That's a lot of Re's

every new year i ask god to give me a new word to ruminate on for the coming days and beyond. for a couple years it has been Rest and I have been attempting to learn the gift of rest in my mind, heart, life, emotions. this year when i asked, i felt the word 'Rejuvenate' rise to the surface of my mind and swim there. Okay. what does rejuvenate mean? I knew that it meant something in the realm of refreshing and newness. I looked up the definition on the internet, because my giant dictionary/synonym book has begun to fall apart and I require a new one most urgently.
REJUVENATE: restore (a river or stream) to a condition characteristic of a younger landscape.
make (someone or something) look or feel younger, fresher, or more lively, (to give vigor or youth)
Reinvigorate, reanimate, reclaim, refresh, revitalize, renew, refresh, reconstruct, recondition, regenerate, revivify, (that's a lot of re's!)
spruce up, exhilarate, restitution, make young again, update, breathe new life into, give face lift to, impart new life to.
I see this as my life desperately in need of fresh joy, life, refreshment of hope and vision, a spiritual face lift, and a total renewal of my inner self to be regenerated into a more alive version of myself. I've been so groggy with the sleep in soul-things. Only partially awake. My heart needs to be softened by the oil of love that can only be accumulated through purposeful time and intimate contact with the holy spirit and meditating on Jesus and listening for his glorious voice to daily direct my unsure steps into leaping and bounding and flight.
I've been praying for awhile to be awakened in places that have been dormant or that I've believed a lie over, such as who I am and what my purpose is in life. I embrace the simplicity of my existence while still keeping near to my heart that it is a miracle to be alive and to be a mother, wife and friend. I am thankful every day for a roof over my head, running water and a warm bed to sleep in. I am content lately with the small goings-on of home life rather than dreaming discontentedly of travel, maybe because I did a fair amount of travel this past year and found home to be such a refuge. Travel is still in my desires, especially to Europe, but it feels more like a thing that will happen when it's supposed to and I trust God to bring it about when it's time. Flying in airplanes and being in hotel rooms and eating out is more exhausting to me than I had imagined. I suppose it's mainly the being in public and having to feel "On" more than anything else. My body is healing but it's a slow process and I lack energy often.
So, this year I hope for a quickening of my mind, heart, spirit and even an energizing of my body to feel the rejuvenation I might gain in this new year through spiritual insight and closeness with God, and accomplishing goals I set long ago but didn't have the health (or persistence) to carry out. Maybe I can even blame it on perfect timing.. and I entrust perfect timing of the unfolding of important life things to a kind Friend that holds my life in his glorious hands and pours compassionate thoughts over me each moment, even if I in my humanity cannot often feel it, or fathom it, his love is unending and his delight for who I am is ridiculous. Aren't we the same as creators? We are feverishly happy when we look upon the things (or small humans) we helped make. Whether it be a song, sculpture or pottery, a poem, a painting, a garden we worked on to harvest flowers or vegetation to feed our families. I hope we all have a rich blessing over the fruit of our hands this coming year, resourceful with what we're given and brimming over with creativity and lustrous love. May we be rejuvenated and new the way we can only be when we spend time in prayer, meditation, reflection as well as pressing forward in this day we've been given.

Choosing Your Thoughts

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.

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.

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

Say a little prayer

Yesterday I discovered evidence of termites on my new bedroom floor behind the door. I got so pissed. I became all negative and discouraged and said some stupid things when Chris asked why I was so upset. Granted, I am a bit overtaxed from bad sleep habits of late, and non-stop moving-in-stuff, but still. It was silly. I said things like, "Why can't we just live in a place that doesn't have something gross wrong with it?!" and when my husband pointed out that we get to choose how we look at something that seems bad as just that, or as a means to rise above and still be thankful, I responded with a less than gracious answer. But. Such is life. My imperfection remains an obvious character flaw. I'm trying here, alright? 
I went into my daughter's room, which is perfectly put in place and clean at almost all times of every day. (Wonder where she gets that from, hmm?) She has a thankful bucket. Not a thankful jar. It's a big tin bucket where when you walk in her room, the rule is, you have to jot down one thing each time that you are thankful for on these little slips of paper she has then drop it into the thing. I stood there, alone in her room, with the pen hovering over the tiny piece of paper, drawing a blank. A blank, after God has obviously set us up in our own brand new cool barn house, in the country, with my healthy family, my doting and lovely husband, etc. But after a moment of self-abasement over that fact I realized that I wasn't not thankful, I had too many things I could list that I could be thankful for, but were not readily available in my mind because of my perspective.
I dumped out all of the little folded up pieces of thankfulness from her bucket and read every single one of them. I was teary as I read the last one: I am thankful for mama. My child is thankful for me. Messy, temperamental, easily-irritated at times, ME. 
I wrote my little message on my blank slip, folded it and placed them all back into the bucket.
I went out onto our deck and sat in a chair with my bible and my journal, and not feeling at all like praying, I said a prayer that aligned with what I had written down: I am thankful for miracles. With a little quote I adore: Impossibility is the atmosphere surrounding a miracle.I kind of desperately cried out to God to see evidence of His miracles today.
Impossibility is the atmosphere surrounding a miracle? Which means my whole life is a miracle. My husband's life is a miracle. Each one of my kids' lives are miracles. The fact that we have a roof over our heads and exist, and dwell on the Central Coast in one of the most expensive places in America is indeed a miracle. I felt hope trickle into my cold heart. Thankfulness at all of this crazy goodness melted my icy thoughts and poured life-giving truth back in where I had allowed doubt and going through the motions to be my guide. It was so nice to know how quickly we can be refreshed if we just simply take even a few moments to sit still and fix our thoughts on a positive, prayerful place. 

