We shine best when we're dusty

They are as vibrant and varied as a new box of crayons, where the water washes and darkens them. Plain dusty old rocks brought to life by the waves. You can hear them skittering and rolling onto each other, a series of clicks and clacks, as they are tumbled by the ebb and flow of the water. I stop to finger one, wondering if it's an agate. It's hard to pick the really valuable ones out when they are all so pretty.

The key to testing whether it's a treasure or an ordinary rock? Let it dry.

In a sea of pastel dullness, you'll catch the tempered glint of the rough edges of an agate amongst all the basalt and granite. These rocks, which for so long belonged to the water, are polished smooth. The agates, harder than glass, formed in the heart of rocks from molten lava deep in the earth's crust, started life as a hollow place in a rock under fire. When the rock around the agate crumbles, this heart dances through the tumbling water until it is polished to a patina almost indescribable - like glass, but more opaque; like gemstones, but less sparkly; like an oil painting under good light.

So is life. Trials come, dry spells eclipse our strength. And when we are dry, dusty and tired, longing for the splash from some cool sea, you can see the ordinary and the extraordinary among us. Just as the agate slowly filled the heart of the stone, layer by beautiful layer, so the firestorms of our life lay up treasure inside of us that is only revealed when trials crush the outer self and what is at the heart is revealed.

A few of the "diamonds in the rough" whose troubled lives developed their character instead of destroying it:

Albert Einstein was once labeled "mentally handicapped", was kicked out of both primary school and denied entrance to university, was bullied and sneered at for his first 30 years of life.

Vincent van Gogh only sold a single painting in his life, yet starved himself to paint over 800 works now considered masterpieces. (I wonder where he stored them?) He suffered depression, infectious diseases, other mental illnesses, poverty, abuse, and was ridiculed and shunned in public.

Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. He often quantified his failures when asked to speak about his success. "I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot, and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

Author Jack London sent the same story (his first) out over 600 times before it was accepted by a little-known, small circulation publisher. He went on to pen many top-selling novels and short stories and is considered one of American literature's giants.

In a massive research study exploring the childhoods of over 700 famous people throughout history, Victor and Mildred Goertzel discovered that a "hard knock life" may be a recipe for adult success:

Three-quarters of these successful people (525 of the 700) came from deeply troubled childhoods. They had endured extreme poverty, broken homes ... and even parental abuse. Over one-fourth (199 of the 700) had to deal with very serious physical handicaps such as deafness, blindness or crippled limbs. Over 80% of those who became successful writers and playwrights had watched their own parents struggle with intense psychological dramas. (quoted from http://www.boxingscene.com/motivation/10902.php)

Is your life rough right now? Have you ever thought about how trials reveal our true character? What is one character attribute that shines when you are under pressure, and what is one thing you'd like to change about you deal with stress? 

There is a happy ending

{please consider pressing play below prior to reading}

The tree trunks are black as coal from the night rain, threading through the chartreuse of leaf buds. The heaviness of magic is in the air this spring, flowers springing up from the cold earth so recently blanketed in snow. Everything about this May feels weirdly foreign, irredescent with a touch of the unreal.

Perhaps this is what comes of accepting a reality you don't feel at home in. Ever since leaving church 2 years ago, reality has slanted toward pain. Two years have seen a definite decrease in the number of those we can joyfully live life with. Two years have included the most painful period of self-doubt of my life. Two years have brought me to the Throne with questions and contrition and brokenness like never before.

Sometimes, when we struggle with depression, we shy away from the painful parts of life. I don't like to let sad thoughts or memories in. I don't want to acknowledge the suffering that has cropped up here and there in my life story.

But where we would be without psalms? Laments? Dirges?

The music of life falls flat without the melancholy moments. There can be no crescendo to joy, to ecstacy, without the contrast of the deep, dark pits of sorrow. It is one of the things most difficult to understand about heaven: although we long for the day when there are finally no more tears, it is hard to imagine not getting bored in an eternity without the challenges and chaos of life here on earth.

What if? What if we can remember it all? What if we will spend heaven contrasting God's glory with all that is wicked, evil, wrong in this life? It's a new perspective: if our sorrows here on earth are the great interlude of pensif before the last everlasting song of triumph...if this is true, I can suffer longer and harder here on earth knowing a reprieve is coming.

I can stand the separation from my sisters and brothers of churches past. I can live through depression. I can handle the various never-ending tasks of motherhood. I can make the next meal, clean the next dish, with gratitude that passes all understanding because this life is temporary.

It is not the end. It is not even the middle. It is barely the beginning. And it will not last forever.

That darn rollercoaster again

The ocean is full of swells, whitecapped, surf blown off their creamy turquoise crests like whipped cream. Joy descends pell-mell into crushing sorrow. Sorrow billows up and out and beyond and there is joy again, waiting.

