Releasing the Silence

Here I am again.  Over a year of silence from my hamming fingers on the keyboard, pouring out my heart's reflection and awakening...my boldness and vulnerability and authenticity. But a new layer of the onion was about to be peeled away. More growing, along with the pain that comes from the stretch...especially when you resist.  There's so much to be said for leaning into the ache.  A year and a half where I just didn't have the words...or maybe I was afraid of what those words might say. What they would show...would I show too much of this ugliness that was surfacing? Would those that read the words throw daggers of judgment or maybe just feel sorry for me?  But does it really matter what a broken world has to say? It seemed to matter until recently...and by recently I mean over the course of a year and a half where God broke this jar of clay in pieces to remold it into something new.  

I am something different than the last time we spoke.  A new species of sorts. A new creation in a way I hadn't perceived before. I am a mother; and for those that have gone before me and have walked this road of giving more of yourself than you ever thought possible you know what I am referring to and how it changes you at a core level.  Opening your heart and your arms and your space and your wallet... giving away your sleep and your time and your body and your stuff. And from day one you realize you have lost all control...or at least you realize that you never really had it anyway.  And this awareness can sometimes bubble up and spill out disappointment all over your filter of this life.  And for someone like me, there was a lot of unforeseen spillage!  It was hard...so hard, in fact, it began to harden me.  And when the potter is working the clay that has begun to harden he needs to work it with that much more strength and tenacity to shape into the beauty he intended...he never gives up. He is faithful to complete the masterpiece He started...even if it takes years. (Philippians 1:6)

I struggled with my perception of the circumstances that followed me.  Prayers seemingly unanswered...and when they were answered I struggled to recognize them as blessings.  I fought with how things looked...how my story was unfolding.  I prayed for MY definition of perfection...and when it didn't look the way I envisioned I perceived the answers as a NO.  Not for you.  

I longed to conceive and struggled along the journey of fertility appointments and assessments, treatments and disappointments.  I expected different.  Two years later, a little jaded and worn, I thankfully walked myself into a delivery room after praying for months for a supernatural birth only to meet an induction, an unwanted and failed epidural, countless drugs, a cervix that wouldn't dilate, an unexpected c-section and a baby that couldn't breathe upon delivery.  After countless hours of separation from the wee one who had lived inside of me for his entire existence I finally got to hold my sweet boy with a bouquet of wires and an IV attached to his small frame.  My incision ached but my heart ached more.  This didn't add up to what I had faithfully brought to the good God I knew. I sobbed for my broken body and for my sick baby but I sobbed more for the shattering of this beautiful story I had dreamed up and expected.  If God was really good wouldn't He give what I asked for?  Shouldn't it look prettier than this tangled up mess? I didn't know it at the time but I was being shaken and stirred, shattered and broken for a greater purpose.  My son was being fed his first foods of colostrum and milk while I was being fed a new food for my soul...moving past the infants milk of 1 Corinthians 3:2 to solid foods to grow me as God carefully lead me to this new experience and revelation.

Stumbling through a whirlwind of hormones and a heart that felt betrayed, God broke my fall with some familiar words he had spoken to me years before...would I get it this time?  Would it finally sink in?  Would I accept this solid food to grow me or would I be a stubborn child and whine for my bottle to comfort me?  The words of Isaiah 55:9 began to soften this clay and open my mind to an old truth I so desperately needed to grasp.  "As the heavens are above the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts".  Doesn't a parent always know better? 

