing of more. 

moon-howler // be still

{via pinterest}

daughter

be of great courage

for your faith has made you whole.

i forget He said that.

it's funny, the more i pour through familiar words, the more i'm okay with passing them by. maybe because they whisper a little too close for comfort, maybe i'm afraid of what they say. 

am i afraid of being made whole? 

am i too comfortable with brokenness? 

because being healed takes more work than maybe i want to invest. maybe this thing of building wings while falling is too scary...too many of the "what if's" clouding my eyes like midnight fog on the windshield making it hard to see through the night.

after all

i might drop the feathers

howling at the moon is a brave thing, but what if my voice cracks? what if i'm less of a Lioness and more of a kitten on a rain-soaked back porch? the scars make a pretty picture, but they tell a story too, and what if i don't like the words they speak? 

:: because if i start, then i have to finish. 

{via pinterest}

oh

He will fight for you

you need only be still

so sometimes you have to leave your shoes somewhere in the blackberry patch and just run out in the soft dew-damp grass. because you have wings hidden in your hair and stars in your eyes, and the Son who made the moon wants to dance with you because you're His lady-love. 

and He'll hold your hand while you howl at the moon, brave-hearted beloved, fingers curled against His pierced palm while He sings His song in your ear. 

the world might whisper 

do you know Him? really?

and i sing

He knows 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} 

:: brave looks good on you

{via pinterest}

i've been compelled by bravery in recent days.

i think it's because i'm learning more about my Jesus, more about this journey that He and i are taking. and i'm embracing the fear that might come, because it makes me lean against His chest more and whisper,

hold me, Daddy. 

i got a new tattoo on my leg this past week, the kind that hurts a lot more than you thought it would. but i closed my eyes and embraced the ache because it was a beautiful picture for me, spending my Good Friday with the low throb on my skin.

because He marked His skin for me, in a holy different way. and then He broke the bonds and rose up, up, the phoenix from the ashes of death with a resurrected Lion's roar.

I am the Resurrection.

I am the Life.

I AM. 

and so i have a phoenix of my own now. it's my reminder to be brave, to sing in the flames while holding the hand of the One, the Son of God. 

{photo by DramaticElegance}

it's standing on the Rock that is mightier than i, reaching out for the hem of the robe of the Broken Lamb. 

i won't lie, i'm more like Peter than i'd like to admit. the fearful one, shaking by the fire with trembling lips and eyes downcast to the ashes gathered by my toes. 

and i have to reach up and touch the marks of Love that track down His back, the holes through His hands, the ones that speak of the most incredible self-sacrificing Love. 

now i reach down to the mark on my leg, the red and black, the flames and the petals. and i smile to myself and whisper

:: be adventurous more often

brave looks good on you, dearheart.  

little girl loved // two weeks

{taken the day of her birth, bare minutes old}

my daughter is two weeks old today.

and i've been resisting the urge to blog endlessly about her for fear of turning into one of those moms who can't exist outside their children.

but she's so new, and so precious, and i can't help but fall in love with her all over again every single time i look into her tiny face and see those blue eyes staring back at me and see that tiny mouth curl up into a pouting smile that illumines me.

the first days of her life are a mental blur for me, a blur of morphine and hospital blue and white stripped blankets. and now they are a different sort of blur, an exhausted new mommy blur of sleeping sometimes but not all the time.

clocks have stopped having a meaning for me. 3am and 12 noon and 4:15pm have all become times to curl my body around my newborn child and feed her from my own body and inhale her sweet indescribable infant aroma.

and though she be but little

she is fierce 

:: william shakespeare ::

{two weeks old in Daddy's arms, already so much different}

there is a strange fierceness about this tiny creature that came from my body. the way she demands attention with the loudness of her wails, the wildness of her intense blue eyes. 

there is no secret that she will be a warioress, 

// and she already is, in a way. 

at two weeks old, she is already little girl loved, small fairy-child treasured. and now she sleeps on my husband's chest curled in a soft pink daisy-patterned blanket with her rosebud mouth partially open and an arm tucked beneath her head. 

and i'm overwhelmed with the fierceness of this small one, of Aslan's newest and smallest daughter, currently a cub but a strong lioness in the making. 

i'm mad with love, with a fire i did not know i could ever possess. 

i'm mother, more than i ever was before. 

and i am two weeks mother to a lioness. 

