The mind is full of activity, like many birds flitting about on the limbs of our conscience. Darting in and out of view continually. Busy, purposeful, swarming in V’s across the cobalt blue sky. Gathering around the sprinkled seed. May they gather around the good seed. Fly off to their awaiting branches, dropping seed amongst rich soil, to sow love, joy and peace.
Choose
God says: Be Still. Know. That He is. He is God.
He will be lifted high, as we rest in the knowledge.
He is exalted as we revel in His peace
We trust and rely fully upon His faithfulness
As He does the heavy laboring
Our souls unwind in repose upon His breast
Each fluttering unrest unburdened, free
We are liberated as his hands untangle the chains
Rusted shackles, thorny roots dug out, exposed
Bathed richly in the luminescent glow
Of his pure, golden light
He places wings of glory upon our shoulders
To set us on the heights
Where once we drug our weary bodies along
Like crabs with heavy shells
Dusty, stone-laden paths before us, stumbling
We now are able to soar above
Looking down, we see how tiny each one was
Each cave we blindly entered
Each trap we fell into
Each boulder we climbed over
Each obstacle we toiled in
Each labyrinth we cycled round and round within
Made clear like green fields in an airplane’s view
People roam like tiny insects down below
We were once like them
But now we fly, overhead
Our wings expanded like that of an eagle’s
And we now know
We could fly all along
If only we chose to
So we choose to
No more clipping of the plumes
No more cowering in the supposed safety
Of our entangling nests and webs
Pushed out from the perilous aerie
Seemingly to our death-fall
Reminded, finally, that we can fly
We have wings.
Annie
Today, choose your thoughts wisely. Fix your lovely minds on things that pour life into the recesses of your minds. Be refreshed in knowing that you are uniquely made and placed in the exact spot you can brighten and thrive in, causing a domino-effect of goodness to all of the people placed around you. Be love. Be kind. When you feel irritated or angry, take a breath and choose your reaction. When you fail, as we all fail, gather yourself back up and begin again, steeping yourself in grace. When you catch your reflection in the mirror, rather than leaning in closer to peer at the flaws, take a step back and see the beauty, the good features, and laugh at yourself. Be the first to apologize in an argument. Smile at people, spreading joy to the world. It’s the little things that make a difference. Most of all, just be you. You are so wonderful, and there is none exactly like you. Choose life.
Sunday, February 25, 2018
Wednesday, February 21, 2018
Slide or Soar
My husband is a musician. I am a homemaker. I could put many other words here, technically, and sound more cool, but I am merely that. And that is a lot. I am the one who cleans our sweet barn home top to bottom and keeps it tidy, looking pretty, and smelling nice. I cook most of the meals, and do some of the many dishes that accumulate daily. (My husband is like the dish man-he’s amazing. I do dishes but the guy is vigilant in the kitchen. It’s wonderful.)
I make sure bathrooms are presentable and that there’s no pee on the seats. Yes, with boys this is unavoidable sometimes-shrug, GROSS, move on.
I’m the one who teaches our two children their subjects, helping them with math problems, language, spelling tests, writing, grammar, history and whatever else that comes up, on the three days of the week that they don’t attend a charter school. I garden occasionally outside, watering plants and getting my hands dirty, which I love. I research healthy yet delicious meals and go to the grocery store and play the chef with ingredients that I hope will be satisfactory to every member of my family as well as my own taste buds. I wipe tears from sweet faces and I bandage wounds from playing hard outside, and console with words and prayers. I also sometimes scold when need be, which is not often, and send kids to their own rooms to have their own thoughts so that they can work out angers or frustrations. I bring towels to steamed-up bathrooms after showers when children forget to put one within reach. And when everyone is tucked in for the night, I finally read my own books and play my little word games and write my thoughts down if I have the energy to keep my eyes open at that point. It is a humble life. I love it.
I have felt the pressure many, many times whether from others or because of society’s views on the stay at home Mom, or even my own insecurities or need to help earn money for our family in a very expensive world, to get a “real job.” A paying occupation. I have worked throughout my time as well, cleaning houses to help supply financially, working in an office, and other odds and ends of these sorts of things. I am not against it or above it. I respect working mothers and women so very much, I can’t even describe in words my esteem for my friends who are both heroes in the workplace and tender, present mother. They are an amazing force.
