please pardon my dust

"Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh." (2 Cor. 5:16)

In the beginning, God
created.

He created from dust
in His image, in
His own likeness.

He breathed His Life, putting
Word in empty mouth so that

He could have conversations.

"Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer." (2 Cor. 5:16)

In the beginning, God
created.

He created from dust
One in His image, in
very nature God.

He breathed His Life, putting
Word on silent Cross so that

He could have conversations.

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation." (2 Cor.17-19)

In the beginning, God
created.

He created from stone
a new soft heart, to
fill with His Spirit.

He breathed His Life, pulling
Word from empty tomb so that

He could have conversations.

Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”

Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” And He said to me, “Write, for these words are true and faithful.” (Rev. 21:1-5)

In the beginning, God
created.

He created new dust for
heaven and earth to
fill with His presence.

He brought His Life, sending
Word to reap the old so that

He could dwell with man and
have conversations.

The air was heavy most of the day here. Thickened with tension, fraught with child cries and voices that I know are not in the air but in my head.

Cries that carried need. Voices that carried shame.

I stepped silent around them, breathing hard, breathing deep, swallowing cries and frustration and the internal screams not meant for air.

I planned and re-planned and worked and re-worked and accomplished absolutely nothing at all because I was too distraught to move beyond necessity today, because my back ached and my head ached and my eyes ached from the unshed tears behind them, tears held back by confused anger. Anger held in, stopped up by fear.

...

"Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage." (Gal. 5:1)

Stand fast...

The words catch on the fear in my throat, choking me. How dare I think that I should stand fast?

I know this Gospel. I know this grace. I know what redemption is. I know what it means that I am reconciled to God.

Yet I hold Him at arm's length. Close enough to keep an eye on what He is doing, far enough to keep Him from tearing my heart open. I want to give my all to Him - really, I do - but the fear that thickens the air, that holds back the tears, the fear traps me. I utter the words on repeat, "I don't want to..." because I don't know what else to say.

Everything is "Christ, but..." in my head today. I feel that the Cross is not enough. That His coming was nothing, really.

But everything that is not of Him must be stripped away.

Even the good I mean to do.

...

The words spin and scatter and gather and fly now. They come with tears as I begin to pour my heart into the air that is heavy. They spill out and speak desire that is good, fear that is caging, wild hope that is true.

"You ran well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth?" (Gal. 5:7)

Yes. I ran well. I know I have lived this Truth, that in Christ I live and move and have my being.

My being that is too small for this great God. My being that is dying to dress up a little more, deliver a little more, surrender a little more before I come before Him. Oh, I do not want to need His mercy this time! I want to like the me I bring to Him.

So He lets me stew and watches me fall, waiting to catch my frightened heart.

"You ran well..."

"Stand fast."

I gather my courage. More words spill before Him, and before my husband who came early to hold me, to listen to me breathe hard and fast and hurt and scared. Words about prayer, about inviting God into our house, about doing only the things He has set before me now instead of preparing for China and martyrdom in thirty years when I just know He will require it of me.

...

My testimony is this: Jesus Christ and Him crucified. This is the grace, the Gospel, the mercy, the Redemption I own.

Here, I am not trapped. Jesus despised the shame He bore - MY shame - and He does not impute it to me.

I am not what I want to be. I am what I am, by the grace of God.

And what I am is a mess. What I am does not take the photos I want to take. What I am does not (and cannot most times) do the housework I want to do. What I am is too often afraid to love. What I am does not stop the words when they should be stopped, does not speak them when they should be spoken.

What I am is dust. Dust, and a broken heart.

...

"For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. (2 Cor. 5:1-7)

If you read my blog and think I am something, know this the truth: I am nothing.

I have spent much of the past weeks soul-searching - as much as one can soul-search beneath the constant hue and cry of my two - and I know that what I give and what I do and what I write will not be what I am hoping to give and do and write.