The choices seems to be diminishing before me as the doors in a long hall as you walk down it, paths untaken disappearing behind your footsteps. Would He - could He - be the funnel that drives me down to this narrow opening? Has He orchestrated so closely? Or am I falling prey to the mind games of anxiety, the whispers of the enemy hissing hesitation into my soul?

Oh, for rest, for rest. Oh for breath, for breath. My mouth is full of seawater. I need strength to keep swimming.

O Lord, I think I'm falling

To my disbelief

I'm cursing like a sailor and lying like a thief

It's hard to heed the calling from the better side of me

When I'm blaming everybody else and no one's coming clean

O Lord, can you see my thick skin wearing thin

And the demons of a lesser me are beckoning me in

Those who gathered 'round me - I'm watching them all leave

Cause I am my own ragged company

You can take a trip to China or take a boat to Spain

take a blue canoe around the world and never come back again

But traveling don't change a thing, it only makes it worse

Unless the trip you take is in to change your cruel course

'Cause every town's got a mirror and every mirror still shows me

That I am my own ragged company

O Lord it's lonely, Lord it's mighty cold

And I don't want to live this way

Afraid of growing old

It's hard to heed the warning when you cannot see the crime

The only way to remember is to forget in a rhyme

And I'm scared to tread the red road that leads to Galilee

Cause I am my own ragged company

~(I Am My Own) Ragged Company, Grace Potter~

A Word for 2013

less

adverb

1.

to a smaller extent, amount, or degree: less exact.

adjective

4.

smaller in size, amount, degree, etc.; not so large, great, or much: less money; less speed.

5.

lower in consideration, rank, or importance

6.

fewer

I've been whittled down over the years. Less health, less money, less happiness, less hair, less friendship, less community, less flavor and smell to the world. But I find myself on the upswing of the pendulum at the opening of 2013: cancer in remission, hair full and thick, job productive and paying well, new friendships springing up, church community welcoming with open arms. I don't want to grow bigger again. I don't want to expand. Not that I resent all the more God is sending our way - I am so grateful!

Losing hair by the handful in 2011

It is complacency and pride and excess I fear - I smell it on the winds of change, smell it leaking from my pores, smell it in our home and in my children. The warning words of John the Baptist ring loudly in my ears as I sense the return of greed, carelessness, and egotism oozing filthy from my soul:

John answered, “A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven. You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, ‘I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.’ He must increase, but I must decrease.” He who comes from above is above all. He who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks in an earthly way. He who comes from heaven is above all. Whoever receives his testimony sets his seal to this, that God is true. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. (John 3:27-36 ESV exc.)

EVERYTHING flows from the Grace of God. I cannot claim any possession over it, responsibility for it, anything less than providential gifting of all these things to us, to me. The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it...(Ps. 24:1) Elaine Olsen writes of her own journey in Beyond Cancer's Scars:

I walk that fine line in this season of planting kingdom seeds, and I pray for a heart to know when my suffering voice is needed and when it is better kept silent. I must come to the end of myself. To arrive there, I've needed more than a lecture or a recommendation from others. I needed a hard humbling, a strong wrestling, an exhausted spirit, and a broken heart. I've needed my cancer to lead me there. I'm mostly there, but if I'm not careful to keep my heart in check, I'm capable of making more of my suffering than needs making or saying more about my trials than really needs saying. There is a "certain place" in all of our journeys where we, like Jacob, must stop running and rest our ambitions. A moment when we say, "Enough is enough!" and let go of yesterday's striving in order to take hold of tomorrow's promise - God's promise, a promise authored from the portals of heaven that pledges provision, protection, and preservation. When we are able to rest at that certain place, then we are able to rise in the morning with humbled perspective, knowing that the road ahead is paved with God's intentions, not ours. When we've slept in God's house and climbed God's ladder with our dreaming, then we awaken in the morning no longer full of ourselves, but rather, full of our Father. (p. 66)

I read this, and my heart leaps in recognition, "Yes! Yes, this is my struggle this year. This is the battle to be fought, and won with God's help. This is the cry of my heart!"

Less.

Less is more.

Less of me, more of Him.

More and more, deeper and deeper understanding of how much the small things matter. How precious are the relationships and how unnecessary the "things" of life.

Less striving and more resting. Let us not grow weary. Let us not waste our energy doing things in our own power and culled from our personal agendas, but let us draw from the deep well of the Spirit and let our feet be easily led onto His path.

The pills I swallowed in a single day in mid 2011

Less help from man, and more from God. Fewer pills to calm the soul, and more of the Balm of Gilead. Yes, God provided this season of healing, He provided the anti-depressants and the counselors. They have carried me so far from the most broken place of my life in 2011. But now I am ready to go further. I read in Jeremiah a passage that echoes loudly in the halls of my heart...

