when it's fading...

he stops the van and opens the doors in the shade of those trees that stand tall in the heat of the afternoon and i lean my head back as the bedlam pours outside into the quiet of the space around us.

he looks at me with a question in his eyes and a hand outstretched and i pause for a moment before putting my feet on the ground.


he knows me - stopping here shows this.


i watch the girls run and elias try to keep up while falling down on the soft grass.  i listen to them call out for us to read names to them - to give word to the ones who used to be here but are now long forgotten.

the lack of flowers shows this.

words like pioneer and gettysburg and lynchburg and other places where great wars were fought and dates like 1881 etched in stone grounds me somehow.  as though this new life growing inside of me and life long gone underneath my feet reminds me of how small i am and how unfathomable He is.


he brings me to a cemetery in the midst of a period of waiting and i can breathe deeply again.


his dad, reduced to ash and scattered over an ocean and on the top of a mountain, and there is no place to go and lay down flowers...i've been longing for this lately.  for some place to go.

instead, we walk through stone faded by sun and rain...dates that are worn down and barely discernible and i read aloud names i don't recognize and wonder when the last time someone knelt down beside their final resting place and truly remembered who they were.


we give them their final warning...the oldest and youngest get 5 mintues, olivia gets 4. but really, they all get 5 mintues, liv is just convinced that 4 is the best number in the world and with a longer time frame than any other number we can call out.

and it's as we turn left that i notice that tree and we walk towards it and i say to him that something looks funny, out of place and we come closer when i see,

and i stop, can't really move. not because i recognize the name;  the tree has already begun to swallow it up. i stop because i recognize something and i'm not sure what. and so i wait.

the last date, the only date that i can read, is 1912.  100 years ago this man was mourned and could this tree have been planted then?  i wonder who loved him and who came faithfully to lay down bits of colour to as a tribute to loss?

did they see the trunk grow closer, the bark open up and start to grow around?



it's not until later, when the three are finally quiet and tony is sleeping beside me that i realized what i had recognized in the cool of the tree that was swallowing up a memory.


you, me? we are all dead men and women walking, sin is eating us alive and because of how it is woven in and around our very dna, we don't always see how it is slowly killing us.

but Jesus.

and here is what my soul responded to...

His death on that tree conquered the sin that was destroying me - the moment i whispered those words that i believed that He was the Son of God, i became His.


and those words i have heard over and over throughout my life took on a whole new meaning when i stood there at the grave of a man i didn't know,

for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

colossians 3:3

someday, when my body has been laid beneath the ground and i am standing fully alive in the presence of my Savior, my life that was hidden in Him will no longer show any markings of the sin that died when i trusted in Him.

someday, it will all be swallowed up and i will be whole and complete

with Him.

what to expect...

He spoke it in the quiet of the new year.  that promise of a new thing;

of a way in the wilderness and rivers in a desert.


i thought He was referencing my circumstances.

i should have known He was looking at my heart.

and it came after those 10 long months of wondering,

those 2 months of deciding it was all done,

finished,

complete.


it came in the form of that unexpected extra pink line and i sat down,

hushed,

overwhelmed,

and a tiny bit scared.


because that day had been filled with all of my failures as a mother,

frustrations and impatience coming to a head and they saw the worst of me, those 3 that want to be so close,

and that smallest one, the one whose body is deep within but whose presence i can't feel except for the green tinged moments and the overwhelming cravings for salt,

and i don't want to mess them up.

all week i've been carrying the burden of that recording playing over and over and over,

you're a failure. you're a failure as a mama. 

over and over it played until He stopped it in the dark of last night.


i walked out of the sanctuary of our church and straight into moments only He could have orchestrated ~ five women who reached out and spoke life and hope into a heart that felt as dry and wasted as it has ever felt.  and in those words, as the tears started falling and the hope started filling, i felt it ~ i felt those rivers start rushing into the places parched and dying.


when we love Him,we carry Life within us, whether we are mothers or not.  we carry the ability to speak Life into the heart of another and who knows if that is the moment that the river is released, if that new thing sparks into being.



this mother's day holds more than i expected or dreamed,

but it is filled with Life, no matter how small.

and no matter how tiny,

hope is dancing in the dark...

happy mother's day...

in the morning...

it's in the early hours that she crawls in under the covers and presses her warm little body up next to me.

i often wake up pressed on both sides by two sleepy bodies wrestling this third one for a space in this bed and i lay there fighting to breathe but not daring to move because i don't want to wake either one up.

