heavy

it's been a week, my ring resting on the window sill above the sink. days have been spent washing dishes and laundry, and the ring was put aside for safekeeping and skin protecting. i slipped it back on and bought paper plates this week--my desire for sparkling reminder outweighed my Eco-conciousness.
we hold hands this week often, weighed by heavy thoughts, and talk about jobs and mothers and prayer and fear.
our newly wed love simmered like indian food i taught him to like, piquant and saucy. or like too-long shopping trips just because we could, and spent too much money on too little food. or like our long, meandering drives with nowhere to go and tank full of gas, counting the miles in conversations.
today's love looks like night-times not entangled in sheets but a pint-size baby overtaking a king-size bed and a trip to the grocery becomes my day away, and a cart is loaded while a purse is diminished, but we still drive to talk, fingers grazing over gear shifter and penny trays, little boy conversations trickling over our shoulders.

this has been a long week with heart-wrecking conversations and monumental decisions. i would appreciate any prayers if you think of us.

Shattered

there is a place where the sacred is unsafe
the holy burns,
and unsinged we dare to ask if we are secure

we think we purify ourselves
by removing our shoes
never thinking we stand a world apart
paperthin
between this world and the next
where our clay-frail bodies one day will shatter
like the stars

the dead sloughed off
shines nova-bright, now--

how unsafe it is to be burned down
only to be consumed again by holy fire

we shatter

How roses encore

i don't know if it's because of the breed (is that the right word?)or because of zone 7/8, but my long-neglected rosebush is blooming again, the brilliant fuchsia oxymoron to the first of november. i'm sure the last petals will fall with the first frost, yet i, too, thought august had drained the final blossoms of my tired bush.
i guess it still burns.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