Because you see, I have been patterning my nothing after others who have done what I wish to do, and in the end it comes to nothing without Jesus for me, and my yoke of bondage is my own misplaced desire to be like them and not like me who God created and re-created and called good. If we all say the same thing, we become shadows of one another, and the best and brightest shadow is still a shadow - when we are really earthen vessels filled with the weight of a glory that is not meant to be earthbound.

He is so much There, and does not seem to be here at all. Yet the things that my heart knows call me to walk into what my eyes do not see, and my mess is propelled forward by faith into a Life I dare not seek in my own strength - who am I to know what Holy and Righteous is?

"For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." (2 Cor. 5:21)

...

I cannot live the future now.

God asks this of me today (and I have been afraid to listen): to draw near to Him. To look at Him. To open my heart to an intimacy to take me beyond the limits of my imagination so that I will know that whether I live or die, I will be in Him.

There is a question that has been niggling at me recently, an inane question that offers more direction than I thought I needed: "Am I a blogger who writes or a writer who blogs?"

Tonight, as the words come, I know the answer.

I am a writer who blogs, and it is time for me to step back into my place - MY place - and write again, instead of trying the "blogging" thing.

Several months ago, I went searching for a community who knows God - and I found it. I found you. And you and you and you. And I have been deepened and encouraged, and I hope it will continue.

But I may not be commenting so much on other blogs as I have. I may not reply to every email or track my stats or link up elsewhere or follow too many prompts or Tweet endless links as I have.

I suspect the nature of my posts will change a bit too - when I write, I write for me; I write what is deep; I write what is Him in my dust. I have nothing else.

The voices tell me that is "self-centered," but I am feeling stronger this evening, more ready to stand, more ready to claim the free that is mine in Jesus so I may bow at the throne of Grace - instead of ducking my head, anticipating the blow.

...

What does it mean, that God destroyed the gap between Heaven and earth when Jesus became man and died and rose again?

Death, where is your victory?

I breathe out slow now. Long, and slow. A sigh, but not a sigh. An acknowledgment. That God created me the way He meant. That He does not mean to crush me, but to guard me, to hold me safe in His love. That the being I have in Christ is so much glory and not so much dust.

My flesh and my heart fail.

The groaning is a given.

My spirit is waiting for that face-to-face conversation. The one where I see Him. The one where I become like Him.

God, that's gonna be so good...





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

the day after i turned 28

I meant to take a page from Robin's book to justify it. I figured since it was my birthday, it would be a fun gift to myself to do it.

To pull out one of the white dresses I dare not wear too often and pose in it for my daily dust project.

I pulled one out, loving the feel of the white that every girl dreams of wearing, that I wore twice just because. This was one of the four I had bought. My first, my favorite, I sold. (I do that with things I love most - push them away and wish them back again too late.)

I slipped into it, reached back for the zipper, which stopped midway.

Oh yeah. I had a baby three months ago.

But I'm stubborn, and I wanted to take that picture, so I went for another one - the one that had been a bit too big when I wore it last.

The zipper stopped again.

I struggled with it. Pulled the dress off, tried again, not quite believing what was happening.

Oh yeah. Change happens. And it has happened to me.


Most birthdays in recent years, I have simply not thought about the fact that I am getting older. My health issues have robbed so much of my youth, so many of my young dreams. I've felt eighty for years.

I just haven't looked at myself. Haven't really thought about it.

But lately, with my self-portrait project, I've been seeing. I have noticed my face is changing. My eyes are older. They carry more weight than they do in younger pictures.

I honestly don't know what to do with it.

Yesterday's post was about renewal, the rest I find in the love of God. Is it that growing in Him means we become younger, more eternal, more refreshed as we learn His life abundant?

The dust I see in the mirror doesn't reflect the glory of Him that renews me. It has never felt like such a stark contrast.

I think I've never been so restless in my own skin.


Pete went out of his way to make me feel loved yesterday. When I got up before seven, he already had a bouquet of tulips awaiting me at my desk.