(though, i suspect, with his body half on and half off his edge of the mattress, that husband of mine isn't sleeping too well either.)

and while i feel the darkness and heat and lack of personal space press in, olivia sleeps on in peace...she's found what she was missing and slumber comes easy.

either the darkness presses in and we find hope fading, or we press in close to Jesus and find ourselves wrapped up in peace.


i thought of this as the sun flickered across my eyes in the early morning hours and she still slept.


two of my youngest robbed me of my sleep in those late and early hours as i laboured through the night.  those pangs that started slow and easy, ones that i could breathe through and nap through suddenly raged and it was all i could do to barely catch onto my next breath.

i remember the sunrises of both of those mornings - as a new day emerged and i held new life in my arms.  there was relief from those dark hours that i thought would kill me.


this morning's sunrise was no different as her sleepy breath brushed across my cheek.


i think, sometimes, He lets the darkness press in close...

allows it to build in intensity in order to break through the complacency that can so easily hold us rapt until the need to fill our lungs with oxygen forces us to push back and cry out for Him.


worst-case scenarios and all those what-ifs can make a mind spin all crazy.  can oh-so-subtly take eyes trained on Jesus and turn them inward.

and without Him, there's nothing good to focus on in these inward parts.


and it's only Jesus Who can bring relief to a soul dragged through a season, no matter how small, meant to birth new life in her.


it's in the middle of all the questioning and wondering and all the circles my mind would go, spiraling lower and lower until my worry had taken on a frenzied dance of its own...it's when His Truth - the very first one i had ever planted deep - began to whisper Its way in and around and through the lies that were screaming loud and i heard Him:

trust in the Lord 

with all your heart

and lean not

on your own understanding.

proverbs 3:5

fourteen sunrises have blazed by that window by my bed...thirteen of them have seemed glaringly cruel, even on the most rainy of days.

this morning, though, with her sturdy little body nestled against my own, her eyelids closed over those chocolate depths i find mesmerizing, i felt the weary relief of new life wrestled and birthed...

and hope.

because always, always, always, our days and the moments that fill them and the worries and joys that seep into those spaces - they are all about Jesus.

without Him as the One my eyes, my heart, my soul anchors to, i'm so easily distracted, tossed about by every thought and whim.

but that second Truth i planted deep when i was still so small, before the innocence i can't remember was taken away?

it stakes His claim on my life He's never let go of and my heart is a bell that Unrelenting Love rings loud...

in all your ways

acknowledge Him

and He will make your paths straight.

proverbs 3:6

on a night i don't care for jonah...

we are going through band-aids like they are going out of style.

it doesn't seem to matter that the temperature has dipped and spring has decided to act like herself ~ those three not-so-little-anymore-little-ones of mine want to be outside in the sun and the fresh air and fall down and brush off and bleed a little all over everything.

and i sit on that little patch of grass and i watch them - remembering those days of riding up and down, up and down, up and down that far away sidewalk, imagining all the things i could do or be on that hot pink bike of my very own.

they race each other on scooters and tricycle to that fire hydrant and back and they either all win, or all lose...or they all start the race at different times.

doesn't seem to matter though, because to them,

they are soaring.


until feet slip out from underneath because a sweet mind is far away in the clouds and earth pulls them back hard on scratchy cement and blood seeping out of skin reminds them of how fragile they really are.


there are moments that i wait,

stay curled up on that quilt...


because sometimes the falling is slow and kind and the sound that reaches my ears is laughter and my mama eyes trained on them get a thumbs-up from the fallen one 10 feet away.


but there are times that they run to me,

blood dripping as quickly as their tears,

and they collapse into my arms because it's not just a band-aid they need,

they need my heart.

he and i?

we laid down on the floor this evening,

him on his stomach with that bible laid out underneath his face.

me, all sprawled out on my back watching that fan turn around and around, listening to his voice read out the story of jonah.


i decided fairly quickly that i didn't quite care for the reluctant prophet.

not because of his foot-dragging ability,

but because tonight, his story, his attitude looked a little too much like my own.

i wanted that fan to break free of that ceiling and take me somewhere far away from the Word that was piercing so deep.


how very much like jonah.


and how very much like God.

a God who can use the putrid belly of a whale, or the withering of a shade-producing vine to speak into the heart of His runaway, grumpy servant...

a God who can use this same prophet to speak words into the heart of a city and cause them to repent and follow Him...

a God Who can use that same story of second chances and grace and mercy towards the deserving and the undeserving and remind this heart that He did the same for me when i was the most undeserving of all.