We live paycheck to fluctuating paycheck. When you’re self-employed it is unpredictable. Often. Because of this, though, I’ve been able to see many miracles and we’ve been provided for supernaturally multiple times from the most unusual sources. It is not the life for everyone, it is hard to let go and not stress out some months.When work outside of the home is necessary, I roll up my sleeves and do it. This is good. But Chris and I feel rich, even when we don’t always know where next months rent will come from which is currently the case. We are so happy in our humble life. We have to depend upon a God we’ve come to trust and rely on in many times of crisis- where God was faithful. Where things should have fallen apart and were instead worked out in ways we could not have anticipated.
The word for this season in our lives has been: Trust. Be still. Be thankful.
A couple of things I have clung to that were given to us through people many years ago are:
“The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places, Yes, I have a good inheritance. Psalm 16:6
And: “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.” Psalm 37:4
Today I awoke with thoughts of wings. God bestowing us with wings, and telling us we can soar on the heights.
Last night our precious 13-year old daughter prayed for us, and one of her prayers was that we would be lifted out of the fog and into the light where we can see truth more clearly. Then today, I read this:
I was at one time spending a winter in London, and during three long months we did not once see any genuine sunshine because of the dense clouds of smoke that hung over the city like a pall. But many a time I saw that above the smoke the sun was shining, and once or twice through a rift I had a glimpse of a bird, with sunshine on its wings, sailing above the fog in the clear blue of the sunlit sky. Not all the brushes in London can sweep away the fog; but could we only mount high enough we should reach a region above it all.
And this is what the soul on wings does. It overcomes the world through faith. To overcome means to “come over,” not to be crushed under; and the soul on wings flies over the world and the things of it. These lose their power to hold or bind the spirit that can “come over” them on wings of Surrender and Trust. That spirit is made in very truth “more than conqueror.”
~ Hannah Whitall Smith (Quaker, rebel, realist, poet, believer, writer)
I once had a dream that I was climbing up this strange roller coaster-type waterslide with many twists and very high plateaus and dead ends. I arrived at a place where I looked down and saw a very twisty, scary looking slide that I was supposed to go down, and I stood there, terrified. I turned back to go back the way I’d come, and it had vanished, leaving the one choice, to slide down, but then I was presented with another: giant wings that I could put on and soar with into the expanse before me. I chose the wings. I clipped them onto my arms and dove off into the air, soaring over tiny towns and miniature people and cars moving around down below. I awoke with such a feeling of exaltation. I want to fly, if given the choice.
Anyways, I don’t really know what that has to do with my first part of what I wrote, other than just keeping hope alive and “mounting up on wings like eagles” even in a life that sometimes feels mundane and quite ordinary. We were made to fly.
I make sure bathrooms are presentable and that there’s no pee on the seats. Yes, with boys this is unavoidable sometimes-shrug, GROSS, move on.
I’m the one who teaches our two children their subjects, helping them with math problems, language, spelling tests, writing, grammar, history and whatever else that comes up, on the three days of the week that they don’t attend a charter school. I garden occasionally outside, watering plants and getting my hands dirty, which I love. I research healthy yet delicious meals and go to the grocery store and play the chef with ingredients that I hope will be satisfactory to every member of my family as well as my own taste buds. I wipe tears from sweet faces and I bandage wounds from playing hard outside, and console with words and prayers. I also sometimes scold when need be, which is not often, and send kids to their own rooms to have their own thoughts so that they can work out angers or frustrations. I bring towels to steamed-up bathrooms after showers when children forget to put one within reach. And when everyone is tucked in for the night, I finally read my own books and play my little word games and write my thoughts down if I have the energy to keep my eyes open at that point. It is a humble life. I love it.
I have felt the pressure many, many times whether from others or because of society’s views on the stay at home Mom, or even my own insecurities or need to help earn money for our family in a very expensive world, to get a “real job.” A paying occupation. I have worked throughout my time as well, cleaning houses to help supply financially, working in an office, and other odds and ends of these sorts of things. I am not against it or above it. I respect working mothers and women so very much, I can’t even describe in words my esteem for my friends who are both heroes in the workplace and tender, present mother. They are an amazing force.
We live paycheck to fluctuating paycheck. When you’re self-employed it is unpredictable. Often. Because of this, though, I’ve been able to see many miracles and we’ve been provided for supernaturally multiple times from the most unusual sources. It is not the life for everyone, it is hard to let go and not stress out some months.When work outside of the home is necessary, I roll up my sleeves and do it. This is good. But Chris and I feel rich, even when we don’t always know where next months rent will come from which is currently the case. We are so happy in our humble life. We have to depend upon a God we’ve come to trust and rely on in many times of crisis- where God was faithful. Where things should have fallen apart and were instead worked out in ways we could not have anticipated.
The word for this season in our lives has been: Trust. Be still. Be thankful.
