On Vivid Colors Bleeding & Love Painted Here

Sometimes life bleeds vivid, and there are no words to write: just tears and quiet and being held. And some grief we walk through out loud, and sometimes heartache requires cocoons of silence, and let me tell you, sister, that is just fine too.
And life is a mess – all this beauty and pain running together. And the water, all alive, it makes this paint so unpredictable.  Sometimes I downright prefer the rigidity of pencils and ink – something that won’t bleed and run wild in all the places I’ve meticulously sketched out. There are days I long to abandon color altogether, and just cling white knuckled to neat lines and even control.
But even when I give up and walk away from the brushes strewn across the dining room table and the color seeping right through my best attempts to just hold it together, I find I cannot escape: this flaming red, her deep blues, that kissable pink.
The fresh fallen white light out here burns my dim-glassed eyes, and these colors etch deep into my heart. Life is teeming, even in loss, and all pain is anchored by joy, and these gifts keep this beating heart anchored in the love.
So I scrawl it out, and I let color seep off the brush and onto blank pages, pigment filling in empty. Late in the day, sun streams in, unexpected, lighting up color and casting glints of hope across my page. And when dark falls and vivid colors fall silent, I close my eyes, and exhale the ache, making space to just breath in the grace of it all.

Counting gifts today… Join us here?
– a weekend with extra hours of sleep
– the gift of paint, therapy for my soul
– first big snow and wide-eyed wonder
– getting to know new friends & the sweetness of old ones
– cookie dough in the fridge
– old hymns and quiet sanctuaries
– oatmeal
– good friends who are neighbors
– a new book
– out of the blue phone calls

A Merry {Stinking} Christmas

Christmas morning has come, and we welcomed it in our quiet home, as we sat squeezed together on this old couch, us four, and read ancient words from this new book, a gift.

And our Christmas was full of wonder, because its easy to come by when you’re two and five, and these little ones brimming over with their child-faith, they draw me right in to it. I think about last Christmas, a year ago, and the healing that has transpired here, and I am hushed by His goodness in it all.

But mixed in with the wonder and the meditations, our Christmas was not without the stench that no doubt marked the stable that first holy night. Only the foul festering here was not so much malodorous, but rather a soul stench emanating from within me: the creeping up of fear and control, of pungent sarcasm and defensiveness, the stink of an old self and the ache of this broken world with its bruised relationships.

And as long as I have breath I will wrestle with this stench. But Christmas, it doesn’t hide the stink of the stable, Christmas celebrates His coming right smack into the dark ugly of it. And I am indebted to those who walk this road with me, and point me back to the One who forgives and makes new, who came to give life, and who offers it today.

And in our little church, I am discovering the beauty of liturgy and the rhythm of the church calendar, and I am surprised to learn that Advent is the beginning of the church calendar. And isn’t this how we begin a new year: with hope, full of expectation, and yes, waiting on the One who writes our stories and numbers our days? And why would I, why do I start anywhere else but here: raw anticipation, deep hope and expectation that Jesus will come right here – into the mess and frailty of this broken life, of this weary heart, of this very moment?

And this is my prayer for this new year, that a cadence and rhythm would develop in these days, that I would learn to daily quiet this heart and hear His voice, His coming in the midst of stench and wonder unfurling altogether here.

I am so thankful for each of you who journey with me and read these words and share your hearts, in email and in comments.  I pray that as you look to the new year, His peace & grace, His rest and very Presence will fill your hearts, your homes. Merry Christmas, friends, and Happy New Year!

On Caterpillars and Repentance

My eldest is enthralled with butterflies, really metamorphosis: the process that regardless of how many non-fiction, scientific drawing and photograph laden books we check out of library still evokes a heap of wonder, from her and from me, both. And I see it in her, that she is growing, and changing, and I feel it in me too. Seasons change and we mourn summer even as we curse the humidity, and autumn beckons us forward.

Earlier this fall, I received such a sweet respite from all the daily litanies here, as I headed out of town for a weekend away. For years my Mother in law has been committed to lifting her children up in prayer, as an active leader in the prayer movement known as Moms in Touch. In the spring I discovered the beauty and the power of praying scripture over my daughters – as I joined a small group of women in praying for our children and their school. And in September, I heeded the call to “Come To Me” at a regional Moms in Touch retreat, the first of many across the nation.

I went expecting to learn lots about Moms in Touch, and came home personally, deeply refreshed. Over the course of the weekend, Moms in Touch founder Fern Nichols fleshed out the four movements of prayer a typical group walks through during an hour of intentional prayer: praise, confession, thanksgiving, and intercession.  Each of Fern’s sessions was deeply moving, particularly as we experienced them together in prayer.  But, I have to say, the morning spent delving into confession rocked my world.

Not that Fern said anything I hadn’t heard before.  But she spoke truth: plain, hard, gospel truth.  Really, she exposed the reality of our hearts, in light of the truth of God’s always loving, totally trustworthy, holy nature. And then she gave us an hour to spend in silence. SILENCE. It was beautiful.

It got me to thinking about metamorphosis, and transformation, life cycles.  I’m seeing this beautiful tension: this cycle of praise – the eucharesteo – exposing the ugliness and brokenness, pressing me to repentance, freeing me to praise again.  It’s such a gift, this repentance: that our Maker knows our frailty, that my weaknesses and constant returning back to my own controlling and selfish presets are no surprise, that he’s already prescribed the washing of my feet, the drawing back in with kindness. A beautiful, costly gift – this gift of repentance, that I so often glaze over, acknowledging my sin, but not quite confessing.  Not letting it’s weight soak in, consequently forfeiting the experience of it’s weight melting away, taking wing and disappearing altogether.

Living in this constant cycle – of praise, of repentance, of thanksgiving – frees me not just for my sake, but for the sake of others too.  The less I’m trying to keep up performances, keep it together, the more I’m willing to trade my failing and comparing for the reality of His costly grace, acknowledging that I am deeply loved because of who God is and what He has done, the more free I become to love others, out of His deep love. Repentance paves the way for vulnerability with God, with others.

This day, as monarchs rest here in their migration, as cycles of golden leaves scatter soaked in cold fall rain, I’m mindful of these life cycles, all around us: the brilliant and beautiful – leaves all ablaze, the difficult, painful processes that give birth to new life, and the unseen cycles of repentance and grace.