He is the God Who sees me when i've fallen and i can't clean up the mess,

He is the God Who holds out His arms and lets me fly into them when the hurt is too great.

because, really, none of us is deserving of the grace and love He longs to so lavishly pour out on us all.   jonah, in all his pride, didn't realize how desperately similar he was to those ninevites he wanted God to destroy.

but God, because He is God, longed for all of them, jonah included, to turn and be found lost and captured in His Love.


they teach me that, in the midst of tumble-down days and scratched up knees and band-aids that seem to cover every square inch of tender, exposed skin...they teach me that a wound is nothing to be ashamed of,


but it is something to run with, blood dripping down and tears streaming free, straight into Arms wide and open to be found held close in His Love.

3 gifts woven together
1460. that scarf i keep ripping out
1461.those 4 who were knit together in my dark
1462. the way He's joined our marriage together

3 gifts inherited
1463. i am qualified to share in the inheritance of His holy people (colossians 1:12)
1464. gramma's bible
1465. her simple wedding band

3 gifts square
1466. that picture from the ocean
1467.their 3 faces captured and displayed
1468. thin slices of pepper-jack cheese

a gift stacked, stashed, stilled
1469. those school books finished for the day
1470.the hurried rush of laundry
1471. everyone sleeping (but me)

3 gifts close
1472. those clean sheets
1473.us five in these four walls
1474. words across the miles

3 gifts found in Christ
1475. i am reconciled by Christ's physical body...
1476. through His death...
1477. and i am presented holy in His sight, without blemish and free from accusation. (colossians 1:22)

3 gifts reflecting
1478. the way we see his papa in elias' smile.
1479. the haircut i'm trying to like
1480. them all captured in my camera

3 gifts fragile
1481. feelings
1482. memories
1483. vulnerable hearts

a gift cloth, steel, wood
1484. that new dress
1485. that old van
1486. that beat up piano

3 gifts moving
1487. lyla
1488. olivia
1489. elias

3 gifts "ugly beautiful"
1490. saying "yes" to the hard
1491. surrendering to the unknown of His Known
1492. holding a grieving child

3 gifts orange
1493. that early morning sunrise
1494. my favorite jam
1495. the tired, sleepy sun - a full circle of a day

3 gifts in dirt
1496. those pansies growing strong
1497. pumpkin seeds changing
1498. their early morning breakfast - all those birds on our lawn

a gift given, made, sacrificed
1499. his love
1500. those cupcakes
1501. His Life

when it's dark you can hear it...

the house was silent and everyone sleeping, except me and this keyboard sitting on top of my lap.  the tapping of keys pressed down rings out loud and i'm sure someone, someone small, will awaken to all the quiet noise echoing out in that 1AM dark. but they sleep - all three of them and that man beside me.

they breathe deeply of the cool night air from a window cracked open and it's a quiet i don't want to let go of.

because when something changes, turns, shifts or breaks, the slightest movement only seems to emphasize the shock.

i wasn't ready.


so i sat typing words in the quiet of the dark.

there is comfort there in the repetition of verses where only the fingers dance while a soul fights to still.


because it's on the grass outside that school where she finally broke down.

where she screamed low and guttural and all the pain and hope and anguish and dreams collided into one another when she realized,

we weren't going back.

that here really did mean home and roots and there was a chapter closed.

i think she thought, when that offer was put on that house clear across town that those four yellow walls complete with that white trim that used to bear the name home would actually be ours again.

the air was crisp that night too - and her face was flushed with grief.


and each night since then, sleep has been hard to come by.

and i sit up, after each one is finally breathing slow and soft and listen to the silence that only the dark can bring.

until two nights ago.

frogs, crickets, even those dogs all howling like crazy - they were quiet and the air seemed heavy with silence only broken by the soft click of my lamp being turned off for the night.

cocooned in my blankets i waited for sleep when i heard it soft and sweet.

starting out as though timid, the notes were stilted and slow until she picked up a tune, a rhythm, and that lonely bird warbled out a  lullaby wrapped up in the black of a midnight sky.

He wasn't lost on me, in that moment small yet holy ~ 

everything else can give way: the comfort, the light, the hope we cling to so tightly.  it can vanish in the blink of an eye and we are left stunned.  shocked.  unable to really even think.

He says that we are the light of the world, a city on a hill that cannot be hidden - that in the darkest moments we are to shine most brightly for Him because He, The Very Light of this World we find ourselves in, dwells in our very own darkness that He has redeemed.

the darkness, though heavy and confusing is the most beautiful contrast to the Life giving Light that He is because He cannot be hidden, regardless of the circumstances.  There is hope - always there is hope - our eyes just need to be opened to see.


and this i am learning, that the ones that can move my heart the most and lift my eyes to Jesus, are the notes that hover suspended in the pitch of the night.

so sing, even if what comes out of your mouth is broken, bathed in tears and cracking with pain.