Prophets and priests and everyone in between twist words and doctor truth. My dear Daughter—broken, shattered, and yet they put on Band-Aids, saying, “It’s not so bad. You’ll be just fine.” The crops are in, the summer is over, but for us nothing’s changed. We’re still waiting to be rescued. Are there no healing ointments in Gilead? Isn’t there a doctor in the house? So why can’t something be done to heal and save? Then comes a message from the God-of-the-Angel-Armies: “Don’t let the wise brag of their wisdom. Don’t let heroes brag of their exploits. Don’t let the rich brag of their riches. If you brag, brag of this and this only: that you understand and know me. I’m God, and I act in loyal love. I do what’s right and set things right and fair, and delight in those who do the same things. These are my trademarks. Stay alert! It won’t be long now”—God’s Decree!—“when I will personally deal with everyone whose life is all outside but no inside..." (Jeremiah 8-9, The Message, exc.)

The prescription order sheet for my radiation in 2008

Yes, cancer ravaged. And oh, how we have suffered! But in all things, let me be wise about how I wear these diamonds He's made out of the carbon dust of the ashes of my broken body and heart. From the lecture I give on thyroid problems each semester, to the sharing of my story here and in person, let me hold my tongue when I hear His whisper in my soul. May He move me to share only what is appropriate and not boast in myself, but only in how suffering has helped me to know and understand Him.

The sign my children welcomed me home with after I miscarried Teddy in 2009

Less longing to be free, and more longing to serve my husband and my family. This year, let my heart melt every time my children run out onto the porch at my return, waving their banners of "Welcome Home, Mama!" Let me melt into the welcome-home kiss of the husband, let the counters be cleaner and the meals more on time. Less of me, my needs, wants, desires. More servitude.

An old blog banner from 2008 reminds me of the darkness of that season

Making "do" with patched jeans: Katy in 2008

As we walk into the harvest, the first season of plenty in so long, may we continue to "make do" with less. We don't need more. We are so rich in the things of this world already. So let this year be another year of saying NO to clutter, to excess, to careless spending. I believe He really intends to prosper us in the coming years with His provision financially. May we be wise with that provision. Help me control the finger that clicks "Purchase" on the internet and the hands that pull unnecessary things off the shelves at the store. Help me push away from the table when my belly is full even if my soul still feels empty. Help me be filled with more of you, and less of this world, Christ.

In this year of "less", let us welcome more of You into a barer home and a barer heart. Empty the halls, literally and figuratively, so that You can pour in the harvest. 

...to miss these three things-His house, His presence, His heaven-is to altogether miss the point of this life. God is the point of our lives: the sooner we get over the strong impressions we have of ourselves, the sooner we live as a people who can be entrusted with the story of the kingdom. Maybe this day you're stuck somewhere in between where you used to live and where you're heading. You're running fast and hard to get there, maybe even running away from the pain you thought you had left behind. Pain isn't usually the leaving-behind kind. Pain is a follower, and if pain is your portion, then I invite you to that certain place of God's allowing so that you might find rest beneath His night sky. What is birthed there just might be the hope that will carry you through to morning. Come; enter into your certain place. God has something to finish in you so that He can begin His new work through you. (Beyond Cancer's Scars, p. 67)

I say with Samuel, "Here am I, Lord. Speak, Lord, for I am listening." I say with John, "This is the assigned moment for Him to move into the center, while I slip off to the sidelines." (John 3:20 The Message)

Make this the year of LESS. And because of that, MORE. More of Your story, more of Your complete satisfaction, more of Your love pouring out through us. Make me - and all of us, this family - empty vessels through which You can pour out onto any thirsty ground that surrounds us.

Join me in sharing your word at http://oneword365.com/community/

The reforming pessimist

I've tried for three years now to turn myself into an optimist. But for thirty I've been a glass half empty girl. Now I have some type of binocular vision, seeing the world in both black and white, the positive and negative crowding in together a confusing mosaic of blessings and curses.

My messy house is the nest in which meaningful moments are carved out with children who are growing up way too fast. Busy days are filled to the brim with more important tasks than dishes and laundry, but I still sigh at the unfinished homemaking chores at the end of the day. I watch my kids running across the troll bridge in the autumn afternoon sun, and I breathe deep the crisp air, but half of my mind is on grading unfinished and schoolwork they're not doing and all the busywork I used to measure my worth by.

I've been a griever, a lamenter, a mourner for as long as I can remember. My childhood held a hidden pain too deep for me to understand, and twenty lifetimes of pain shoved in to my formative years billowed out in weird ways: I found things to cry about because I had to cry and I couldn't cry about what I needed to cry about. Now the well of pain is too deep to tap so I leave the cover on most days but still the pain aches there inside despite the gathering of joys and the counting of blessings I've made it a habit to do.

How does one go about healing wounds when it hurts so to peel the bandage back? When it's festered so long, it seems easier to pretend it's been amputated long ago. I guess that's why I run away so often. Run away from failure headlong into small adventures, like drives into the country to count the rails on a track with my train-crazy son. Like last-blast fully clothed afternoons at a splash pad, with all the other moms looking at me like I'm crazy, they fully prepared with their beach towels and their kids in swimsuits and goggles, and mine the crazy lady's kids dripping wet in jeans and t-shirts.

