When the world...life...squeezes the sponge of your existence bone dry, you will collapse in any puddle of hope you find, praying to absorb some strength and resource there. Something that whispers "keep going" when you don't feel like it. I find myself searching, late at night, in the books of the minor prophets...in enclaves of music and art on the internet...in little snippets of life captured in photographs...in memories of funny things the children said or a deep thought Aaron shared with me...
...in passing on my heritage, the tree-climbing, bark-caressing, wild plant eating, comfort in the woods part of me that I feel a compelling need to send on like rootstock into the future generations.
...in plucking tree leaves, like waiting tear drops, from the aspens in the clearing. Rubbing with them with crayon and pinning their etched images on the yellow wall of the kitchen. Gluing them in the scrapbooks, like frozen moments of time plucked from the fecund summer of sorrows.
...in marveling at the way light plays in dear faces in afternoon sun at naptime. Clutching and hugging close the strength of community in which I am planted.
...in the gasping, unbridled joy of toddlerhood. The glisten of sun on brunette gloss. The shadow of mouth and eyes, the arms drawn up in anticipation of the tickle of long grass. Remembering, deep within, the sensation when I saw my grandpa as a child.
...the lines that echo heart strains, mother bending to child to water and feed. Dipping to the hungry, wilt-weary shoots that are our children, replenishing them with touch and song at night.
...in abandon, in relationship, in shared bliss of hot summer sun sparkling on water drops descending to white, cool skin.I clutch all this to my soul, and let it satiate, in part, the ache to stay, to be healthy, the bursting longing for freedom and companionship, and normalcy. Let it carry away, on it's river rush of expression of Grace, the fear of wires in hearts and shocks jolting life into continuation. I put aside modesty, and anxiety, and heart-ache, and tremulous shrinking back. Step forward. Pray. Step forward again. Pray. Father, carry us through this, as You have time and time again. Father, speak Grace into the lives of these children. Speak comfort into the souls of my husband and I. Please...
Oh, and thank you, God, for music! For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. ~ Colossians 1:16-17
Oh, and thank you, God, for music! For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. ~ Colossians 1:16-17
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