After I finished writing my post yesterday, I felt cleaner. More finished. It was the post I wanted to write on my birthday, the one about God whose love for me came clear. The one about the best gift I've ever been given, the gift that reaches so deep to the very core of me, that teaches me trust - because I know now I can trust His heart.

Sure, I had to make two crusts for my cherry cheesecake yesterday because B was hollering at me while I worked in the kitchen. And Piper ate a hole in the second crust anyway, the little scamp.

I'm 28 now.

I'm a mom now.

A wife.

A woman.

Yet I am His. And all this that surrounds me, the dust I wear... He is more real than reality.

I'm caught between worlds now.

I suspect it's a good place to be.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

unsettled

I am blur and shadow lately. There is not much clear in my head; other things are more pressing than figuring it out.

Things like settling into our new house. Like spending time with a baby who is more awake than he was. Like fixing boo-boos against my toddler's will. Like learning to discipline her.

Learning to love them both, even if my love makes no difference, even if they push me away instead of seeking me out.

It is not the house that leaves me unsettled - since we moved only three streets over, we just transferred our things into their new rooms and didn't worry too much about boxes. And we have extra storage here to hide things we don't want to deal with yet.

Still, things feel choppy. Restless.

...

I revamped my blog the other day. Do you like it?

I should rename the thing "This Restless Blog Template." But it seemed to go with moving house, and I'd meant to do it for a while. I wanted less clutter, less distracting, something to give my photos a chance to stand out a little more without being overpowering.

I love the look. It's peaceful. Quiet. Unlike the noise in my head. Unlike the noise in my house and two lines on a blog post between interruptions.

...

The other night, I stayed up late after everyone was in bed. Wrote a few emails, caught up on my blog-reading. Thought my own thoughts and realized I am not as easy alone as I used to be. When I went to bed, I looked at Pete and saw me married, looked at Piper and saw me her mama, looked at Bredon and saw myself with a son.

Is it odd that I am shocked by it? As my own version of "what I want to be when I grow up" fades from view, I become an observer. I am not the me I was, not the me I thought I'd be.

Life happens with or without me, and sometimes in spite of me. Somehow, whether it comes in my way or in its own way, it comes if I am ready or not. Sometimes I try too hard to grasp time that slips too easily through my fingers like so much sand. I try to do more and be more, and I have more limitations than most.

...

My life is not all about me, but I am human, and we humans are the main characters in our own stories. Sometimes I don't notice the supporting characters in the midst of my own struggles, characters who are their own main characters in their own stories, however ancillary they are to mine.

But I have been seeing them, peering outside myself, observing me through other eyes, trying to put myself in their shoes.

I don't want my life to happen without me. I don't want to stay frozen so long that I miss the others the Author has placed in my story. Yet with that desire comes a knowledge that I must not do when God wants me to wait; I must not speak when He wants me to listen. Eternal God knows more about the work of time in hearts than I can imagine, and there is a time for everything - no matter how pressured I feel to make everything all right today.

I have never wanted to be "Supermom" or "Superwife." Living predefined roles is counter-intuitive to me. It means doing many things "the hard way" because I don't do anything by halves. God knows that. My yes is yes and my no is no. Too many years in between made me double-minded so I didn't know what I wanted. Now, He takes me slow into His will, renewing my mind, strengthening my heart to do within His grace sufficient.

And God knows this about me too: once I know something, I know it. And I am accountable to Him for it. So He does not ask me for everything at once. He remembers that I am dust; He promises not to break a bruised reed.

...

He knows how I struggle to keep up with the changes in my life - is all of life transition? What is it like to stay in one place for years and years and know all the same people and go to the same church and marry someone you knew when you were five and have kids with all your best friends?

I wouldn't know.

And I almost don't want to know. I don't know how to be that settled.

{This} Restless Heart - a name I stumbled on after a blog switch a few years ago when someone I didn't like was reading my words and commenting on them. I liked the romance of the phrase, the quote I had to go with it - I had no idea how it would come to describe my heart and my journey.