Narnian almost-newborn

{via pinterest}

i am Reepicheep.
a mouse who must be held back from attempting combat with a dragon.

i'm marveling at the grace and joy that this life brings, to inhale and exhale courage that never seems to let up these days.

there is a kind of happiness and wonder 

that makes you serious. 

it is too good to waste on jokes. 

:: the last battle  // c.s. lewis

and that is where i am right now, right on the cusp of so many things, so much change. and i am breathless with excitement.

i understand that Narnian wonder again...i think i had forgotten what this feels like. it used to be my passion, to leap into the pools and come up to the tune of Lion's breath and steel growing alive from the ground.

because that's what this time is for me, a transition from summer to autumn, the time when the earth comes so alive and grace overflows so that the earth brings life from nothing.

{via pinterest}

it's hot cinnamon apple cider and burning leaves coupled with soft pink sheets and hand-crocheted booties in purple and mauve.

it's mustard yellow sweaters and chunky knit scarves with fresh-printed books by candlelight...Goodnight Moon and I'll Love You Forever take up the shelves where Austen and Bronte used to reside.

this is where it starts. this is the begin.
she is four days late, but i know she will arrive.

and then we will tip over the wave and catch our first glimpse of Aslan's county in her newborn eyes.

and i will teach her to being a roaring lamb
a dragon-fighting mouse.

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. 

sacred rest

i don't rest well.

it's something that truly bothers those who care about me most. i am more than willing to push myself into a wall and just keep going until my face is pressed into the brick and my body is broken from the futility and sheer physical exhaustion. 

i don't comprehend this idea of rest. but oddly enough, it's something i crave. it's also something i fear.

fear has a quiet voice, a grown up kind. and she has something to say, all whispery with promises and barely there:  

::

honey, can you hold on? 
because if you sit with me a while, i will teach you something sacred. 

{the secret life of fear}

i think i fear that the world will stop turning if i don't keep pushing it around and around and around the sun, and then everything will collapse, and it will be my fault. 

and fear and i have not had a chance to sit and talk, because i've been too busy racing in circles. and i haven't been able to hear the sacred whispers. 

and then God decided that i had done enough, that my flailing needed to come to an end. and so He gave me this child, this little one inside my body who drains my energy and leaves me exhausted even after just rising from a nap. 

will you listen to Me now? 

and now i have no choice but to listen. the steaming mug of tea in my hand that sends up those fragrant waves, this is my brand of incense. the tapping of the little feet against my skin from the inside out, these are my meditation drums. 

 and so we converse, God and fear and i. 


about my fears of resting, that my world will stop turning if i sit. about my fears of mothering, that maybe i will break more than i will fix, and that i am not "cut out" for this. 

and fear voices her concerns, and the bigger Voice quiets them before the last breath leaves her mouth. 


it's a cycle, back and forth. and i am content to listen. to be still and know. 

to sip my tea and to soak in the drums that will be of a different style in a few months. i know i will miss them in a way. 

and i will weave feathers into my hair, and i will fearlessly rest. 

kaleidoscope

{via pinterest}

all the colors

of the rainbow

hidden 'neath my skin

::

hearts have colors

don't we all know?

red runs through our veins

::

feel the fire burning up

inspire me with blood

of blue and green

::

i have hope

inside is not a heart

but a kaleidoscope
::
{kaleidoscope heart // sara barielles}

this song has been the soundtrack to my soul since the moment it first passed from my Pandora station into my ears. 

it stuck with me, as things have been doing lately. is it the hormones? is this my soul's version of nesting, perhaps? is my spiritual self starting to line the nest with the softest and most beautiful of things to prepare for what is to come in a mere 13 weeks, if even that long? 

it's certainly become a kaleidoscope pathway for me, as though the granite blocks have suddenly been fitted with some sort of intricate scroll-work that i never noticed before, and all i want to do is stop and study every detail. 