As I spent countless days attempting to teach my new son how to nurse as he screamed and fussed and protested the whole way, I knew better.  I knew he needed what I had to offer...it would grow him and nourish him...even if he didn't think so.  I knew that his future was dependent on filling his belly so he could thrive and so I persisted and didn't give in.  I knew there was nothing cruel about what I was doing but he sure didn't agree.  I had to mold and coax him into following what I knew would  give him the best outcome.  So if I was to truly believe that God is the good Father that He says he is...that all his promises are yes and amen (2 Corinthians 1:20)...that he truly knows what is best for me even if I don't understand then I must eat the food he's placed before me. And the nourishment I found was in the letting go of my small ideas...my selfish gain.  My hopes of a Facebook worthy story or an Instagram ready image of my life.  If I am truly going to trust a God that has promised to work all things for good for those who love him (Romans 8:28) then I'm gonna have to free fall into this one, and know that he sees the big picture, he knows the beginning from the end, he has formed every cell and will never let go of one of them.  Even in disappointment, even in brokenness, even in a NICU where life's fragility screams out in every laboured baby sized breath.  Even in life, even in death.  Can I say that?  Even in death He is good...He's in control....He knows best!  

Lean not on your own understanding...your own fickle feelings. It doesn't make sense? Then trust Him, surrender the disappointment to Him and He'll take care of the rest.  He'll redeem it and fill you with His peace. He will not leave you. (Proverbs 3:5-6). I began to realize that I perceive things with an earthly, limited filter. I have a very small subjective perception of what is good and what is not. But God's plans and ideas break through that barrier. I am limited and His ways are higher. I might think I understand how things should go in this life, but do I really?  Am I the author of this complicated life? Do I really know all the ins and outs?  I remind myself that I am the created, not the creator...Isn't that enough to get me on my hands and knees surrendering to His ways?

My latest molding has been into a little boy's mama. It's been worth every sleepless night, every stitch after surgery, every sore nipple and hormonal tear-shed.  

I break my year and a half long silence to shatter the lies the enemy has thrown around and I have believed.  Long after the incision of birth has healed and my son has grown strong and well, I speak what I now know to be the truth because that is where our true healing begins. My story remains the same and will continue on out of my control but what now erases the fear of further disappointment is to truly KNOW that His ways are always higher than my ways.  That a good Father always knows best.  All I really need to know is that He is for me and He truly works all thing together for my good.  Today I believe that with God, the answer to prayer is never a NO...it's simply an I KNOW BETTER.  

(see picture on Pinterest at: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/98938523044158685/)

Waiting for You

​I'm longing to meet you...mysterious little you.  I have yet to feel your tiny ballet of movements, making yourself known, but I still know you are there as my belly swells and skin stretches and my mama glow begins to take form.  

I wait with bated breath between midwife visits until I can hear that reassuring whirring of your tiny heart beating you into life.  To me that tender thumping is the sweetest music ever created...not even Beethoven can top this symphony of percussive perfection.   

You already amaze me...without instruction or a helping hand from your mama you are forming and growing into the person you'll become.  I just sit in wait for our long anticipated first meeting.  Where your tears of life's first breath will meet my tears of life's pure joy.  Flesh on flesh and bone on bone as your tiny fingers furl around mine.  The day you become our son or daughter and are welcomed by arms and hearts wide open for you alone...and an entourage of grandma's and grandpa's, of auntie's and uncles and kid cousins that can't wait for you to come out and play. 

In the meantime, we wait and watch for your reassuring signs until the day you are ready to reveal yourself.  And I am the luckiest of them all...to hold you deep inside like a sweet little secret.  As I sleep and as I rise you are with me.  Before you are tangible to anyone else, you have taken on life becoming one with my breath and closer to my heart than anyone else could ever be.

(see picture at https://www.pinterest.com/pin/98938523040805159/)

Releasing Max

On March 29, 2015, my boss and good friend, Max, passed away suddenly.  It left a hole in my day to day that is hard to explain or to really grasp.  I struggle that my words can't quite capture his life or this loss but if Max taught me anything it's never to give in to giving up.  Just over a month of coming to grips with this loss, I pay tribute to an unforgettable human being:

Silence can be deafening.  When it's not expected...not welcomed.  When my chance for a farewell passed me by...I didn't know this goodbye would be into the deep eternity of forever. 

