The day I knew...

I simply went for a walk that day.

I hadn't expected to run into anyone at all.

There was no way of getting around it. My dress was pink.

I had been running my fingers along the fence. I do that sometimes. Touch perpetual surfaces until my fingers go numb.

And there he was with his eyes a light. I didn't want to look into them because it was as if he would know everything. It dawned on me that day that he already did-- know everything.

As I turned to go I saw some birds in the tree looking at me funny. Their expressions seemed to say, "even we can talk to this man."

I slowly spun around on my toes and my loafers made that crunchy sound in the gravel.

He was still looking at me with those eyes and I couldn't help but ask him why he made me.

He and the birds smiled and said, "I made you because I wanted one of you."

"Remember when you were a child and you asked me for a white kitten to be brought to you in a wicker basket?" He questioned.

An unwanted tear began to slide down my face as I bit my lip, furrowed my brow and slowly nodded.

"I wanted one of you, and since I could make you I did."

I asked him why as the bird's wings clapped while they flew away into the day.

"Because I knew I'd love you..." was all he said.

Luke 18:17 - Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it. 

There is a seemingly unquenchable thirst within me that seems to drive a wench between myself and God. I sit and introspectively dwell on the horrible-rape, hunger, war, death, violence. The unfair. I often blame God and as he approaches me with his kinda love; an irreplaceable kinda love, a faithful kinda love and I find myself pulling away, wrapping my arms around my waist and setting my eyes to the floor. And there he is, his hand lingering and me staring at the cracks in the floorboards. And my thirst to understand and rationalize things that my mind was never created to understand is never satisfied. What is the kingdom of God. To me its everything that Christ died for; for me to be free from condemnation, the consequence of sin, healthy in my body, mind and soul. To receive it as a little child. When I was a child I looked at the grass and I didn't question why it was there or whether or not it was there for me. When I was a child I never linked the horrible with God. He was there and I was here and we communed with each other while this mad world spun around. I sat in the palm of his hand while it spun. God held the answers in his heart and me in his hands- and I was okay with that. Now I'll do my darndest to be okay with that again, like when I was a child, and maybe I'll lift my eyes from the floorboards. 

Gabrielle Aplin- home  

I'm a phoenix in the water,

A fish that's learnt to fly,

And i've always been a daughter,

But feathers are meant for the sky.

So i'm wishing, wishing further,

For the excitement to arrive,

It's just i'd rather be causing the chaos

Than laying at the sharp end of this knife

With every small disaster

I'll let the waters still,

Take me away to some place real...

They say home is where your heart is set in stone

is where you go when you're alone

is where you go to rest your bones.

It's not just where you lay your head

not just where you make your bed.

As long as we're together, does it matter where we go?

Home... Home...

So when i'm ready to be bolder,

And my cuts have healed with time,

Comfort will rest on my shoulder,

And I'll bury my future behind.



I'll always keep you with me,

You'll be always on my mind,

But there's a shining in the shadows

I'll never know unless I try

With every small disaster

I'll let the waters still,

Take me away to some place real...

They say home is where your heart is set in stone

is where you go when you're alone

is where you go to rest your bones.

It's not just where you lay your head

not just where you make your bed.

As long as we're together, does it matter where we go?

Home... Home...

 

A chance to climb.

    Her pig tails were the messy kind- pulled taught too many times to keep them up.
    And she brushed the stray hairs from her head as she assesed the hill in front of her for at the top was a bud that she hopped to carry back down with her to bless her world.
    With the daunting task in front of her she furrowed her brow and scrunched her lips-never before had she climped a hill this steep.
    Perhaps she could fall down and get hurt, perhaps she'd grow weary half way and not go on- a worse and stagnant defeat.
    But oh how she wanted to bring that flower home with her to bless her world.
    So with the strength the size of a seed and her tiny incapable feet to match she started to climb.Fear struck her as she began to ascend but with her eyes on the prize she continued. Exhaustion started to creap in beckoning her to quit but with her eyes on the prize she continued. Even along the way blisters formed and scars were created but with her eyes on the prize she continued untill she reached the top and realized that all along her fathers hand was gently placed on her back - enough stability and strength to make it pushed her to the top where the bud was picked to bring down and bless her world.

floorboards and chairs

Who would have thought.

That trust would be such a difficult mountain to climb.

I wake up in the morning knowing that my feet will hit the ground- not sink through.

That as I sit the chair will hold me.

But here I am questioning gravity itself as my world spins on an axis unfamiliar.

Certainly preparation, anticipation and calculation should have prepared me for this season of seeming remuneration for years of a lack of revelation.

But alas this is not truth. Recognition of this is victory enough.

And so I hold on to hope that I serve a God who keeps me on the up and up-

one that leaves me not in limbo -of stagnancy or ducking poles- but

takes me home each day to a place where all answers lay in Him and filter through my willing hands-

and a heart that tries to be soft through it all. A form of holy acid wearing through till the power leaks

and His children begin to live and not doubt and trust beyond the floorboards and chairs that

hold them.

Redemption

There comes a point in your life where you have to pick up all those seemingly small glimpses of hope and put them all together. To take the barely flickering candles of guidance you know in your life and put them together to form one giant lantern. Sometimes those big miracles are just the little ones every day added up in the remembrance that you heart will allow them to have. As much as we catch ourselves saying "it seems like all the bad adds up, and thats why I want to give up" we can say "it seems like all of the good adds up in my life, and thats why I can make it." God is good. Its cliche but simple.

A student of pain.

What does it mean to show someone compassion, to walk them through the darker times in life. Sometimes it just means giving them a hug and being honest with your self and them by saying, "I don't know how I can help."Compassion does not require perfection and so much of the time we disqualify ourselves from helping others because we cannot solve their problems. God never asked you to solve peoples problems, he already did that. He did ask us to love each other. A lot more love is available in us to give than we imagine and not smiling at someone because you, "might as well not get involved," because "its not like you could change them" is not loving. Loving is messy, loving as humans is imperfect. God said love your neighbour as your self. Do you love yourself perfectly, no. God never said Love your neighbour perfectly, just to love them. Besides that "mere" smile could save a life.

a fist full of keys

I just spent over an hour asking myself tough questions, analyzing my mindsets in order to feel a little bit more free.

It made me feel the same way I did after finishing an essay for school with time to spare to microwave some pop corn and eat half of it on the way to class- that kind of, "phew, I've accomplished something that made me feel normal and for lack of a big vocab. after spending half the night crying, accomplished."

But my real question is what do I do to make my heart soar to those places that will carry me through these rough patches in my life. I feel pain, I am weak but where does strength come from.

You hear people quote scripture often saying, "when we are weak He (God) is strong." So instead of all this trying to accomplish peace, healing, joy I'm just going to hang out with the one who is actually strong.