A couple of things I have clung to that were given to us through people many years ago are:
“The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places, Yes, I have a good inheritance. Psalm 16:6
And: “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.” Psalm 37:4
Today I awoke with thoughts of wings. God bestowing us with wings, and telling us we can soar on the heights.
Last night our precious 13-year old daughter prayed for us, and one of her prayers was that we would be lifted out of the fog and into the light where we can see truth more clearly. Then today, I read this:
I was at one time spending a winter in London, and during three long months we did not once see any genuine sunshine because of the dense clouds of smoke that hung over the city like a pall. But many a time I saw that above the smoke the sun was shining, and once or twice through a rift I had a glimpse of a bird, with sunshine on its wings, sailing above the fog in the clear blue of the sunlit sky. Not all the brushes in London can sweep away the fog; but could we only mount high enough we should reach a region above it all.
And this is what the soul on wings does. It overcomes the world through faith. To overcome means to “come over,” not to be crushed under; and the soul on wings flies over the world and the things of it. These lose their power to hold or bind the spirit that can “come over” them on wings of Surrender and Trust. That spirit is made in very truth “more than conqueror.”
~ Hannah Whitall Smith (Quaker, rebel, realist, poet, believer, writer)
I once had a dream that I was climbing up this strange roller coaster-type waterslide with many twists and very high plateaus and dead ends. I arrived at a place where I looked down and saw a very twisty, scary looking slide that I was supposed to go down, and I stood there, terrified. I turned back to go back the way I’d come, and it had vanished, leaving the one choice, to slide down, but then I was presented with another: giant wings that I could put on and soar with into the expanse before me. I chose the wings. I clipped them onto my arms and dove off into the air, soaring over tiny towns and miniature people and cars moving around down below. I awoke with such a feeling of exaltation. I want to fly, if given the choice.
Anyways, I don’t really know what that has to do with my first part of what I wrote, other than just keeping hope alive and “mounting up on wings like eagles” even in a life that sometimes feels mundane and quite ordinary. We were made to fly.
Thursday, February 15, 2018
Fool for Love
to some, love looks foolish. Others envy what they assume love to be; they only see the sparkles in the eyes when gazes lock but not the struggle of holding on in dire times of desert hearts. Love IS FOOLISH~ we must become the fool, utterly abased at times to fully love. Love like Christ loves. Love that displays sacrifice is at times painful and does not always make us feel good.
It can be surgery, and surgery hurts. The surgery also heals. We lay our hearts splayed open for our lovers to examine and we let them have their way. Some play at love, others push up their sleeves and get their hands pulpy in the sometimes dirty labor of true love. This does not sound flowery so we turn our heads away and close our eyes to this unpleasant factor, favoring the romanticized view of love like the screen portrays: it is false. It is only a mere glimpse into a mirror of what love is supposed to look like in its fullness.. love can be ever so messy. Ever so complicated. Ever full of process and evolving humanity and getting down into the trenches and if you’re not willing to at times be the slave for your love then you may not be ready for it. Here’s a secret I’ve learned though: NO ONE IS EVER READY BEFORE THEY FALL IN LOVE.
Lovers are MADE. They are sculpted and formed by the very force of DOING and choosing and shattering into a zillion tiny pieces before your lover’s eyes, humiliated and thirsty and with all of your weaknesses exposed in their sight, letting them see you as you may be: a mess of emotions, raw insecurities and a big salty lake of tears then letting them wrap their arms around you in the warmest embrace you’ll ever feel because they’ve seen you true and real and still remained to press into LOVE. In that moment you feel that encompassing embrace is all you need. Those arms, holding, bracing, ANCHORING. In the dark of the night when nothing seems to make any sense at all, but you reach out and find that warm, loving hand that fits yours perfectly, it all seems okay. You can breathe in that moment and KNOW, you are loved.
When a lover has left, whether temporarily or jumped ship in the midst of the storm, that space they formed remains, like the imprint a footstep leaves in wet concrete or the concave your weight leaves in a plush couch cushion, and we feel the devastating depth of loss. It can feel like a death even if it’s not. That sting of betrayal or rejection, real or imagined, cuts us to our core.
We all want to be loved... but do we know what it means to really love and be loved? Do we count the cost? No matter, we plunge into love because it is the fabric of life. To love is to live. Or to die, right? Love kills so many things in us. It can be good death, or terrible loss of who we are. Love should free us to be who we truly are, not cage us and exterminate our souls. It should not imprison us but liberate us. Though we lose some things, that loss should not be the loss of our selves and our essence. It should hold us up to the flame and draw out the inner perfumes trapped so long therein. Love can burn, but ultimately it should bring out the beauty hidden, not cause us to cease to exist.