Suddenly, everything became more colorful for me once again. The birds seemed to sing a little clearer and sweeter. The breeze felt like it was blowing new fragrance into me, and my heart lifted a little. Hope is an interesting thing. The Bible says: A hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life. Proverbs 13:12. I have had so many longings fulfilled. I have also had many longings not yet fulfilled. But I also believe not everything is answered right away in the timing we expect. God works in a different time zone or higher manner that is hard to comprehend at times. 

It was definitely not my choice to be without a home, floating around to different houses all summer long, but the end result was that the house we have ended up with is first of all, multiple times better than any place we were placing our applications in for, and that it just wasn't completed until almost the end of summer. Our finite minds couldn't have anticipated that outcome at the time, but I really feel strongly that God knew. Everything falls into place the way it is supposed to, in the best possible way, usually, if we can trust that. Trust in a Higher purpose than we can conceive of. Trusting the ultimate faithfulness of a God who promises good things to His kids.

I left the solace of the deck to go and pick up a free couch that a good friend of mine had hooked us up with. Her dad was giving it away and she thought it would look good in our house. I showed up with my friend Melissa in her little truck, and the couch was in perfect condition, and Pottery Barn, so very nice. We got back on the road to unload it into the house, and there was this older couple standing by the side of the golf course with their hazards on. Melissa stopped and asked if they were okay, as the man leaned against his cane. The woman approached the truck and told us she was taking pictures of the Jeep to sell on craigslist. I looked back at the car and kind of freaked out, because my car has been threatening to die and not making it up hills, in need of a head gasket and new transmission, which would cost more than the car itself is worth. I had been specifically searching for a Jeep, because our new property is bumpy and dusty, but it had to be in the three thousand range, which I came to believe was impossible for a Jeep in good condition. I had recently prayed, "Lord, You're just going to have to put one (a car) right into my direct path because I honestly have no idea how to do this."

I jumped out of the truck, and jogged to the couple displaying their Jeep for pictures. It was beautiful. The engine, perfectly detailed and spotless as though no one has driven the thing. I asked how much they were asking, to which she replied, "$2,700." WHAT. I told them I was going to be the one who buys their car. She laughed and he looked at me and said, "I never say no to a pretty girl." There are more details, which were uncanny, and I am taking it for a test drive and giving a deposit today. I am so excited! It was crazy! I had to share...just what a tiny, little prayer can do to change things in one day. I am a firm believer in this season as one of New Beginnings, cliche' or not, I have been finding it to be true, and I hope that you will too.

Birds

The sky is flawless - not a fluffy cloud in sight. The birds sing, chatter, rustle, feast on bugs in the trees, and make their enchanting chorus in undulating waves of sound. Then, all of the birds quiet down as one solitary bird calls out in pulsing rhythm - (Maybe he's the preacher bird) - but it's short and seemingly to the point, the way a good word should be, and afterward all the other birds once more join in, singing and whistling and sweetly humming their birdsong worship.
Nature is a sanctuary to my soul. It unravels all of the confusion and anxiety, setting it all free to the breeze, carrying all of the pettiness, the mind-war and negative thoughts, away from me, so far away.
The trees are filled with all of the life-breathing joys and beauties, the plants, the grass, wildflowers, weeds, vines, moss, all gently co-existing in peaceful harmony.
The beasts of the field and birds of the air, the creatures in the sea and rivers, all caught up in a euphony that resembles a dance celebrating the uniqueness and unity that are so exquisitely woven together making a life-force, which, if studied, examined, meditated upon, sung and written about, form such a perfect example of how we inhabitants of earth should conduct ourselves and exist.
Then my mind goes to how wonderful it is that each hair on our heads is numbered, each grain of sand accounted for. How loved, how precious we each are to the Creator. Each one of us contain gifts only we can share. I find peace in knowing that I was made in a particular, well-thought-out pattern.
I am not a bird, though I admit I have envied them at times; I am not a turtle or a cow. I happen to be a human, an American female, born light-eyed and pale-skinned, in these times, no mistake, no choice in the matter. There is no use pining to be someone or something different than who I am, (though I do admit to wasting my energy on this at times) unless it's in my conduct, attitude, or beliefs and the way I carry out those creeds in my life with more boldness, acceptance, gentleness, love, kindness. Our greatest good is done when we embrace our true selves, and let that inner-embrace spill over into the way we treat others, especially they who are different than us. That is the beauty of this life - the contrasts, that we are NOT exactly alike, thankfully! How dull would be our days if we all looked alike and believed the same.

a poem:
We are drenched
in our own desires
intertwined in our tendencies
driven mad by our expectations
closed-in by the American dream
our houses are our coffins
we're buried deep in debt
the cars that we drive
end up in rusted heaps
Our educations un-school us
from simply being free
unrestrained by derision, division
to believe is to see?
Cast off imaginations
like cattle wandering off cliffs
we walked blinded to our deaths
creativity halted

embers:
the furnace within my chest
is full with ash and embers
the reason why it burns
i can't hardly remember
I shovel coal atop it
and stir the fire so soft
not one flicker escapes the bricks
to cause my friends to cough
but this burning inside my heart
is flowering out of bounds
don't know how to contain it
before it gathers into mounds.

read at your own risk ;)

Words. I have not written words for a very long time. I ignored this blog. I felt it was silly of me to keep broadcasting feelings that no one seemed to care about. How ridiculous! I don't write for people but because I have to write to BE me.