this summer is captivating me. it just started, four days into June and i'm feeling like exploding into peony petals and white picket fences. i want to spend every single day possible barefoot in the grass and dancing down the creek despite my ever-growing belly.

and so i removed the design that i've had for almost a year now, and i made it new. i tweaked and changed and made it fit the changing me. the sacred feminine inside me that i've squished for so long, but am now allowed to peak out of the crevices.

it's become a kaleidoscope of His story, of His breath mixed with the light to swirl and create something ever beautiful and ever changing.

it's sacredness, and it's mine to inhale.

:: deep breath in ::

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. 

dark light

live in the light

{via pinterest}

stand in the sun

never look back.

these words have been whispered to me by a thousand voices in a thousand languages for the course of my entire life. and i think if you were raised in the church, you heard it, too. 

there is a place in this world where dark reigns supreme for six months of the year. the earth is tipped and the light cannot reach it there, not for all those weeks of night. and the people there wrap in furs and tangle fingers together and wait...

because they know that there is an end to the darkness. and then comes the six months of light, and the darkness fades into a place of echoing radiance that spills from fingertips and spiraled ends of hair.

but they feel the light because they knew the dark. they cannot appreciate one without the other's balance. 

it's the same with us, the same with the life we live and the breath we inhale every single day a thousand times without even realizing. and the voices that whisper never look back are wrong to wish you blind to the past and wide-eyed to forever. 

both are needed. we have a moon to cool the sun, and a sun to warm the moon. we must have both for tides and seasons and growth.

what matters is how you breathe in the night. do you stare at the midnight and scream light is dead, and never will come back again?

or do you look at the stars and say there is light here. 

for you were once dead in your sin

but God, rich in mercy, made us alive.

:: ephesians 2:1, 4 ::

i refuse to stop loving for fear of the night. i will dance below the stars instead, fingers spread toward the moon and inhaling beam after beam of silver light. 

for i was once dead,

but God...

love thyself

{via pinterest}

there's a lot of things we're forbidden to do in this life.

as Christians.
as women.
as breathers.

and it's confusing sometimes. the world whispers love thyself to the broken ones, and then the woman who just learned to love herself is covered in whispers and pointed fingers and lowered glances.

then it's broken all over again and the slices are deeper the second time around.

it is too far a step to say that my Jesus weeps when broken ones break again, especially in His house? He's the one that said come to Me, heavyladen ones. for My burden is light...


this makes me want to stomp the ground until my bruised feet bleed and sob for the unborn one dancing against my skin at night. because in barely a breath's time, i will pass a life through fire and water and blood into this world, and this small life will inhale a world that already is out to destroy.

and my little one will grow into this place of love to hate and love again turned to shredded paper scraps of hate that used to spell a love letter from Heaven to parched ground Earth.

and what they will teach my daughter is clucking tongues and judgemental glares if she doesn't quite fit the mold that my Jesus has already stomped into shards of blood-covered glass the day He spread two arms wide and wailed it is finished.

{via pinterest}

and my son will learn from the school of bloodshot eyes and tear-stained cheeks that gentlemen are dead and gone, and men are fighters and not lovers and silently seated when they should be standing on the chairs and beating the pulse of love and respect.

this breaks me down into a pool for my unborn one, for his wife or her husband, and for the ones that came before and the ones that come after.

i want my child to have the words of precious Sarah as their heartbeat rhythm, that i will one day no longer teach but they will live.

we are thumping along with you, out here in the world [soon], reminding you that you are fearfully and wonderfully made. 

and you have a voice and a reason for being. you have a future and a hope. 

know who you are, small [one], and when you forget, we'll remind you.