Redefined, remade, reconstructed but not forgotten in the shadows of another person’s dreams. Dreams should be shared and then amplified, not diminished.
When we are seen so intimately, so closely, with nude face exposed to the magnified gaze of a lover, it instinctively causes us to want to withdraw and flee. But when we STAY, and the eyes grow tender with empathy, which we hope will happen, this is where the truth begins. To know and be fully known. Oh my heart... if you find a soul who loves you like this, you’ve found the very meaning of life.
A little poem:
I’ve been a ball of wax melted into a puddle in your road
I’ve stood atop the glorious green hill with the anthem of jubilation on my lips
Because of you
But I’ve never loved completely until I saw my reflection in your eyes
The truth of who I am defined by your view of me
It’s not enough to say you complete me because that is selfishness
I was complete and so you were as well
Love is the joining force that crashes one whole soul into another and explodes into
A world of their own
Something spectacular out of nothing. Out of dust.
Mud-formed and luscious
Flesh upon flesh we meld
Yet remain our truest shape.
Your fire lit my flame and the forest illuminated with light
Nothing was burned, all was exposed.
Annie Chabot
It can be surgery, and surgery hurts. The surgery also heals. We lay our hearts splayed open for our lovers to examine and we let them have their way. Some play at love, others push up their sleeves and get their hands pulpy in the sometimes dirty labor of true love. This does not sound flowery so we turn our heads away and close our eyes to this unpleasant factor, favoring the romanticized view of love like the screen portrays: it is false. It is only a mere glimpse into a mirror of what love is supposed to look like in its fullness.. love can be ever so messy. Ever so complicated. Ever full of process and evolving humanity and getting down into the trenches and if you’re not willing to at times be the slave for your love then you may not be ready for it. Here’s a secret I’ve learned though: NO ONE IS EVER READY BEFORE THEY FALL IN LOVE.
Lovers are MADE. They are sculpted and formed by the very force of DOING and choosing and shattering into a zillion tiny pieces before your lover’s eyes, humiliated and thirsty and with all of your weaknesses exposed in their sight, letting them see you as you may be: a mess of emotions, raw insecurities and a big salty lake of tears then letting them wrap their arms around you in the warmest embrace you’ll ever feel because they’ve seen you true and real and still remained to press into LOVE. In that moment you feel that encompassing embrace is all you need. Those arms, holding, bracing, ANCHORING. In the dark of the night when nothing seems to make any sense at all, but you reach out and find that warm, loving hand that fits yours perfectly, it all seems okay. You can breathe in that moment and KNOW, you are loved.
When a lover has left, whether temporarily or jumped ship in the midst of the storm, that space they formed remains, like the imprint a footstep leaves in wet concrete or the concave your weight leaves in a plush couch cushion, and we feel the devastating depth of loss. It can feel like a death even if it’s not. That sting of betrayal or rejection, real or imagined, cuts us to our core.
We all want to be loved... but do we know what it means to really love and be loved? Do we count the cost? No matter, we plunge into love because it is the fabric of life. To love is to live. Or to die, right? Love kills so many things in us. It can be good death, or terrible loss of who we are. Love should free us to be who we truly are, not cage us and exterminate our souls. It should not imprison us but liberate us. Though we lose some things, that loss should not be the loss of our selves and our essence. It should hold us up to the flame and draw out the inner perfumes trapped so long therein. Love can burn, but ultimately it should bring out the beauty hidden, not cause us to cease to exist.
Redefined, remade, reconstructed but not forgotten in the shadows of another person’s dreams. Dreams should be shared and then amplified, not diminished.
When we are seen so intimately, so closely, with nude face exposed to the magnified gaze of a lover, it instinctively causes us to want to withdraw and flee. But when we STAY, and the eyes grow tender with empathy, which we hope will happen, this is where the truth begins. To know and be fully known. Oh my heart... if you find a soul who loves you like this, you’ve found the very meaning of life.
A little poem:
I’ve been a ball of wax melted into a puddle in your road
I’ve stood atop the glorious green hill with the anthem of jubilation on my lips
Because of you
But I’ve never loved completely until I saw my reflection in your eyes
The truth of who I am defined by your view of me
It’s not enough to say you complete me because that is selfishness
I was complete and so you were as well
Love is the joining force that crashes one whole soul into another and explodes into
A world of their own
Something spectacular out of nothing. Out of dust.
Mud-formed and luscious
Flesh upon flesh we meld
Yet remain our truest shape.
Your fire lit my flame and the forest illuminated with light
Nothing was burned, all was exposed.
Annie Chabot
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