I keep a journal, but even that plateaued into a desert of dry tab-keeping and list-making. I said to myself, 'I can't write. It takes work to be good and I don't have that in me.' What a lazy human I can be about the things that truly matter and define me. I have written constantly ever since my mother placed a pencil in my tiny hand and put the blank lined page in front of me. I loved to watch that paper fill up with my own stories and sketches of people, houses, trees, clouds.

It's the one place I've always felt I could excel in if I put the work and practice into. Yet here I am at 38 and still hovering around the insecure notion that I would never amount to anything. What a waste. I am determined to give more effort into the things I love. This is a morbid thought, but what would I want my obituary to say? I know that I am a good mother and I try to be a decent wife. I keep my home relatively tidy and I don't fail to water my garden and pluck out its weeds. I love my friends deeply and desperately yet I am very lacking in pursuing friendships and calling or writing. I want to be better at this too... but I've honestly just been so gosh darned exhausted lately. 

I'm not one to embrace complaining because I don't think anything good ever comes from it, including the pity people might give you which some feel supported by, but perhaps that is just another form of pride that I have in my heart. I want to be transparent, but I'm torn between transparency and the feeling that I might overshare in order to be pitied so I avoid sharing at all. This seems like a safe place to share some things, because people get to choose whether or not they want to take the time to click into my blog and read my thoughts. Truth is lately I've been having some major issues. I have not been able to fall asleep naturally without sleep aids since June. This is due in part to sciatic pain which affects me every day in varying degrees. It is in my hips, and the tingling, burning, constant tightness and discomfort runs down my legs and gives me restless leg syndrome at night, like little electric shocks throughout me. I feel like my whole body is pulsating when I try to sleep, so I cannot. So I pop a pill (well, a half usually) to synthetically fall into rest. I've been dealing with fatigue, and this shuts me down and makes me not want to hang out with anybody for some reason. It's very frustrating. 

I see myself as a healthy person: mostly vegetarian and good at taking my supplements and doing some form of light exercise or yoga most days. So this is incredibly irritating to have chronic pain and issues. Nighttime has always been my time to listen. To reflect and meditate and hear what God is saying, what my mind is saying, to assess my state of heart and to adjust accordingly. I haven't been as free to do this lately because of the pain. But I am certainly pressing in consistently, I am not succumbing to discontentment or stagnancy. I have hope and know that things will not always be this way. I will sleep again, I will feel pain-free again, I will be energized once more.

I have to believe that.

I think of all the people over time who have endured any sort of prolonged suffering or pain, and shone brightly in the midst of it, and I am inspired to dig deeper into that. I know I have renewed compassion for people with disorders and disabilities and diseases that aren't visually noticeable now, where before I may have been annoyed with people's complaints of pain or treatments or constant asking for prayer. I wish I could reach out a little more for that but I find it pandering in myself. I'd rather just keep to myself and hope that eventually I'll find the solution through alternative routes like massage, or acupressure or acupuncture, SOMEthing.

This is very hard for me to write, honestly. Not so hard to write, but to actually go through with sharing it and having people know my vulnerability and issues currently. So scary. But scary can be good. I don't think everyone will understand, especially if they've never had chronic pain. It's so weird! Anyone who has had it or is having these types of issues right now, they know it can be a lonely road. Finding the right doctors to help, the right treatment, if any, the ability to communicate what you're feeling and get over the irritating thought of, "But I just want to be BETTER, so maybe if I don't talk about it it doesn't exist." People, I get it. Basically I have neck pain, headaches, fatigue, joint and sciatic pain every day lately. It's crazy. It wasn't there, and then it was suddenly there. Taking over my body, and not going away. 

But it will. I am hopeful.

This post looks so pathetic to me. I want to delete it. I want to hide this and pretend like everything is peachy with me, because the optimistic, sunshiny words look so much better on a page than these kinds. But I'm going to just put this out there into the cyber world. Maybe it will help someone to know they're not alone. Maybe it'll bring light to why I may have been keeping to myself lately. Who knows. 

I guess I'll leave it right there. I'm sorry if anyone clicked on this post hoping for my usual uplifting words of encouragement and had to read this sad junk, haha. 

I love you people. I'm thankful for you. If you need prayers or a friend, I'll try to be there for you.

procrastinate (the american dream)

the conversion
from worm to winged
comes at a price
dark corridors of soul
scaling rock walls
to higher heights
ascension
perched on aeries
peering below
at the multitude
seemingly contented
appearances deceive
vernacular
humanity as fireflies
flickering lights
mesmerizing few
the dream remains
money, success
queries swarm in minds
like hornets nest
meaning of life
vanishing like smoke rings
against a peach bellini sky
house, car, picket fence
pipedreams
galaxies awaiting discovery
yet cushioned seats
draw me in
lulling into a stupor
of meaninglessness.

Harmony and her daddy laying down some tracks in the Live Barn recordings

The making of an album and the humbling need of one another.