Each passing day I sit guarding your remnants.  I sit outside the space you filled with your laugh and your jokes, with your brilliant ideas and your boisterous spirit.  Where you'd call my name and challenge my mind and teach me.  I see remnants of your fingerprints...the patch of carpet which tells the tale of clumsy hands spilling coffee, the messy piles of paperwork that you would get to tomorrow, and the last place you laid your pen to rest.  But tomorrow has come and gone and the dust is settling...covering over, like a blanket of dignity to that which was lost.  I run my finger over the dust in hopes to relive one last moment...to hear one last word.

You lived  abundantly and you loved relentlessly.  You believed in second (and third) chances. You never let a setback set your pace.  You always fought the good fight, even at your weakest...never afraid to show your humanity.  How honoured I am to be let in to those small and private moments.   You lived life fully awake, looking for where you could give a piece of yourself.  You left your mark...inside the doors of your everyday and inside the hearts of everyone.

I'm grateful for the time that's passed...for the memories of witty banter and brotherly advice.  I've known for some time that this blessing of moments and space was not forever young...that the expiry would meet us. But that I must be grateful for God's gracious hand to give me this small glimpse of time with one of the unforgettables.

But today the silence rings loud...it tells of what's been lost and what will forever be missing in this life.  A life lived too short, but lived so well.  My boss, my teacher, my friend. 

Unforgettable Max.

(see picture at https://www.pinterest.com/pin/98938523040784394/)

He Chose (The Ultimate Christmas Love Story)

He came in flesh, bone and tendon. Gasping His first breath as tiny hands unfurled and the wetness of birth was wiped from His tender skin. He came vulnerable to set the stage of His life.
He didn't have to. He chose to. God chose to stoop down from on high...to multiply from cells in the secret place, to emerge from labour pains, to cloak Himself in flesh, sit cross-legged among men in the dusty streets, to look eye-to-eye with the vulnerable ones. He chose to love the unlovely, to strengthen the not-so-strong, to heal the castaways... and He chose to live and die, bruised and torn, among the vulnerable...so we could see Him, know Him, choose Him as our own. And His death and resurrection would mark His ultimate choosing of you and me, tearing of the flesh He was born into for the ultimate tearing of the veil that no longer separated us from the Holy of Holies. Inviting us in with full access. Preparing the way to a life beyond the vulnerable. Rolling the carpet into His throneroom where my cloak of common-place is exchanged for His robe of righteousness. My vulnerability is exchanged for His spirit, His heart, His freedom, His fullness of joy, His gift of life everlasting. As I trace my fingers over the bruises and scars of my life, He invites me to also trace His...calloused feet, bruised side, lacerated temple, nail pierced hands. I trace over them all until I find myself lingering and pulled in by the heart of it all. The thrumming of His love found in the warmth of His heart...just for me. I fail and fall. He sees and saves. He meets me in the dust...in flesh and bone...in the darkness of night...in the humanness of birth...in the hay of a rugged barn. He meets me there in the knowing. He fills the empty spaces with more than enough. He heals my wounds with understanding...because He bares them with me. His coming, God incarnate, tethers me to this love story where I've been sought...where I've been bought...at a price. The Christmas babe coos in the night; calling my name; drawing my heart. Beginning this love story where His choosing of flesh is the ultimate choosing of me. His birth in lowly places lifts me to the heights of the heavenly realm. Because He chose.

(see picture at http://www.pinterest.com/pin/98938523039964420/)

Releasing Simplicity

A simplifying.  A yearly search for less...because deep in the soul less fills with a fullness more so than anything of worldly abundance ever could.

Less of my own wants; a giving away of myself.  A simplifying...focusing on the things that will last beyond the expiry of the eggnog in the fridge. A spilling out of the overflow of what has already been poured into me.  My spirit longs and aches to really get this and live it out.

But try as I might, every year I miss the mark...miss the point.  The whirlwind of the season...the focus on things carnal...not meaning to, but getting sucked into the empty vortex of never enough.  Wanting to make this holiday better than the last.  In a desperate effort to fill the emptiness...the darkness...the longing, I stuff my world with twinkling lights and shiny bright paper and bows containing as much profound meaning as this fast and furious commercial season. When it's all said and done, both my bank account and my spirit are depleted.