I don't know, really, if I'm teaching them to be spontaneous joy addicts or just social outcasts. I don't know if I'm teaching them the same bottling-up-pain coping I employ or if I'm showing them that you can salvage something out of a day lost to that deep ache after all. All I know is when the day ends, we are all smiling. The kitchen is still messy, but we're laughing in bed together under the comforter watching The Voice and trying to guess who's going to win the latest vocal battle. I haven't solved any of my real problems, I suppose, but I've enjoyed life anyway. Lived it. This day I lived. This day I smiled. This day I wasn't crushed by the granite boulder of a prisoner's existence. Today I was free for a while. Today I forgot for a time.

I'm trying to believe this is what it means to grasp the Promise - that I'm washed clean as snow, that all my past is forgotten in the outpouring of Love from the Cross. If He remembers it no more, do I really have to (Isaiah 43:25)? Do I have to go back there? Do I have to unleash those sorrows, work through them to truly be free of them? Or can I just shrug them off like old clothes, put on the new ones He's offered me (Colossians 3)? It is a crazy life, this Saved life, isn't it? Who cares if people stare? I don't have to drown in the pool of my suffering, because He's pulled me out of the mire and muck, and even if my glass is half empty for the rest of my life - the beauty of it is, that means it's still half full.

Take it, every little piece of my heart; Break it, every little piece of my heart

I have a friend, a beloved one. She is hurting. So I hurt with her. I send unanswerable questions heavenward. I let tears fall unchecked. I promise to be there. It doesn't seem like enough.

Why is this world so full of pain?

Why is it always those at the back of the pack who get picked off by the wolves? Those who've suffered most, who've endured the unendurable, who've been in the Refiner's fire so long you would think they'd be melted down enough. But He wants every last bit of it, every last piece of our soul we're holding back, every dark corner we haven't let Him in to see and love and cleanse and care for. Cracks us open wide, forcing us into the pain so that we can do the healing.

I know these things, deeply. My own cancer was my tutor in the whys and wherefores of suffering. I come through transformed. I will never be the same. Yet, on a day like today, when my body literally aches from weeping, all I can think of is mercy. Just this once - could we skip the character lesson and be washed over by Your grace? Could You spare my dear friend this pain? Let this cup pass over?

If He would not let the cup pass from His own Son's lips, all for love of us, I dread that this is not to be. The cup is filled to the brim with tears, and, for love of our souls, He will beg us drink.


These verses drenched my soul in comfort in the darkest of pits, when I sat by Amelia's bedside begging for her life. I read them, repeat them, murmur them, pray them. I notice, again, let it soak in deep - that the results happen at the final revelation of Jesus Christ, "in the last time". Not here, not now, but when He comes again and wipes away our tears forever.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. (1 Peter 1:3-9 ESV)

Sometimes you felt the trouble

Sometimes you felt down

Let this music relax your mind

Stand up and be counted, yeah

Can't get a witness

Sometimes you need somebody

If you have somebody to love

Sometimes you ain't got nobody

And you want somebody to love, all right

Then you don't want to walk and talk about Jesus

Just want to see His face

You don't want to walk and talk about Jesus

Just want to see His face

~I Just Want to See His Face, The Rolling Stones~

Lisa-Jo prompts us today with "Wide" 

Pray for Amy: Mayo Day 1

As many of you know, we are down at Mayo today for the 1st day in what may turn into multiple days of diagnostic tests for Amy to determine whether the lump on her neck is cancerous or not. She is as brave as a lion, this little girl. We talked Sunday about what she would be facing, and she told me firmly and confidently, "I am not afraid, Mama. We can do this togethah." So we bowed our heads and included the Lord in our little space, and yes, Amy, we can do it togethah with Him.

Today's post comes to you from a dear new internet friend of mine, Tereasa of His Pen on My Heart. She writes about the hard stuff and the good stuff, and a lot about what God is teaching her through His word. I'd definitely recommend you run over and check her blog out. (While you're there, leave a comment thanking her for her help and her prayers, if you would?) While you're out checking this blog, you may want to stop by Addie Zierman's How to Talk Evangelical: she wrote a post about her own difficult journey praying for Amy and asks her readers to join her. The body of Christ is a lovely thing to behold! Now for Tereasa's words...

............................

My heart was heavy, burdened with the need to pray. Life threatening accidents, drug-addiction, brain- damage, serious illness, all threaten to hinder if not end the lives of children. Several of my friends had received devastating news last week, all of it concerning their children. By Friday, my mind was filled only with thoughts of the children.  I questioned the Lord, “Why?  Why must the young suffer? Are these attacks from Satan or are they your discipline, Father?”