He hears it - that love song of the brokenhearted that refuse to let go of His Hand.

the making of a home, a family...

they came back this spring, as slowly as this season appeared.

one by one they began buzzing circles around small bodies and little ones would cry and i watched those wasps to see where they would go...

and they returned.

they returned to that crack in the eave of the garage...just below the peak i watched them hover around that opening.

the one that opens up into a nest so large it cracked the beams of the joists in the framing of the roof.

the exterminator had been called last fall,

he had sprayed them all dead,

and now it's all buzzing with life again.


they are a nuisance.

they are aggressive.

but they are making a home.


and maybe it's because we are waiting for that closing date, waiting to unfold boxes and fill them up full.  pack up that moving van one last time, put down roots, claim our space and make a home.

maybe it's for a million reasons that i feel slightly lost in the middle.


for all those months before we left what was, i begged Him to let us put down roots there. begged Him to change the course that seemed to be heading in only one direction and when i finally surrendered, submitted to His will, i began to ask if He would allow us to put down roots somewhere else...

and i find myself trying to reconcile the loss of one dream and the realization of another while at the same time trying to figure out where home for us is...


it hits me, as i drive in the heat of summer that has decided to arrive in april - hits me that his home and mine are no longer ours to go to...home is where we will make it, where we will choose to dig deep and grow them all up...and it ached, that thought; as families travel towards each other, plans realized and memories made and lyla sobs before bedtime prayers and i feel helpless because it all fell apart before she turned 5 and i am her mother and aren't mamas supposed to fix everything and make it all better?

where are those wounds that can be eased with a kiss?


but it's in the middle of all that chaos that has graced our home for the last 3 days, chaos of 7 children 6 years old and under.  as we open that door and welcome them in - the friend that stood beside him at our wedding 10 years ago, the friend who was his best friend before me and willingly gave up that place.  his amazing wife who has become more than his wife, but a sister to me and an aunty to my three...

and when the air here becomes a little too noisy and we all pile in and drive across town and spill out into a yard of the house that has become a home all because of the one who cares for us like a father would,

this home that has become a place to land...

it's there, when i can barely hear myself think that i hear it,

i hear the sound of family.

it doesn't look like the landscape of what we left behind at all,

barely recognizable, i can understand why i would feel lost at times...

because this?  it isn't what i had planned out for my life.


could that be the point?


my life isn't my own - it's His, fully.  completely.

and it's His journey i'm following,

what i see as detours, He sees as part of His perfect plan for my life He established since before the foundation of the world was set in place.

and this journey is just that - a moving forward towards where my real Home will be.

it's a moving towards Jesus.


that house with the closing dates and the mortgage payments and the lawn to mow?  it's a place to rest until i'm done here...i can't lose sight of that, because that is what will keep a restless heart settled.  we are always moving towards something - so let me be moving towards Him.


11 years ago today, he got down on one knee and asked me to be his wife. me - the canadian girl used to the wide and open of the prairies, and there, with him, surrounded by the mountains of idaho with snow still on the ground and us all still intact ~

i looked into his eyes and said yes.


i didn't know what He had mapped out,

i didn't know how how deeply entwined joy and pain would become.


but i did know that i would love him until i drew my last breath and follow him anywhere

and He led us both to here.


here where the air is hot in april,

here where i feel lost and found,


here where He provides the family,

and here where we are finally home.

when they fly...

unexpected, it is placed in the dark and the quiet of that space and it sits there.

and it waits.


and i don't even know it's there.


like them, all three of them.

unexpected.

placed and knit together by the Hand of God deep within me,

they waited in my dark...


and now they fly.

He gives them for just a few short years,

years that feel long and never ending.

years that hold days and hours and minutes that feel stretched long,

when really,

they fly.



i sense it,

i do.

on days where i sit on the grass out front of our door,

chat with a friend while all the children whir by;

while the sun leaves it's red mark on this skin,

i sense the quickness as their independence grows and my breath is caught in the dizzying speed of time.


and it's that small little package ~

the one he hands me as i sit in the van,

as he waits as i tear into the dark

and light comes flooding in.


and i hold it up and let it spin in the sun and i wear the truth of us around my neck.


time will move.

and they will move on.


someday,

someday soon,

my walls will be clean.

my floors, uncluttered.

the air around me, quiet.


but wrapped up in the love of their mama,

they can always,

always

find home.


so the gift, from the sweetest of friends from far away,

made by talented hands of a sister's friend,

placed in that mailbox halfway down the street...

it slowed the pace for a moment or two,

and i held it,

and it graced me...


all that beauty in this time that is spinning away.