when we met, he told me he'd been wandering the desert for a while, doing anything to shake the lushness of the gospel, choosing to sunburn under atheism, agnosticism, pragmatism, humanism, and logic's prickly harshness. but even then, when vultures watched with hawking cries, he couldn't run away from the Whisperer, the gospel written deeply in his heart even as he ran from familiar doorposts.
i guess it still burned.

~~~~~~~~~~~

do you know how mysteries unravel and solve themselves about 20 pages til the end and you finally see the pattern, begin to know whodunnit? this, an analogy that breaks down in the face of true mystery, the One with mysterious ways, whose thoughts are not our thoughts. Shea's memory verse (chosen oh-so-"randomly" for him; i thought it would be a good lesson for him when really it was a lesson for us): and we know he has worked all things for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose (romans 8:28).

i watched his faith unravel for a season. held my fear so closely i couldn't even share it here. i was too afraid that giving voice would give fervent reality (as if i could create with my voice!!!). then, a warming, a spark, and i was afraid to breathe, afraid to blow it out (as if i could puff out the breath that breathed us out!!!). and then life shattered a bit, and all those worries seemed realized: the bitterness, the fist clenched towards God, the too-easy fall into frustration and despair. i was blessed with eyes to see, but no way to help his vision.

today his knuckles are loosened. his eyes have adjusted (from the mirror, darkly), and he senses the Bigger-than-he-is quotient. i breathe out murmured praise and choose to believe out loud this time, and hold fast. my lover has been woo'd again to the Beloved, and while there will certainly be ravines in the mud, i'm so happy to pray with my husband again, to hear his heart.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

it doesn't seem so odd anymore, the blazing pink in the chilly air.
He burns.

(hard)

hard.
i can't even begin to express here the storm of uncertainty in my heart. but i need to get it out somehow.
how do you share words that hurt, even when your aim is to protect? how do you write real when you can't forget last night's dreams (the bad kind)? how do you mama-give when you curl fetal?
hard.
i know i can't make sense to you. (ambiguous you) i wish you knew i loved you and hurt for you, but i hurt for me, too.
how can there be seasons of certainty and others of mere fragility? days when i'm strong for me and others where i ache for you?
silence lingers these days, and i know neither of us knows what to say. i'm sorry. i'm praying for us. even if you don't know it.



311. breathing out this prayer for all of us involved: when you can't trace His hand, trust His heart.
312. for broken hearts so he can heal
313. for bravery where he allows
314. for the wind that whispers his name and the rocks that cry out, and the faith it takes to believe
315. for grace, daily
316. for the little things that help deflect these cloudy thoughts:
317. such as this gorgeous fall-like weather
318. and owen now 4 months already
319. and homeschooling freedoms to play-learn
320. and little boy haircuts
321. and husband's strongest arms to rock wee babe and tender-wrap me
323. for chocolate chip cookies
324. and coffee shared with friends
325. "for God so loved the world"

linking with the gratitude community as a discipline to share humble thanks even in a hard season right now. thank you for sharing without sharing some of my heart's cries today.

The richness of belonging

he scared my 3rd grade self, and he pointed right at me, black fingers waving me over. he said nothing, just started walking, and my heart began thumping out of my ears. i racked brain to see what i'd done; we were standing outside the cafeteria waiting on ms. heitz to take us back to our classroom. "what did i do?" i repeated several times on the verge of tears when i realized we were headed to The Principal's Office, his domain. he must have seen the near-panic in my eyes, and finally knelt down, "you didn't do anything. you were the quietest one in line, and i needed a helper i could trust."
i still don't remember what the task was, but can remember the fear of his huge authority calling me out of line like it was yesterday.

where does this kind of fear come from?

why am i still afraid?
of the police (ok, ok, my tags are expired)
of the cool moms on the playground with hair coiffed and sons in plaid

of God?

i received a summons 3 months ago for an appearance in court, a suit for a debt i knew nothing about.
i felt all the same fear standing so exposed beneath the judge's gaze. husband said i did well, but heart thudded all the same.

i always see myself as rule's exceptions: that God loves others but not me, my sins are the ones unpardonable, that i'm the one grace won't quite cover.

i pray one day i feel the weight of grace from the judge who loves, who has not only summoned, but redeemed. i pray i live today, not in fear, but in the richness of belonging.

Sabbath calling

i just wanted today to look differently than yesterday, i said as we argued through those leaps and bounds from the original 'complaint.' i wanted lunch to be with four hands, owen held and diapers changed and to feel teamwork once again. tears trickle out their frustration, and i secretly beg him to understand. can a saturday feel like a break for a mama at home all week? she whose job sleeps in her arms at night, suckling through the waning darkness, whose little bosses require multi-tasking and imagination all at the same time? and i know he knows, for he works Out There and comes home to wife all rumpled, cross-legged on couch in pj's, and he swoops in to hold babies and be jungle gym and freely offers bottle and ordered pizza. but our saturdays have rolled in like mondays, just a day older for baby and another one with split shifts and 4 boys all-at-once.

we hug tightly, kiss deeply, our fears and frustrations all mixing with oxygen and apologies, and somehow we know to just keep trying, know that things will even out, and we're going to be okay.

later, scrubbing dishes, white bubbles serving tenure to swish, swish, rinse, i hear His voice: will tomorrow look differently than today?
all my sundays have looked like mondays and wednesdays, and how would anyone ever know there was a sabbath if only watching me? i have not worshipped in a house, have not put down my work to rest, have hardly let prayers leave my lips nor raised hands in silent desperation. oh, i'm saved, a wrecked soul redeemed, but how could sabbath be different for this child?

i still didn't go to church today. there are a million excuses, always. and yes, i know my work of love and home-tending do much to honor Him, yet, i have been alone for a long time. i am reminded of the need for sisters and brothers with fellowship-skin, touch that heals and gives, space to worship out loud and to hear truth. this is a hard season of all kinds of limbos, the will-he-need-to-nurse, the war of anxious child in nursery, the task of getting out-of-doors in one piece let alone with matching socks.....

dishes are done. day is almost done. owen is bouncing. shea and connor are not-sleeping. avery is dreaming by now. and i... i am praying in repentence for forsaking the body so long and grateful that there will be Sabbath.

Gradual grace

i haven't been to my ladies' bible study group in ages. i miss the connection, the Word, and the fellowship of my sisters. i aimed to go this evening, if for no other selfish reason than to see walls other than my own living room, and so today for the first time in many moons, i picked up both Bible and study guide on Acts. i didn't end up going, but i think He knew what He was doing by kick-starting my cabin fever and nudging me in the direction of this group of women, just so i would pick up his word. He surprises me when it's evident He wants to meet me. what love is this, when i'd just as soon ignore him for seasons at a time?! and there, the words that jumped off the page: sovereign grace is gradual grace and gentle grace....divine grace does not trample...but rather it enables.
john stott is discussing the mercy of saul's damascus road conversion, and yet i see these words as testament in my own journey. from the day freshman year of college i tentatively asked my first bible study leader, "i know i should know the answer, but what IS grace?" to becoming a mom 10 years later, i've seen the gradual work of grace on Self, the kind that leaves me intact but invites His holy hand into my life. gradually and gently indeed.
i wear a sterling band as an outward sign of the inner work of wife-dom: when words are sharp and loosely held, grace reigns. when exhaustion embitters and grumbles, grace swells. when love is stretched 7 years long, sighing for the ease of earlier years, mercy is new every morning.
my belly is stretched and marked and my hair grey showing all my mother-work, and grace renews. there is no wrinkle cream to erase the toll of labor, but there is a wisening that rewards: i no longer have to try to be perfect. i can accept that i mess up (all the time!) and pray for sovereignty to win, and He will.
thanking Him today for His gentle prodding, for His love that is without fail, for His compassion for his children, and for good gifts he willingly bestows. Amazing Grace!

Iron men

super heroes
equipped with webs
and guns,
(yes, even guns)
and strength hard to believe
yes, these men are in our house
and those little boys' brains
and it makes me smile
that he prefers the ones that
are real,
still human,
just more, somehow
not the ones that are
all hero
or even all villain
(is it natural for all
boys to love a good villan?)
and i think how
his daddy heart is
iron will
and sharpens iron willfulness
times three
and well, four, when i let him sharpen me.
we watch these cartoons
and even i catch my own interest
by surprise
and wonder
at the power of hero worship
and how, some crazy how,
oldest started praying more
out loud
and he believes it
and i humble on the whispers,
cry when he prays for this tired mama
that [baby's name] comes soon
and i think
today i will be iron-strong for them, too