Ever since I met my husband Chris, the most defining character aspect he embodies is his absolute passion for music, songwriting, speaking into peoples' lives with empathy and discernment in his lyrics, and just a general love for the art of song. It is always on the forefront of his mind. It plays out in his life in so many ways: when he sees someone suffering from loss of a loved one or from their own personal sorrows, a song often comes. When he sees the joys of children or people in simple things of life, songs are birthed. When he feels love. When he feels the sting of disappointment or betrayal. Songs are sure to follow as the outpouring of his emotions in song form. It's his therapy, and his gift.
So it's only natural that he would have a strong desire to get this art out to the masses by recording, putting the songs into albums, and getting them out to people. This is where our basic need of humanity steps in. We have such a supportive and wonderful circle of friends and family that speaks into his life to encourage him to keep on, and that the world most definitely needs to hear the encouragement and beauty of the music he imparts.
His newest project which he has been working on consistently for the past year and some change is a collection of raw, honest and compelling songs from the heart on the subjects of love, God, and the journey which are powerfully spiritual yet relate-able on many levels. I feel strongly that this is the album which will best display Chris' true self and soul. Most were written directly after donating a kidney to a woman who has come to be our close friend, Kathy, in the aftermath of surgery in Portland, Oregon. The whole thing left Chris vulnerable and reflective, which is the perfect fodder for good songs.
He has launched a kickstarter campaign, which can be controversial but which we are hopeful will include our friends and many different people in order for the album (which is actually a two-part cd-set when completed) to come to fruition. We are excited for the outcome, and are asking, once again, for you, our friends and loved ones, to come onboard to support his dream of making this a reality.

Here's the link if there is interest in coming alongside us to make this album take off:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/chrisbeland/gospel-and-kidney-album?ref=home_social

We are so completely grateful for all of you wonderful people placed in our path to love us, and us to be able to love and share in your joys, trials and lives as well. It's so very true that we humans need each other in this life. So thank you in advance for your friendships, and for any way you feel in your hearts to help and support us in this amazing endeavor to make this double album come to pass!!

Cheers and much love.

Neverland - Ode to Elijah

Sometimes time goes very slow and other times it seems to have gone by much too fast, like when I look at how quickly my son Eli has gone from colicky babe to almost 18 years old and moving out into the big beyond.
I know I'm supposed to embrace the progression of time and I am thankful that he is so amazing and that I can be confident that he will make the best of decisions as he embarks on his new adventures in the world, BUT, in all honesty, I'm going to miss him SO freaking much! He is a solid guy. He makes me laugh really hard. He gets me. He is smart as a whip and witty as heck. He is stylish and helps me decide which outfit is best on me. He's tender and intuitive, he is a willing shoulder to cry on. I enjoy being with him tremendously, and it's going to be super weird not having him around.

I guess I just didn't see the day approaching so quickly- one rarely does, unless perhaps they have a difficult kid that puts them through the ringer, then you maybe wish that kid WOULD leave. Some kids never want to flee the nest, and that can get interesting. But Elijah has always been pretty independent. I remember leaving him in pre-school a couple days a week for awhile, and he'd run off as soon as we got there, "Bye momma!" as I stood there watching him approach the other kids unreservedly. When it was time to pick him up, of course, he'd see me and say,"You're back already?" haha. He's always been very secure in who he was and in my love.
We went on many adventures together and still do. He's the best co-pilot a mom can have. For five years, it was just him and me. I was a single ma, and he was my world. I was young and he was my learning ground, but somehow it all turned out more than okay. I'm so proud of him, the man he's become and becoming.

There are days I guess I just wish everything could stay the same, and all my chickens could remain in MY coop with me. But that's just not how things go. In fact, it would be highly abnormal to have him reject the idea of leaving to begin his own singular life apart from me. I am grateful for his eagerness, but the sadness remains. My buddy is moving on. I just pray he will still include me and his dad in his life, if not daily, then at least occasionally. Because I know a day won't go by (or night!) that I won't be thinking about him and what he's up to, and if he's safe, and......:)

Ash Wednesday and recaps on the last eleven months

Well, it's been about 11 months since the last time I blogged here.... Looking back at the last time I was quite surprised at the length of time that had passed since my last jottings on "Chabot's Corner". I guess it just all seemed so trivial to me. As I had mentioned in my previous posting, my husband, Chris, and I were about to travel with the children to Portland for 3 weeks, during which the kids would stay with our good friends the Torsons and we would be staying in a hotel in the alphabet district called Northrup Station while Chris underwent surgery to donate his left kidney to a former dialysis patient of his.
 Crazy, right? Yes.
The surgery went splendidly, though there were a couple minor complications afterwards with Chris' system adjusting. It was a beautiful, spiritual thing even in the midst of his pain. It was awful seeing my husband like that. But he got through it, stronger, and so did his recipient, Kathy. She is now thriving like she never has before, and a lifelong bond has been formed between all of us, including her lovely husband Tom.
Our stay following in Portland was magical. I'm not even kidding...when we returned we seriously played with the idea of moving there. We aborted that plan soon after, though, when reality hit and we remembered that Chris is now a full-time musician as his trade, and his client base is now here in California for the time being. That said, Portland is now embedded in our hearts like a chunk of gold in the side of a rock inside of us that can never be removed. We are drawn to it..the green, living soul of Portland, the gritty yet clean city streets and mossy forest with the high trees like an overgrown ceiling obscuring the sun. But mainly we are drawn to the connections to our beautiful friends that supported us while we were there. Abby and Tano, and Leanne and Brent and all of their children. They have become family to us for life. They fed us, they drove us, they put us up. They let me cry. They took us to church and prayed for us. It was surreal to be loved like that.
When we returned and Chris' recovery time began here in California, there was a feasible letdown. A low hit me pretty hard. Portland in the spring (or summer, or autumn) can do that to a soul.