:: in which i write a letter... // sarah styles bessey :: 

and so i will find my place on my knees tonight, with the music playing in the background and the candles flickering around the darkened midnight room. heartbeat thudding love yourself, little one. 

because i love you. 

and He does too. 

shekhinah motherhood

{via pinterest}

i have a new adventure.

i have started a mommy blog. i still cannot believe it myself. it's a new corner of the world for me, a place where i can write about my thoughts solely regarding pregnancy and this coming child.

and i want you all to share in this. i will most certainly still be writing here, hopefully more often as my body levels out and my mind clears itself. the Lion and i are drawing closer, and things are settling into peace now.

strivings do cease in His shadow. 

shekhina hmotherhood is my new corner.here i am practicing the presence of God as i walk down this path of pregnancy, motherhood, and eventually, cradling this child in my arms.

this firstborn of mine, this gift from God to be given back to God. these are the ponderings of my heart, this Mary-like attitude that overwhelms me as i discern what to share and what to treasure.

and so i am writing in two places now, and perhaps this may seem insane or too much. but we will see how things go, as weeks shorten and days become brighter. this child is coming soon, and i want to know and understand my mind in days to come when i look back and remember.

find me here, as always. but find me there now, too.

clinging power

{via pinterest}

i feel like i've been on a train for a thousand years, and i'm watching the trees blur outside the window. and i got so caught up in the blur that i have missed my stop.

that is what these weeks have felt like to me. because i have been in this whirlwind where i feel gripped by the shoulders and the hair and tugged back and forth until night turns to day and day to night, and everything feels backwards.

but the Voice of the Lord was not in this storm.

He was in the still, and i lost Him for a minute. or rather, i shut Him out of my tornado. because i didn't want Him to see how badly my world was tossing, and i didn't want Him to be ashamed of me.

but oh, how blind i am. because He sees me, this God-Who-Sees. i have felt like Sarah, rejoicing for this child, and i have felt like Hagar in the wilderness, gripping to a bush for some sense of stability.

but He sees me. all of me, regardless of my rejoicing or my gripping.

and isn't this glory? 

because i feel like i'm finding my footing again. where the waves meet the ocean and tug back the vile and leave the sand clean, i feel like i'm lying here with the Water rushing over me and drawing back the impure.

{via pinterest}

and i'm a lamb leaping in the Lion's shadow. no longer afraid, but living in Truth.

this is not a post to tell you that things have been bad, because they haven't been bad. they've been strange and foreign. this hasn't been a time of despair or excessive fear, just adjusting.

and so my clinging has come when i find myself inadequite, and seek my solace in the One who cups my face in His Hands and whispers

I have made you promises. now stand still, and see what I will do. 


so i've turned my eyes from the blur to the slow, and that is hard when things seem to be moving so fast and distractions abound.

but He sees. and i am standing still, hands raised and warrior cries flooding to Heaven.

and i'm slowly returning, not in this feeble power, but solely in the power of His might.

the Lord God is with me

the Mighty Warrior that saves. 

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.

breathing mama :: practicing peace

{via pinterest}

i'm loving this freedom i'm feeling.

this freedom to just be and not do, to focus on my overwhelmed heart and not dwell on the placement of the words on the page. it's truly freeing to be like this.

i understand why Mary kept each thing close and pondered them deep within her heart. there's so much that floods my mind every single day, and i feel so close to exploding.

:: and i am practicing peace :: 

i'm not a mother, yet...am i? is it alright to have practices of parenting for something the size of a green olive that only makes its presence known in lack of sleep and overpowering nausea?

but i do. and i'm practicing peace.

because i want this child to know what i have learned, and i ache that it might not take so long. and i fear i might forget when this silence is replaced by screams and this beauty is replaced by sleepless nights and the desperation for just a moment of rest in the chaos.

but i want to wrap my arms around this child as i wrap my arms around my stomach now and whisper

peace I bring you

{via pinterest}

not as the world gives. 

because i'm birthing into chaos and madness, a world that wants to pull my little one under with every lust and doubt and fear and loss.

this wants to turn my beautiful daughter into a stick figure, never thin enough but slowly dying inside and out. it wants to turn my strong warrior son's eyes into mirrors for disrespecting the women he is born to protect.

and that is almost enough to turn me to fear and tremble, and not the kind i should possess.

but i am striving, i am aching, i am seeking peace. my first practice of parenthood, even while my child is so small and knows nothing but love within.