Does it really matter?  “It is for my glory,” was the answer that settled in my heart. Does it matter where the suffering comes from?  Does it matter if suffering is a result of our sins or because of our threat to Satan?  If it is all for his glory, does the origin of the suffering matter?

The Word of God streamed into the kitchen from the audio Bible as I prepared lunch. The children were still weighing heavy on my mind when I heard Moses ask, “Oh Lord, why has Thou brought harm to this people? Why didst Thou ever send me?” Ever since Moses had demanded the release of the Israelite slaves, Pharaoh had done further harm to the people. Without trepidation, Moses spoke to God, “Thou hast not delivered Thy people at all.”

My busy hands slowed as I heard the words. I knew the questions Moses asked and felt the responsibility behind them. I turned to the computer and played the words again, reading along this time. My own heart questioned along with him, “Why do you allow harm to come to these children?”

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; for under compulsion he shall let them go, and under compulsion he shall drive them out of his land.” The Lord continued saying, “I am the Lord,” and reminding Moses of the covenant he had made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The Lord, the Keeper of Promises, reminded Moses that he would bring his children to the Promise Land.

In the following chapters of Exodus, God caused the Egyptians to suffer by sending ten plagues consecutively.  He warned Moses several times that Pharaoh would not listen and would not let the Israelites go.  The Israelites would continue to suffer in slavery for a time so that God would perform his signs and be glorified for generations to come.

Two hearts were revealed during the time of the plagues. Both were reluctant to obey God at first. Moses was fearful and unsure of his usefulness. Pharaoh was proud and defiant. Moses had a soft heart and obeyed the Lord despite his initial doubts. Pharaoh hardened his heart and refused to obey.  As time progressed through each of the plagues, we see a change in each heart. Moses, who had asked his brother to be his spokesperson, begins to speak for himself. He gains confidence in the Lord through his obedience. Pharaoh, however, loses the choice of defiance and eventually has his heart hardened by God.

Many are familiar with the end, Pharaoh lets the Israelites go and then (with a heart once again hardened by God) changes his mind. He chases them into the Red Sea which the Israelites miraculously crossed on dry land.  The children of God make it to safety and the armies of Pharaoh are drowned in the unleashed waters.

There is something about this story that touches me deeply. Both sides suffered. Suffering is often seen as a sign.  We see it as a sign that we are on God’s bad side, in need of discipline.  Otherwise, we see it as a sign we are on God’s good side and under the attack of Satan. In the case of Israel versus Egypt, however, the suffering was a means to the Glory of God. It is a story that climaxed in a display of God’s saving power. The difference lies not in who suffered, but in the result. The Israelites suffered in slavery. The Egyptians suffered through plagues. Moses’ heart was soft and strengthened by God. Pharaoh’s heart was hard and hardened again by God. Both hearts brought glory to God, however, only one was saved. 

We will suffer. The children will suffer. The question is not why but how.  Will we be softened, molded through our suffering? Or will we be hardened?

Oh Lord, may our hearts be like clay in your hands.  May we grow in confidence as we submit our lives to your will.

“And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you. To Him be dominion forever and ever. Amen.”  - 1 Peter 5:10-11

Note from Genevieve: This song came on random play through my iPhone while on the way to town shortly after I read and posted this from Tereasa. I got goosebumps all over my body - even my cheeks, which has never happened to me before - as I sang along. I know I am one of the saints who will march through those gates - but what if my life, my ordinary life, can bring God the kind of glory Sara Groves speaks of in this song? It infuses me with new courage and strength to think this might be possible!

lord i have a heavy burden of all i've seen and know

it's more than i can handle

but your word is burning like a fire shut up in my bones

and i can’t let it go

and when i'm weary and overwrought

with so many battles left unfought

i think of paul and silas in the prison yard

i hear their song of freedom rising to the stars

and when the Saints go marching in

i want to be one of them

lord it's all that i can't carry and cannot leave behind

it all can overwhelm me

but when i think of all who've gone before and lived a faithful life

their courage compels me

and when i'm weary and overwrought

with so many battles left unfought

i think of paul and silas in the prison yard

i hear their song of freedom rising to the stars

i see the shepherd moses in the pharaohs court

i hear his call for freedom for the people of the Lord

i see the long quiet walk along the underground railroad

i see the slave awakening to the value of her soul

i see the young missionary and the angry spear 

i see his family returning with no trace of fear

i see the long hard shadows of calcutta nights

i see the sister standing by the dying man’s side

i see the young girl huddled on the brothel floor

i see the man with a passion come kicking down that door

i see the man of sorrow and his long troubled road

i see the world on his shoulders and my easy load

-When the Saints, Sara Groves-

Please post this blog button all over the internet and rally prayer for my daughter as we face the uncertainty, grief and fear of the coming weeks.