California has been good to us though. Thank God, there's been a good amount of rain this autumn through the winter so that everything has turned from dusty brown to a glowing neon green, which always stirs life in me and in Chris.
The kids are happy, attending the charter school around the corner from our home, and Eli, the high school behind us. We are thankful, out loud, every single day. We see that we are blessed. That we are favored somehow. That this simplistic, sometimes penniless life is the sweet life. We feel lucky.
We have peace, and a lot of joy. We get out and hike on those expansive green hills. We go to the ocean and taste the salt in the air and get breathless.
We are loving the process of life. Each day has something sparkling in the midst of the mundane.

Of course, we have dreams and aspirations to fulfill, but we hold them a bit loosely, not allowing our happiness to be dependent on those things. Chris would love to record a couple more albums full of the songs he has been given in the wake of all of the inspiring life happenings he has gone through. Donating a kidney..loving someone so consciously in that way...I mean, it's huge. It leaves this space in a person, from what I have witnessed, where humility and new life can enter in in abundance. And so fresh songs have filled that place. Beautiful songs that have touched people deeply. It's amazing to watch. We'd love to travel to Europe and share his music there. I would love to write books. We would love to someday have a home of our own where we could keep chickens and a goat.
We'd love to not have to worry so much about money.
But right now. Right now is sweet. Each day is this luscious gift with hidden jewels to discover, and I won't hide my eyes from the search.

Today is Ash Wednesday. I have never gotten the ash placed on my forehead symbolizing the cross and that as man, we are dust and shall return to dust. But I think it's a beautiful practice. I think it puts the fragility of life and how fleeting it is into perspective, We have today. What will we make of today? I'm going to look for the gems. I know I'll find them.

Sprouting Wings

Towards the end of last month, Chris quit his day job, after many conversations about and loosely planning a more adventurous life filled with our true passions, rather than plugging along in what appears to be the American Dream.We just came to the conclusion, What's the worst thing? Failing to try or trying and failing? So we leapt. It has been, so far, the best decision we could have agreed to make. I've never seen my husband happier, more radiant, and excited about life. And in his joy, mine has been even more full.

This coming April, there are so many good things coming up. We are road-tripping to Portland as a family, Chris is recording a live album in a barn in Tumalo, a small community on the outskirts of Bend, and soon after that, he is undergoing surgery to donate his kidney to a woman, who, in the beginning he hardly knew, but now is glad to become so closely intertwined with. I couldn't be more proud of him.

I had always known I wouldn't lead an average life, and up until recently, I sort of felt stuck in a rut of normalcy and the mundane. Just going from one day to the next, waking up, sending my husband off to a job he despised, schooling the kids, eating meals, going for walks, sipping wine, looking forward to the tiny windows of time together on the weekends when Chris wasn't doing music at different venues, reading in bed, falling into bed tired enough to sleep with colorless dreams, then doing it all over again. A cycle, not terrible, but definitely not what it's supposed to be. For us at least.

There is a safety in the sameness of life. Of constancy. It can be uncomfortable to break out of. But if you have dreams that are alive in your soul, dreams that make you lifted up in your spirit to think on, then those dreams have to be acted on. It would nearly be a travesty not to.

I'm definitely excited to see what lies ahead for our family on this current road, but in that excitement, I'm also fully embracing each moment as it comes. There's just so much hope welling up in me over today and tomorrow, and always, as long as I keep my mind constantly fixed on the good that continues to pour out of knowing that each little act of love, a smile, a soft answer, or just being still in peace, shoots out glittering spider webs of relationship, kindness, intimacy with  fellow humans,
I feel like, for me, I'm so intense and I tend to over-think and analyze things to death, but lately, just settling into BEING, to let the heavy things pass over me rather than soak into me like gray-gathering pools of rain into my mind, Perhaps it's not so much standing still beneath a protective umbrella shielding me from sorrow and the weight of depression, but continuing to walk despite the state of the weather, so to speak, knowing eventually, the pockets of sunshine will be there for me to step in, lift my face into, and bask in. But the days when the sun is hidden behind black, sodden clouds, I hold my own measurement of joy still near to me like a supply of rations that should have run out a long time ago but keeps going, because the source is from within now.
So much of my life was lived getting affirmation and worth from outside sources. So based on feeling, were my responses and love. I am learning to use the wings I have to fly over that junk now. I don't need to feel love in order to cultivate love, or spread love anymore. We can choose to be little containers for the stuff. Love is something that doesn't need a perfect, shady, or sunny space to thrive in. We just invite it in, we say yes, and it dwells in us, and spills over onto the people we get near. It's so cool. It's basically all I trip out on these days. Love. I know my blogs have been pretty steadily on this subject, but I simply haven't been able to move away from the focus of it. I guess I started out pretty dry and low on it. We can't give out what we haven't first received.
I'm still so bad at loving people the way I need to. I think I'm getting better at loving my family. Now I think I'll try to love my enemies... or at least my neighbors.

I will try to keep more current with what is going on in our lives since we are in this crazy new transition. Our dream is to travel, take this show on the road as a family.
Harmony has been singing more with her daddy, and it is so amazing to watch the two of them flow together in song and entertaining. It's their passion, so that reflects out onto the crowd. Anyways, I'm rambling. But I just want to give hope to anyone feeling lost or stranded..hang in there. Let hope fester. Let love penetrate the dry places in your heart. Allow yourself to believe that life is not merely about existing, but growing wings, and shooting into the blue. Cheesy, but, hey, there it is. You're worth it.

Go Love. Now.