...

There are two deep things that I can see Him doing in me now. I don't know how to define them, because I don't know His end. I stand at the edge of something new, wondering how long the churning will last, staring fascinated at the whitecaps, trying to gain my balance. Looking down is dizzying.

...

One deep thing has to do with Piper. She is heavy on my heart now since my visit to my parents' house, since listening to their counsel, since acknowledging the thing I've been afraid to acknowledge, the hard thing, the coming-out-of-hiding thing I've been avoiding. I am learning to see her. To do more than react. To love her differently. I am learning what needs of hers to release to God, learning what needs I should be meeting. I am learning to listen - to her and to Him.

...

The other deep thing has to do with people. Specifically with other believers.

I read through the second half of Revelation on our way home from my parents'. There is an endless stretch on I-26 between Columbia and Charleston that makes for some very solid reading time.

As I read, I found myself overwhelmed with the amazing picture of God presented in Revelation. The Holy God who will endure sin no longer. The Alpha and Omega - the one who will finish it all. The triumphant Son of Man reaping the earth with the Word of God, the one who Himself is named the Word of God. The inescapable wrath of God that will supersede all platitudes and nicetudes and drive people to curse Him and be destroyed. The perfect justice in His judgment, long-deserved.

I am awed at that God. I love that God. I wept as I read, realizing that it is not for me because I am in Jesus. That before this God of wrath and judgment, my testimony is not "Jesus, but..." It is Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

It is finished.

And I am not afraid.

But when I face the prospect of walking into a church, of interacting with other believers, I am terribly afraid. There are voices in my head, lies long-believed, unfamiliar, frightening images of a graceless God who demands perfection as long as someone has a paintbrush in hand to wash my dust in faded white that pales in comparison to the light.

White that this photographer knows must disappear in the bright, for His glory exposes more than we imagine. Really, it is the Light that makes even the dust beautiful.

...

I stand on the edge, wishing the clouds away, but half-glorying in the storm and the wind and the blur and the shadow. My arms are opening. My eyes are opening in spite of the rain; I am learning again to love the wildness in this restless. It is passion. It is intimate. It is something I am doing with Him, something He is doing with me. I walk a path no one else has walked; no one else can walk for me.

I am unsettled lately, changing - yet I am deeply settled too. I don't understand it, but I'll take it for now.

...

I have no idea how much sense this post makes; it's the first real opportunity I've had to sit down and process anything since getting back to Charleston after my week in VA. I'm just thinkin' for right now. Thanks for bearing with me.

...

AND as a completely random aside, I'm a finalist @Greeblemonkey's March photo contest. Please click over and vote for my photo: "Learning to Breathe."





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

I Am Not Pregnant

An abrupt statement, I know.

A relieved statement.

A definite answer after a week and a half of days that were weeks long for the lack of one.

I drove four hours yesterday for the answer after a local OB/GYN refused to see me because I had done a home birth with Bredon.

I know I promised part IV of my God-love story today. I know I may not have time to write it tomorrow before the cable provider comes and moves our service to the new house.

Which does not yet have a working kitchen sink.

We are hardly packed.

We have no one coming to help.

My husband is working early and late at the office.

I have three loads of laundry begging a folding. I have another two loads to run.

I have cried often lately.

I am overwhelmed. I am barely moving today.

Pete is sick, too. I think he may have walking pneumonia. Not that he'll go to a doctor. Not that he has time.

There is no way out but through, like labor, like life. I can't turn off the things that come at me, no matter how hard I try. And I can't run away, as much as I want to.

I don't think I could have guessed that my life would ever look like this. When I left home, I could run my Mom's house for her, manage the eight of us kids, cook meals, do laundry, take care of her goats, keep the house clean. I used to do it. Why can't I do it now? I write and take pictures because I have energy for little else. Why does it take a force of will that is greater than I am to get me up out of my chair?