<a href="http://turquoisegates.com"><img src="<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yellowfarmhousephotography/7333866990/" title="Amelia-blog-button by Yellow Farmhouse Photography, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8016/7333866990_4945a025f3_o.jpg" width="250" height="304" alt="Amelia-blog-button"></a>" /></a>

Blurriest beauty

When you're taking a photograph, you always hope to get the person or thing you're focusing on in sharp relief - especially if you're capturing moments at something as fleeting and important as a wedding. But cameras play tricks on us just like life does, and sometimes the images don't come out just as you'd planned.

In the blurriness of some, you see the softer strokes of an artist's brush instead of the fine detail of modern technology. In those blurry moments captured, there is a quiet beauty that captures emotion better than the most carefully planned and focused image. Such is life. In our blurry moments - the dead of night when we'd much rather be sleeping than parenting; the bleary eyed mornings that follow; busy times; times full of fear or dread that have us constantly distracted as we try to practice holiness in prayer while still tending to our daily tasks with purpose - Christ paints what we cannot. He paints grace, hope, joy, love. He fills all the empty spaces with color, like my lawn unmown suddenly giving up a crop of small yellow flowers that bless me with joy instead of disgust over another unfinished task that marks my many failings. Across the toy-scattered yard, His clouds chase the sun in the morning, running across the field to the yard in alternating darkness and light of such beauty it takes my breath away.

So too, life is sometimes dark. Too dark to take good photos. As a lover of natural light, I have my camera flash permanently disabled, and sometimes I have to edit images that lack detail and light. Sometimes they aren't salvageable, like the moments when I give in to fear and worry and my soul is as tossed as the disciples' were when they weathered a storm at sea without Jesus who could easily have calmed the waves. In the darkness of that storm, they lost faith that He would ever make it in time to rescue them. So as I hold my Amy in the dark night, with a thunderstorm raging outside and her little body ravaged by a sudden seizure, the first in months, I am choked with grief and anguish and my cry is more of "Why?" and less of "How?" and I am not looking anymore for rescue or relief or hope, but simply an end to suffering.

Yet those dark moments we invite Him into, He infuses with beauty, too. Even in the lack of detail, the graininess of our understanding, the imperfections of our edits of life's script, He is holding the Painter's brush and trading our ashes for beauty moment by moment and day by day. Moments of fear given to Him bring instant refreshment and clear sight that allows us to treasure what He has given today - manna, the gift of food just for today, not for tomorrow, but enough for now - treasures that if we make them our focus and hold them too close and too dear and forget the Giver of all good gifts, they turn sour and the next day the memory is filled with maggots instead of life. 

And so today, our last day of waiting and perhaps our last day of this particular dream that she might be totally freed, we drink hope in dark places and beauty in blurry ones. Ever present Help in time of need and fatigue and physical pain. Painter of portraits we cannot even imagine, come fill our lives with Your surpassing beauty and grace and lead us surely, even without our worldy flashlights and focus rings, on the paths crooked to our feet and always straight under Yours.

Please post this blog button all over the internet and rally prayer for my daughter as we face the uncertainty, grief and fear of the coming weeks.

<a href="http://turquoisegates.com"><img src="<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/yellowfarmhousephotography/7333866990/" title="Amelia-blog-button by Yellow Farmhouse Photography, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8016/7333866990_4945a025f3_o.jpg" width="250" height="304" alt="Amelia-blog-button"></a>" /></a>

Letters to Aaron: The Thin Places

Your daughters and your son, they bring me flowers every day in the spring. Whatever weeds are blooming in the ditches, they find their way into the vases on the counter. They always ask me the name of the flower, and I always ask them to ask grandma. She knows. I don't.

I've never been much of a labeler of delights. Their simple existence in the same space as me has been enough for most of my life. Flowers without names, loves without reasons, smiles without an explanation. I've known all along you're more structured, but the similar chaos of our apartments before the wedding convinced me that we'd fit together anyway. That you couldn't disappoint me, and I wouldn't you.

Some days our house is full of light and laughter, and we laugh together over the children's antics, and the afternoon sun bounces off the clean wood of the front room floor while I make dinner. As much as I have tried to believe that being a writer, a scholar, a breadwinner will bring me joy, it is in the organic delight of an afternoon housewifing that I come alive, and you breath. It seems impossible to me that I am writing those words. Admitting to the world a sacred but jagged edged truth about what makes men and women - or at least you and I - tick. As if the way to a man's heart is still really through his stomach.

Other days are dark and different. My heart quits ticking right, or post-cancer rises up to swallow me whole in a night full of sweats and night terrors, and I am nailed to the bed by exhaustion. You come home and sigh, get to work on the dishes, and make us dinner. You say you aren't disappointed in me, but regardless my fear swallows joy faster than the world spins, and I shrink away from you because I know, deeper than deep, in that moment I am not worthy.