~~~
unbelievably i'm still baking this fourth little boy with an iron will to stay inside. i'm in all new territory as i've never gone a day past 38 weeks, and yet here i am past 40 and miserable besides. if i may draw on you to pray: if we make it to my monday OB appointment, i will be induced, and i'm terrified of a repeat c-section. i'm also afraid of a NICU stay for the baby; we will be paying for this birth as we are uninsured, and really, we just need a nice, normal birth if at all possible. could you lift these with us and take our fears to the Father? i'm ready to have him out on the outside, and i'm in denial at how hard it's going to be, that initial stage of newborn!
i am eager, though, to meet him, to be in our next phase, and i can't wait to share him with you. thanks for hanging in there with me, especially as i've been so reticent in this space and yours. i treasure all my friends here.

Towards a spring theology

she played hooky from work yesterday and we talked long and fast, our nature. she wanted to call just to say the bluebonnets are there. i've written of them before, how they helped this lonely soul see Him again. spring always refreshes, and i adore memphis in spring (which is why i missed it so hard!). bradford pears have changed lacy shawl to summer-green and japanese magnolias have dropped their magenta petals. in their wake, the remaining cherries, the dogwoods of easter promises, redbuds, and wisteria so haunting to make me weep. these are gifts i unwrap every errand, every excuse to drive, and i feel that winter thaw again.
~~~
we played hooky from bible study this morning, she needing work done, and i just eager to go over later and play. lunches packed and chocolate delivered, and we talk and love each other with skin on, and i think, "home: friends. true spring. my boys singing walkin' to memphis [sic]."
~~~
i received excellent news yesterday that has assuaged so many fears and relieved some pressure; good medical reports often do. this wee one inside--so heavy and low!--seems protected from the diabetic complications i had with my last pregnancy. i am still on the diabetic side, but so close as to be borderline. unfortunately, my current OB is still pushing for many extra measures, but i feel confident to deny them safely. it is yet another blessing, this prayer being answered so mightily.

i hate that it's so easy to trust and enjoy when the winds are calm instead of storming. spring is both, though, eh? all this new green and pale palette and then the rains that chase the petals from stems. all this creation sprung from the same hand: my sister and i tightly joined in womb to love across all this distance just to share a flower; the beauty that revives me every spring; the visible answer to prayer to mark His hand this day, and even the storm that raged internal last week and that rained out his soccer game on sunday.

Thank You, Lord, for this hands-on love, this spring of rains and the Eternal water of life.
linking with my lovely friend, suzannah, for her ShoutLaughLove. come along?
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Lifted

i couldn't sleep, too afraid i'd oversleep. 5:00 and i rarely get along--mornings are too early, and afternoons are that so-called 'witching hour' otherwise known as "please get out of the kitchen while i'm trying to prepare dinner, and stop fussing while you're at it." :)
but that morning i met 5:00, if not eagerly, then at least expectantly.
i walked to her house, smiling: "we're neighbors" still seems surreal.
she, and i, and the others gathered at 6:00, and our purpose was to pray for our husbands, our children, to lift those we love and their needs. i'd never felt so awake.
caffeine helps you maintain.
friendship sustains.
prayer lifts.
i felt, later, as if those prayers were iridescent tentacles enveloping all those near me, binding them to me. i wished they knew and understood how blessed i was by meeting dawn--no, meeting Him with his pink-streaked creation.