I don't think I will ever grow weary of writing and pondering or meditating on the subject of love. There truly is no end to its depth. I find that every day I learn more, I dive deeper into the endless, all-encompassing warmth and reality of the abyss that love is.
When I wake in the morning, I wake to the face of love, kissing me out of grogginess into new light, with coffee in his hand for me. I get to see bright, sunshiney faces in mine that have somehow forgotten all of the strained endings of yesterday, and are exceedingly glad to see me again. As I go about my day, I randomly receive love through texts on my phone, and little lifts in my spirit, knowing my husband, family, or friends are thinking of me fondly. And this gives me strength. What if we came to the very real epiphany that we are a thousand (or more) times more loved even than the strongest of loves experienced here on earth, at all times, every second of each and every day?
Because we are.
By God.
I feel lately like the Grinch, when his heart grows three sizes....  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGSs33DQ1F0
Our hearts are capable of stretching. Of expanding to contain more, and more, and more. LOVE.
Love for people near us, love for the kids our children bring home, love for the neighbor child who drops in 100 times a day, love for the homeless person spewing hateful words as you walk by, love for the family member you simply cannot understand, love for yourself.
We humans are among the most incredible life form there is, period. We are able to do things no other life form can. One of the most amazing things is that we can have passions like nothing else. It may sometimes be fun to compare our passions to that of nature: the unyielding, stormy sea; the wind at work on trees; rainbows in all of their color-displaying glory; waterfalls at full-force; a mother lioness with her baby cub; eagles soaring together in harmony.
But we humans are the only ones that I believe feel this fiercely about others. We were created for this, to love and love well.
Then why do we not wield this weapon of grace and eccentric beauty more proudly and with more purpose? Why do we often sigh and walk in lonely, stewing silence, scrutinizing, sizing up, and generally judging every figure we come across in swift, precisely painful strides of eye-sweepings and casting away those who could be our companions, friends, targets of said fierce love?
I think we do not know, perhaps, the power of this love within us, we are probably often not able to see past the short-sightedness of our own insecurities and self-loathing and fears of rejection in order to love.
So, this is the key: We love not to get love back. We love because we are gifted at it, and it is a skill to be fine-tuned and perfected daily, without fear of failing, because there is tomorrow to learn more, to get up and be filled and to pour out more of this luscious, liquid, cleansing, treasure of love.
If we assess a person that we come across, and immediately, rather than thinking: If I show this person affection or kindness, maybe they will think I'm weird and forward, and they will walk away, creeped out by me, what if we threw away those measly thoughts, and we just loved like Pollyanna loved? I have been thinking about that silly movie a lot lately, mainly her character, because so many of the townspeople were total assholes, and undeserving, of her pure, un-jaded, forthcoming love that she directed on those folks who either laid in bed sick and bitter, or enclosed in their houses behind windows, casting silent stones.
Undeserving...
Aren't all of us undeserving, really, but some of us just disguise it better than others?
When people push us away because they are angry or they seem to hate us, what if we kept coming back, with good intentions, to make sure that that person knew...they deserved love just as much as anyone?
What if we loved without expecting anything, ANYTHING, in return. Simply making it our mission to lift people up with unwarranted smiles, a hug, an actual listening ear, a coffee brought to a friend, flowers to a stranger, cookies to our neighbor?
Okay, okay, I know..... It's uncomfortable, and I am just baby-stepping into this strange, unknown territory of all of this love stuff, because honestly, I have really been held back by MAJOR issues with self-scrutinizing insecurities and fears of rejection.  If I tried to be nice to someone, and they were in a bad mood that day and snapped at me, I would recoil for, like, months. Judging them as a jerk and hiding myself away from them so that I didn't have to feel the painful, searing loss of rejection the next time I saw them. But then it occured to me: Be nice again. Try again to smile and be friendly. And you know what? If they are crabby and rude again, try again the next time you see them. I have tried this, very slowly and with apprehension and falling on my hard head many a time, in my life, and I have seen nothing but good results. People want, NEED, to be loved. To feel wanted, listened to, heard, thought of, endeared to, LOVED.
If you say you don't, you're lying.
SO go. Get out there, and love the ones you got, the ones you don't, strangers, stray cats, mother-in-laws, irritating figures in your life who offended you in the past. Life is too damn short to hold grudges and be petty. Quit it. Go love.
Okay, I'm going to go take my own advice now.
I want to hear reports back. :)

A Proposal Story

I was thinking last night about mine and Chris's beginning. Sometimes, to remember important things in life, you have to go back to the beginning. Not like living in the past, just recalling the things that first gave you joy and sprung up in your heart like a summer rainfall. (Something I miss, living here in California).
Our engagement didn't begin with flowers, a fancy restaurant, a moonlit walk, or anything well-planned and concocted in Chris's mind. It didn't even begin with a ring.
When he proposed to me, spontaneously in my room with the faded rose wallpaper at my father's house one evening, he sat with me on the edge of my bed, just talking as friends and totally in love, his arm protectively around me. He had his old, worn leather Bible in his other hand, and he opened it to the Psalms. He started to read to me from Psalm 37. When he got to the part that reads, "Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart." He stopped and said that that was what we had found in each other. We had been doing just that: simply delighting in God. Being totally fixed on worshiping God in our lives.
You see, we both had led very messy lives previously. He had gotten a girl pregnant and married her at the age of fifteen, and I was partying hard and living chaotically, in a hellish relationship. We both seemed to be damaged goods, so to speak, until we found Jesus. Our lives transformed drastically when we began to walk that out in our separate lives. I had a child at age nineteen, which changed the course of my life, and he went off to rehab in San Diego.
When we met, things were not perfect. We both had a lot of baggage. Many said we would not last.
But we knew what we had found in each other. A friend, and more than that, surprisingly, a soul mate. It sounds gushy to say that, but it's true.
We just got each other, entirely. We still do.
Right after he read that verse to me, he dropped down to his knee on the wooden floor, and, looking me in the eye, my hands in his, he asked me if I would be his wife. I said yes. There was no ring, he said, we could pick it out together. It was not an important thing to either of us in that moment. When we were talking about that last night, we realized that the object of a ring becomes such a central thing in the beginning of engagement, whether it's due to tradition or symbolism. It becomes the centerpiece sometimes. But we talked about how our love was the centerpiece. It was the thing we glorified and danced around, celebrating, showing off to our friends and family. I had no ring, it was of no matter, until we got one, of course. Don't get me wrong, I was tremendously elated when we did get the ring, and I wore it proudly, and still do. But I am glad that our story is so simple in the beginning that it didn't need any frills or anything added to the simplicity that we were head over heels for each other and that was all we needed, and all we still need.