But real love that stands the tests of time isn't about who is worthy. It's rooted in that holy love of Christ, the love that keeps pouring out into our broken and empty places. You've loved me through darker trials than we imagined, even with our jaded eyes that had seen babies shrivel and die. The sorrow that emptied me of hope was bigger even than cancer. You've held my hand when I didn't care to hold yours. You've held my body as it's shifted and changed from bearing babies and weathering cancer's storms. You kissed my gray hairs as if they are a crown to be treasured, my bald head bruised and bleeding, as if you really wanted to. You've loved me as our house descended into a mess beyond messy, when the bitter taste of tears was all I could offer in return.

I know things have to change. I know the house needs to be cleaned. I know I have to find strength to be a better wife and a better mother. Words like "remission" and "graduation" give me hope. That I won't be stretched this thin forever. That you won't have to fill in as a cook and a housekeeper for much longer. That I'll be a better lover again like I have been in the past.

But life could throw us another curveball. It isn't the hope of an easier tomorrow that makes me smile even as I write about all this pain, the pain the world doesn't see every day. You see it: you see the ugliness and the failure and the work we have to do, and you love me in spite of, no matter what, when the landscape shifts out of focus. Together, however broken, we've found our true north. You are mine, and I am yours, the best gift we've ever gotten. A gift to each other from the generations of family that built us, that loved and lost and struggled and broke. A gift from the only One who can give the things that really matter. And I cradle it like a precious and fragile jewel in the palms of my hands: this love for you that grows without sunshine or rain, that grows in the night and grows when it's ugly and grows when my heart is breaking. You are the most precious thing. My most precious thing. Years from now, when the children are grown, and the house is clean all the time, you'll still be my most precious thing. I can't name this love. It defies logic. It floats when we're sinking. It shines in the dark. Lit with the everburning candle of Christ's love.

I love you. Today. Yesterday. Forever. In spite of. I am blessed beyond words to live in the same space and time as you. Even when you are broken, angry, frustrated. With the grace of God, this one thing will never change.

A great idea of Amber and Seth Haines. Shared with Joy and Scott Bennett.
Forgive me - I had something specific on my mind this week - so I wrote before the prompt.

All I want for Christmas

Even in the deepest canyons of life, when we sit huddled in the rocky bottom, unsure of our way up, the sun hits the ledges above and lights the mountainside with glory, reminding us of warmth and promise and propelling us in our search of a path out. Sunrise this morning reminds me of this ancient truth once again, the hillsides lit golden and scarlet by the ascending sun, the valleys still dark and frost-bitten from the winter's dark night. 

It is always so, when I am hermetically sealed in the warmth of my home, and I gaze out the windows at the beauty He lays at our doorstep faithfully with each sunrise. Creation is my beacon home, the light that both guides me to the safe channel and warns me of the dangerous cliffs and rocks of the dark sea. Sitting on the other side of the window, in the shadows, I am daily in awe as the sun hits the ice crystals on the windowpane and sends me twirling in the chandelier light of the morning's prism. 

All I wish for Christmas is this: that I remember that, no matter how long, deep, wide and dark the canyon of my winter's discontent, my way is lit by the Light of a holy and unfathomable God who speaks loudest through suffering and draws us closest through days such as these. Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty!

I’ve been climbing my whole life 

and I’m only at the bottom of the mountain, 

Rising up from my feet in the daylight 

rising up into the clouds and out of my sight 

is the height of that mountain 

Well my hands cannot reach it 

and my mind can’t comprehend it 

but my soul is gonna get there one day 

Lord, these shoes are gonna need some help 

so we can make it to the top of the mountain 

Many feet have gone before us 

with a habit of faith and courage 

they’ll meet us at the road’s end

~Christa Wells, On the Mountain~

Hearts spinning

Long hours at a blogging conference brings cancer crashing onto my radar. I live like sheets drying on a clothesline, long loops of cloth rising up again to the pins, then the next long loop, and on and on. Rest, participate, rest, participate, repeat. I have made the transition from the mantra of my 20's (I'll sleep when I'm dead) to the requisite realization of my 30's (I'll die if I don't sleep).

Hours are bathed in tears, and then bathed in laughter. I find out what a laughter hang-over is for the very first time in my life. The trancendant beauty of both authentic pain and hilarious joy crash together like two waves meeting to form the monster roll of blue water swirling you down a pipeline of experience, a rush like no other. I play tambourine and sing harmony on stage for one song with Christa Wells, then stand in the audience hiding my face in my hat, hands raised in praise, as her words uncover my pain.

I go to sessions and workshops and marvel at the beauty of newfound friends, souls wounded and worn and ever writing, writing. Sara Sophia is as luminescent as her name, her words like pearls on a string for a whole table full of sobbing women.

New layers of my church history find light in the words of Ashleigh, who was brought to depths of spiritual pain I have not yet endured. As her tears roll, I learn and bask in the beauty of a soul dragging dirty story into light.