in a world of dark, i want to whisper Light into this yet-forming ears. i want to sing the lilting notes of Lion's song into the silence.

in His presence, there is peace. and i am kneeling here with hands pressed to belly and eyes wide to bloodstained cross.

and i'm practicing peace.

am i overstepping by being this passionate already? 

prayer circles :: rising

:: i am drawing circles in the earth.
i am marching around my Jericho.

because i believe in once, in twice, in seven times and a ram's horn blast.

i believe in the power of prayer. not magic or myth, but so much truth.

prayer, as strong as it once was when prophets raised hands to the skies and cried, and fire fell from Heaven and rain flooded from barren skies.

when warriors drop spears and march instead in circles around and around the massive walls, and a stomp and a trumpet and a shout collapses the wall, save for the place where the former prostitute knelt with her dear ones and believed that she and they alone would be spared.

it's not asking for the solution to the maze. it's holding out the hand and whispering

i'm lost and confused.

guide me?

it's the stand at the cliff's edge and crying to the skies with more joy than one soul can contain. and all i can do anymore is sing, not a dirge but a dancing rhythm. 

i rose, the dungeon filled with light.

my chains fell off, my heart was free

i rose, went forth, and followed Thee. 

and i'm kneeling in the center of this circle, hands raised to Heaven to receive the coming rain. the ground is dry, but i have marched, and now i wait. 

amazing love

how can it be

that Thou, my God, should die

for me. 

oh, glory is my song. and barefoot, this circle is my home. 

enigma

{via pinterest}

i serve a conundrum. i worship an enigma.

a roaring Lion, King of Judah. a Lamb slain, silent before His murderers.

Living Water that burns like fire. 

a Man dead turned God alive. 

and i am in awe. because i'm unworthy, and still loved.

is it strange that barefoot equals a gesture of sacred? that exposing the dirty, broken toes that pound the earth step after step and still, that's what He wants as my act of humility?

the King of Glory wants my lowest. and all i have is enough for Him.

i want to bite into life and be torn by it

:: anais nin ::

and i do.

because He stood on cliff's edge with the Devil at His back, whispering the sweetest lies into the ear of the Son of God. and the Word was flung back, this double-edged sword which finally drove the serpent to its belly again.

oh, lead me to the cross
where Your love poured out.

this enigma i worship, the awe shudders in my soul like an ocean wave.  this Son of Heaven turned all Man but still all Deity.

:: the One who knows all is jealous for me ::

because my God is not simple, but He sees me simply. forgiven, covered, no shame here. this is the most complicated simplicity. sinner turned saint, demeaner turned daughter.

oh, the glory.

be alive :: battlecry

{via pinterest}

do you want to live?

i hear this question every day. not as a cry of despair or a wail of longing, but as a battlecry.

do you want to live?

my heart beats this word. LIVE. LIVE. LIVE. who knew the very act of breathing could be more than just breathing? because there's more to this thing of living than just inhale-exhale-repeat times a thousand. oh, no.

living is so much more than being alive. did you know that today, as you press through crowds or stand in kitchen solitude?

do you have little ones clinging to your leg chanting their own reprise of mommymommymommy? or is there a thousand other voices clamouring for your attention, and you aren't sure which one to answer first?

because you're alive. your heart is beating and your blood is flowing. but are you living? really?

this is a battlecry, i promise you.

do you want to live?

because i think you should crave to LIVE. oh sister, grasp life by the mane and roar your existence to the Heavens. we are Lion children, Heaven's heirs. and we're living like miners in the goldrush, fingers pawing through the muck for maybe a nugget of truth, or maybe a nugget of lies.

have we forgotten how to live in Light? as daughters and sons, adopted to glory?

stop where you are. 

stop right now.

and look. rip off those sunglasses as those who are blind and feeling their way from brick wall to muddy bog. because there is a path to take, dearhearts. and it's lying down before you, crying out

i'm here! see me?

sometimes it's a charge. other times it's tentative steps, learning to walk all over again. so won't you leap? and won't you live?

cry out, warrior. be brave. and live.