Bird Rescue

I think I've mentioned before the active bird life of our current dwelling place. There are many mature trees in our neighborhood, and they house anything from owls, hummingbirds, mockingbirds, to our beloved cooing mourning dove that we wake to each dawn and hear each evening from either our backyard telephone pole, or the lines directly in front of our house. It is a sound both soothing and routine now.
The other evening, the children and I were listening to music in my bedroom while Chris was away at one of his music engagements, when a tap came at the window and a whistle. I opened the shades to find our rough around the edges next door neighbor, Stan. He was wide-eyed and excitedly telling us about a scuffle with our dove (which Harmony, my daughter, has lovingly named Mac) and a red-tailed hawk. I ran out, and found Mac hiding himself within a thorned bush a couple houses away. The hawk waited on the branch of a nearby tree for his moment to swoop down once again and finish the job he had begun on it's prey.
I couldn't let nature take it's course this time. Mac was our friend! I reached into the bush, and took Mac gently out and placed him in a shoe box that I had told Jude to run and get. When I looked down at my hands, there was blood on them.
We brought the shoe box with the wounded dove into our house and I called my mom, the advanced bird-savior expert (ha), I call her Saint Franci of Assisi, because she has the tenderest heart towards nature and animals, and because her name is Franci. She advised to get a dropper, fill it with water and attempt to bring the poor hurt thing out of its shock by giving it water.
We also read that putting some apple cider vinegar in the water can be antibiotic for birds, so later I did that as well. I texted my husband about what had happened, knowing his heart towards creatures of the air as well. There happened to be, at his gig, an animal doctor who, when he read my text aloud to his small crowd, told him to tell me, put the thing back outside because it's cruel to interfere with the circle of life, both to the dove and the hawk. I responded that there was no possible way I could do that, after all, it was MAC!
I peeked at the wound, under Mac's wing, a wound which looked pretty bad to me. I put some Neosporin on it and gently rubbed it in, and wrapped the bird in a cloth. We left him alone to recuperate. Chris got home around 10pm, and the children were in bed by then. We sat on the front porch sipping wine and wondering what to do, discussing if we should try to take him to an emergency vet, or what the animal doctor had said, or what, we did not know. All along, I was praying, and hoping the dove would make a full recovery and not die from shock or the wound.
We put on dove sounds on youtube, wondering if it would encourage the little creature. He looked all about, searching for his mate, and then suddenly! Fluttered up to the tree in our front yard, sat there a moment, and promptly plopped to the grassy ground below. It was crazy! We looked at each other amazed at how it could have been so driven to find its love, even being so hurt.
We finally placed Mac back in the shoe box, open, but gently wrapped in the towel, so if he lived, he could fly easily away without being stuck. We went inside, me crying, at the beauty and sadness of it all, and went to bed.
The next morning, Sunday, I awoke to Chris throwing on clothes, and I was confused as it was his only day to sleep in. "What are you doing, honey?!" I asked. "I got a song in my dream, it was about my dad. I have to... write it down before I lose it." Ahh. I understood his cryptic message perfectly, he gets dreams with songs in them....it is a type of lovely gift he has.
As I lay there waiting to hear for the dove to coo or not, Harmony came into my room and asked about "Birdie"..."Is birdie okay?" "I don't know, but we can't disturb daddy to see right now. Let's look out the blinds." So, right as I opened the blinds, we saw an amazing sight! One dove was flying from the direction of the tree, the other the telephone pole, and they met in the air, and flew on top of each other for a moment, and landed. Harmony and I looked at each other in awe, then I flew out to the living room, half doubting what I'd seen, and wondering if there was some slim chance that there were more than just Mac and his mate in this neighborhood. I walked slowly up to the shoe box, which had the cloth poking all about, and I couldn't tell if there was anything in it or not."Please let it be empty." I prayed. I pulled back the cloth, and sure enough..empty! Chris came up behind me and with moist eyes, we said,"That's a miracle." He was so hurt! And there he was, above us, with his mate, cooing his tranquil sound. We stood mesmerized.
It just all seemed so symbolic somehow. The hawk, representing war. The dove, standing for peace. Driven by love. And life, all winning. It was too much for these green, tender hearts to bear without tears and sighs of awe.
Chris's song lyrics intertwine the story of the dove with the injured wing, and rising from darkness into light and life.
I cannot tell you how grateful I am for such an amazingly artistic and sensitive musician I happened to fall into love with, and am living my life with! It's all, just, almost too much goodness to bear. The lines have truly fallen for us in pleasant places. Psalm 16