I watched from afar as she became famous in the blogosphere, and adored her before I met her, but Elizabeth surprises me with her vulnerability and humanity, her beautiful smile and the mannerisms that are so like my dear friend Amy. My heart aches with missing, and aches at the same time with meeting.

The snow falls in a hurricane of white, and I laugh with some dear children from Florida. We stand in the hall watching out the window and laughing, laughing. It's beautiful.

And so I am exhausted.

Broken.

Filled.

Kept.

Thank you for your prayers.

Refine us

She is better today, fevers persisting, but with a dose of energy from the spinal tap and the antibiotics flowing every 3 hours. Dark circles under her eyes, she shuts them against the fluorescent light, showing off her new owl teapot with eyes squeezed shut.

The flurry and adrenaline of the initial decision making fades on hospital day 2, and we and the doctors begin to contemplate those hard questions that still persist without answer. Why does she get infections in her brain repeatedly? It's nothing like the question "why does Caleb have allergies all year every year". This has such significant consequences to her health, intellect and quality of life that we must find an answer.

Aaron says it, anguished, as we walk to the hotel for a few minutes alone, kids happy in hospital with Auntie Rosalie. "Why, whenever we start to thrive, why does something like this always happen?" I don't know. I can only offer what I'm learning about accepting your cross without fighting it. Carrying one cross - the one given - instead of two - the one given paired with the anxieties we let sneak in like foxes in the vineyard.

I don't ever want to lose this little life. I don't ever want to wait too long, or miss the symptoms, or run into doctors again who refuse to treat in the early stages. How do we function like this? The older girls and I have a long talk after Caleb sleeps this evening, and talk about refining gold and silver. How it requires high heat. How God is allowing that high heat through trials into their young lives. We read the verses in Malachi that were like timber beams holding up the sagging sanctuary of my heart this morning, before I headed out to the hospital, head shiny and cold in the winter-like winds.

Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap: And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness. Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the Lord, as in the days of old, and as in former years.

The truth remains. He has always rescued us. We are all alive together still. The needleprick on Amelia's back is just a dot, no bleeding, no complications. The antibiotics seem to be working. We have every cause for praise in this, as in all the previous trials. God is great and good, here in this day of suffering. What a lesson to learn, at 6 and 8! May these children grow up with a deep, visceral understanding of what it means to wait on the Lord, trust in His mercy and grace in the most difficult of circumstances.

Come, come and meet us here 

Come and touch our tears 

That we may weep no more 

Come, come and meet our pain 

Come and lift our lame 

That we may limp no more 

Come that we may want no more 

The doubters pray for your signs and wonders 

All the cynics say 

You’ll let us go under 

But we’re here to stay
God, will you come by here? 

Come, we have nothing else God 

And having You we want for nothing 

No death, life 

Angels or demons 

No depth, height 

Can come in between us 

And Your love, Your love, Your love, love

The jail of a questioning mind

Rainbow row in Charleston. Rows upon rows of homes right up against their neighbor. It's famous for it's beauty. I look up and think of Noah's rainbow, the sign that humans would never be extinguished by God again.

En masse that is. Many have been killed since the rainbow, including His own son Jesus Christ, who took our place before the wrath of God.

I hear about God - that He is good, that He has overcome eternal death, that He always gives a way of escape. Where is my way of escape? Where is His goodness?

Round church in downtown Charleston.

How about that He works ALL things for the good of those who diligently seek Him. That God's plan does not always match up with my plan. He seems so very, very far away. I heard something else - something considered a fallacy - that God is a distant cosmic creator.

I can't understand how the earth and all that's in it came to be without God. Why, if His eye is on the sparrow,  every one of them, do I struggle to believe His eye, provision, and love are real and true and ever present in my life? I can't seem to latch on to the power I hear He offers, and I feel abandoned and alone, even when others tell me His promises do apply to me. I am afraid of my own questions and afraid of the consequences if I let my mind go in the direction it's flowing.

For you refuse my discipline and treat my words like trash. "Mark this, then, you who forget God, lest I tear you apart, and there be none to deliver! The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me..".(Psalm 50:17,21-22a)

I struggle to believe that the trials that have plagued me since age 13 will ever end. I don't understand why I hurt, and He does not help or comfort or heal?  I cry I need your help, oh God. I need to change how I see you. I can't do it by myself. By myself, I'll become a theist agnostic.

Take the brush from my hand - the one I'm using to paint your picture and the picture of my life. I struggle to believe that I will not always be the victim, the sufferer, the child injured - the picture that suffering alone is my destiny. That even here you have great plans for me, that you are providing here even in the worst of times, when I bow my head and close my eyes hard so I can't see you anymore. I struggle to believe that you have not turned your face from me already.

These are the bars between mind and soul that leave me with questions without answers. Wherever He is, I want Him to show up in a big way because otherwise I'm floundering. Not just shells on the seashore or B-3 organs for free on the curb. I'm talking about mercy, justice, love, pursuing, disciplining...a God who shows His involvement in my life.