I love Christmas...I always have.  At the core of it I have always felt surrounded by a sense of hope and the excitement of celebration.  As a kid it was magical.   But the years can dull the shininess of the childhood filter.  The promises of the season are of finding that peace that is unfamiliar to most of us.  That sense of looking beyond yourself and finding fulfillment in doing so.  And that's the quest I find myself on year after year. Where exactly is that pocket I can rest in and be filled to brimming over with meaning...with comfort and joy...where all is calm and all is bright?  There are glimpses of it here and there but never enough to sustain.

In an effort to simplify, I look for the perfect equation with set perimeters to determine where an infilling might come from...but my Creator's order and His divine instruction is never as complicated as I make it out to be.  That in the searching for a filling up I need look no further than being right here...in His presence.  I need not tirelessly get my hands entangled in hanging more tinsel, kneading more doughy sweets or tying more ribbons on treasures under my tree.  Attempting to surround my world with more will not dull the ache.  Those are the distractions that have held me back in years past.  Even if my intentions were of good-will-toward-men, without resting in His presence I would never find what my soul truly searched for.  Even in the giving of myself, without His filling I am giving from a place of emptiness...and you cannot give what you do not have.  To be known, loved, filled...with fullness of joy.  Because in His presence is where the secrets are revealed, unfolded...unwrapped.  With that childlike filter...ripping and tearing away the paper with sheer excitement to reveal the prize inside.  A prize that will change everything.  A prize with eternal relevance and worth...of hope, peace, joy and love...and it fills me to fullness and the overflow multiplies the gift so I can give it away effortlessly. I'm undone to know the truth He pours out and to be filled with all of it to the fullest.  Who knew that the search for less would fill me with more than I can contain...more than I know what to do with but to give it away.

The Christmas babe came for Love's sake.  He pursues me with this Love...beyond words...beyond my limited understanding.  As I seek His presence this season, I'm pulled deeper into the gifts He's waiting to give...with complete fullness.  

In his presence is fullness of joy.

~Psalm 16:11

(see pictures at http://www.pinterest.com/pin/98938523039933126/  http://www.pinterest.com/pin/98938523039933123/)

Releasing Peace in Knowing

He is near...closer than my thrumming pulse. Even when my weak flesh of unbelief rises up, the truth will always remain the same. But today I am blessed with the peace in KNOWING.  There is nothing sweeter.  Perhaps it's the fruit of times spent pressing-in when doubt had risen up and rested...nagging away. It's easier to just up and leave when the pressure is on, but there is blessing in sticking it out.  

Blessing for those that mourn, those poor in spirit, those uncompromising a pure heart...for they shall see God! (Matthew 5:3-12)  Blessing comes when He shines light on something  that my eyes have failed to see. When my mind has been opened to a new perspective, and the cobwebs of the past have been blown clean through.  A revelation of the heart to move me into a new chapter and new dimensions with the King.  Because when you clear the way, there is room for the new to begin. 

I hear his whisper and I feel His protection.  He has opened my eyes in a vision to where I've been placed: I see 4 walls enclosed by a roof and a floor, all made of glass - bullet proof, fire proof, disaster proof glass.  The air is filled with peace and the soft gentle lullaby of His countless loving thoughts about me.  They flow like a gentle river, never ending, filling me up.  I know I'm in a Panic Room of sorts where the panic was checked at the door - but I'm more than safe here...I'm confident in this place of refuge.   Sometimes I can see the war waging around me and can hear it clawing at the deadbolt, picking at the lock, but contrary to my usual knee-jerk reaction to such threats I am resting and covered with His peace and promise that no weapon formed against me shall prosper (Isaiah 54:17).  He's revealing tidbits about the circumstances around me...not because He wants me to solve the mysteries but because He knows that truth can calm the confusion, bind the lies and loosen the strongholds...when I'm ready to receive them.  I watch and I listen and I rest.  