Bed

The bed symbolizes a place of nurturing, a place where dreams are hatched and good things are able to thrive. It's a place where things flourish and we pour into richly. It can even be a sanctuary.
 It's a place of sanctification, or where dark motives lie. We can tenderly partake of intimacy there, or we can tap into the lusts of our depraved minds. We can rest, or we can toss and turn.
The mind either spirals down into a soft slumber or spins into a whirling dervish of thoughts we cannot seem to turn off. Minds that spew accusations of previous affairs or carelessly uttered words; Hurt and things we could have done instead.
 My mind goes down a staircase when I lie my head on cushioned pillow, one of the unfolding of events from my day, my life, my hidden self. Who I truly am is exposed to me and the undulating cover of night. Visions, pictures, voices, all heard with sharper clarity, in the curve of the mattress and shield of quilt.
 Many a day spent toiling or attempting to figure out my next move was calculated effortlessly under a ceiling sheathed by stars and crescent moon hovering just outside my window. It is where peace can fall on our hearts like veils of satin on closed lids or where the poisoned daggers of wrongs done and secrets withheld can pierce painfully.
 It is my opinion that dreams can be quite meaningful and telling of what we are experiencing internally as well as externally. They can refresh, excite, inspire or petrify. In the dark, with the dim glow of streetlights illuminating shadows on the walls, our imaginations are at their finest. But also, the silence that surrounds us is a potential birthing place of magical imagery. Clarity stems from the river of REM.
 I am not a slothful person by trait, I do not spend longer hours than necessary under bed sheets lazing about, but when I am there, in the solace of my bed, next to my quietly snoozing soul mate, I fully soak in the sweetness of all that dances around me. Especially the prayers sent up into galaxies beyond our own, being inevitably listened to by angels' ears and a thoughtful god.
 The bed is a place of poetry, written in the forgetful pages of my subconscious but engraved on the essence of who I am and what I do. It's where meditation can be most astutely applied in the recesses of my mind.

Garden Bed: A place where one plants their seeds, waters, weeds, prunes, gathers the growth and feasts. Digging hands like shovels into dark, fertile soil. Therapy in the green vitality of life.

Marriage Bed: A sacred place of intimacy, rest, and tranquility. Where one lays solitary repose, or entangles limbs and hearts with somebody.

Kiss

I Love This Little Man. My Jude Hezekiah :)

Marina Koslow came to town....

Hiding Place

I just finished reading The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom once again, and it never ceases to jar me from whatever downcast state I found myself in circumstantially to thankfulness. I especially admire Betsi. She is so faithfully constant in persevering through the direst of situations in prayer and joy throughout their journey. In the end of her life on earth, God crowns her with a beautiful mask of pleasantry on her face. If you haven't read it, I admonish you to do so, because it is so very inspiring. It is a story of divine intervention, survival, and eventual forgiveness towards her offenders on Corrie's behalf. It's amazing, gritty, soul-wrenching, and turns my eyes towards the intricate care God takes for us in our fallen world.
Maybe some people wouldn't see it that way.
I have been surrounded lately by people who are jaded and have lost their faith. Some days, it certainly wears on me and causes my mind to question and to doubt His goodness.
And then I remember: Things are not always as they seem. One day we will see clearly, but now we see as in a mirror, clouded perceptions of reality. My questions are then, in some way, thwarted by my faith. I choose to believe in God's ultimate goodness and I trust that He is going to transform every sorrow into beauty in His way, and I am looking forward to that, while being refined by my difficulties here, which are temporary, thankfully.
Faith is weird. It seems backwards to the scientific eye and the mind of "reason". Though I may be looked upon in my childlike faith as ridiculous or imaginative, I would not exchange this gift for anything. I know it in my core to be truth. And it gives me so much delight! I have seen a day filled with angst and swirling with trouble turn to absolute peace in the blink of an eye with prayer. I have seen and felt the atmosphere around me go from chaos to order after I have offered it all to God in surrender and petition. I have seen it and so I know it. I could not be convinced, no matter how tight the argument, to walk away from the faith I have found to be my foundation and hope.
"In this world you will have trouble, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." John 16:33
Though we walk a darkened path, He is with us.
Though we lose a child and have no idea why this could have happened, He is with us.
Though we get cancer, or illnesses that keep us in the recesses of shadowy rooms, He is with us.
In our suffering, He is with us.
In our temptations and sins, and fallings away, and strayings, He is with us.
When we are lonely, He is with us.
When we feel abandoned by every earthly friend and family member, He is nearer than our own breath and simply a whispered prayer away from taking away all of the mourning if we will simply allow Him entrance.
I say this because I have experienced His touch in the midst of sorrow, His peace calming the storm raging inside of me. It is magic. It is a miracle. I believe because I see my life, my testimony of what was, to what is.
I was broken, I was dark, I was angry and hateful and selfish. I was all that mattered. Now, God willing, I place my needs last. This may be some strong power of the will, or, as I believe, it may be God's intervention in my life.
I was addicted, I was afraid to be alone with my thoughts, and empty.
Now I am free, I am confident in my God, and peaceful in my mind, and full of His vigor and joy for life. I have been given so many things I thought I'd never had, nor wanted (children, husband, quietude).
God is my hiding place. An ever-accessible refuge for body, mind, soul, heart.
And we know that, through testimony such as Corrie ten Boom's, He doesn't leave us no matter what.
He is not daunted by our doubts and questions. My children are full of curiosity and tough questions that I sometimes cannot answer. I don't shun them or shush them, but I try to wrestle out the answers with them, how much more does God long to answer our hard questions, and give us the faith to see past the things that seem impossible.