I sense that this KNOWING is more than a gift...it's a way of life.  It's a continual outpouring to douse myself in moment by moment. Open my mind to the KNOWING, instead of living the close-mindedness of offence, anxiousness or unrest. It's a place to not only press-into with force and what little strength I can muster, but as I rest, I release.  In the same way that I press-in with force, as I give in to rest my whole weight gives way - pressing-in.  Minus the fierce fight and the hot mess.  He never asked me to come with my fists up.  Rest and release. Moving me to deeper revelation...deeper restoration...deeper relation...with Him.  Because relationship is the beginning and the end of this story...all He wants is YOU.

(see picture at http://www.pinterest.com/pin/98938523039520786/)

Releasing a New Catalyst

The life-long journey to happiness...

this tightrope walk has been quite the balancing act and at times seemingly impossible.  

To keep things in perfect balance so that my boat is never rocked. To place things in perfect, uninterrupted order. To work hard and make good choices with this underlying layer of a need to be showered with praise that in turn will fill up some insecure emptiness that dwells deep within. Somewhere along the line I decided that the approval of others and the high of a job well done was all that was worth living for and became the goal of my existence. The catalyst of my happiness. But when the heat turns up, the pressure presses in, and my humanness is in full effect...when I'm making mistakes and my equilibrium is lost where am I left? It's too easy to fail and to fall and to let emotions bump and bruise the tender flesh of my ego. The darkness begins to set in around me as I scramble to fix myself...to do better...to be better. But in spite of all my best intentions I'm forced to admit the hard truth...that I can't. The unraveling, the undoing in the secret place of my tightly wound self is the only place truth can begin. It's not in the striving or the threatening choke-hold of my will, although that is, admittedly, how I deal with my shortcomings. It's in surrendering. But surrendering is not a passive action...it's not weak...it's not a grovelling tail-between-my-legs thing...it's not the end. Maybe it's actually the moving from living within set parameters dictated by a broken world to living beyond human abilities. Into the realm of impossible...humanly impossible...unchartered waters where few have dared to set sail. Surrendering to a God who promises to be everything that I am not. Strength in weakness, beauty in ashes, righteousness in sin. No matter my failures the river of acceptance and approval, the fountain of joy and true contentment forever flows and my cup runneth over! But I must choose to surrender to the current and stop trying to swim up-stream. The happiness and joy I seek is not in striving against the current where I always seem to be pulled under by the tow...it's in the refreshing of the new streams found down the course. In the waters I don't know how to navigate yet. In the twists and turns I can't see, let alone can map out and plan for. Maybe there is a life and purpose to be unlocked in those twists and turns, if only I'll stop resisting them.
Along with surrender follows a similar vein in the heartbeat of happiness. And it beats to the rhythm of a familiar pulse. A familiar sound...the sound of my own voice. My heart and my mouth, though physically separate, are one in spirit. What is my mouth telling my heart? Life and death rest at the tip of my tongue...which am I choosing to release? Which am I allowing to move me along? Set that firm foundation of joy on that bedrock of life. Be silent when death tries to rise up...don't let it wreak havoc even if it tastes sweet. Instead open your mouth wide, and raise your voice with the song of life!

And if this life-song is not a part of your familiar repertoire, if you don't know the tune let alone the lyrics there's only one place to start...be still. Still in the presence of the One who longs to lavish you with a fierce and unrelenting love. Letting your heart pick up on the new vibration. And find lasting and true joy through a different catalyst. Trade the fickle crowd for the One who is sold-out in love with you...who has only ever thought beautiful and lasting thoughts of you. Ask Holy Spirit to teach you the song of life...to play you the love song of your life. Listen closely cause this one was written just for you. It's playing in your key...it was written specifically with you in mind. And as you, by faith, begin to sing it out you will find the notes not only bring the joy your crave, but in the deep and unfamiliar waters, it saves the life you live.





(see pictures at http://www.pinterest.com/pin/98938523039473959/ http://www.pinterest.com/pin/98938523039473963/)