The kids are fed. Their diapers are changed. They are clothed.

That is all I can manage. You can imagine what my husband is doing. Pray for him, please.

I don't think I am writing for sympathy, so please don't offer. I'm so befuddled; I'm just trying to figure out what I'm doing today, and this is the first quiet moment I've had since 5:30 this morning when the baby woke.

Someone is praying "wherewithal" for me today. She pressed God for a word to pray for me. Strength, healing, and wherewithal.

Does that mean that He thinks I can do this with Him?

Paul said that the secret of his contentment in any circumstance was that he could do all things through Christ who strengthened him.

When the rubber of my faith meets the road, how much do I truly believe God will come through for me, for His own glory? Especially when we are told to glory in our weakness? What does His coming through even look like?

I am a physical person. My needs are intensely physical. It is part of being dust.

I am worrying about tomorrow when God is speaking of me today to someone else. What is He seeing to for tomorrow that I don't know? I want to know. About twice per hour these last few days, I conclude that I cannot go on, I cannot keep living like this. Grace only goes so far, I think to myself. I have to get up and DO something.

I don't laugh much right now. Bredon does. He giggles already. He invites me into his happy. And Piper... I can't knock her fun out of the park just because I don't have energy to clean up after her. But I cried on the floor after taking those pictures. Because I just stared and stared for an hour before I could figure out what to do to clean it up.

I used to keep up; why not now?

I know God loves me; I know His love doesn't mean that my life will be perfect. Or easy. But it can be honest.

As I was crying over Piper's powder, washing her in the tub, bathing Bredon while I was at it, I thought of my own mess. The mess that is my life right now.

Messes get cleaned up.

But sometimes, there are more immediate needs.

Needs like deep trust-growing. The sacrifices of God - bruised reeds and broken hearts. Wherewithal - "That with which to do something; means or supplies for the purpose or need."

I think the wherewithal is not for the physical today. I need it for my heart. To hold on. To thank God. To be satisfied that He is enough; to believe and rejoice that He is my reward.

I wish that I were the sort of person who would draw near to God without having my own strength stretched so. But He has given me much; I am rich in know-how. It is hard for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Being poor-in-spirit; that is something I am learning. The poor in spirit get the whole thing.

Paradoxical, this faith is. Choosing impoverishment to gain such Treasure as cannot be imagined. Dying to live; believing without seeing.

God becoming man.

It is not the meeting of my physical needs that settles my heart.

I am not pregnant.

Unnecessary as the weight was, it is gone for now. It is not much. But it is something. Something I feared. Something God did not allow.

He could have. And He could have been strong for me in it. But I am so, so glad He didn't. I hope it is okay to admit that.

...

I will share the unfinished Part IV of my love story next Thursday. Sorry for the wait. It's an ongoing thing. I expect you get that.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Love Stories: God and Me, Part III

"Hope deferred makes the heart sick, But when the desire comes, it is a tree of life."

- Proverbs 13:12

I am told I met my Pete in February, 2004.

A coworker wanted me to go on a blind date with an online schoolmate of hers who was coming to town. There was no way I was going to subject myself to that. Not with everything that had already happened relating to boys and dates and the rest of my life spent waiting, because at the rate he was going, my friend was never getting married, and he sure wasn't coming back.

He told me so. I got the "never" to my face. And I was told not to expect God to change his mind.

I vaguely remember one day in the midst of the dark when I walked into the dining hall at the campus where I still worked after dropping out of school. I had a question for my coworker; really, I was looking for an excuse to be there. I knew I wasn't wanted by anyone in the room.

I asked my question; my coworker answered my question. I can remember a shadow behind her, someone moving quiet out of the light. I heard a familiar laugh across the room, too loud, too painful. I left as quickly as I could.

...

Pete told me much later that he went home to Connecticut and couldn't get me out of his mind. He said he'd never seen someone in so much pain. He said he'd prayed for me. I still say if I'd met him then, I'd never have fallen in love with him.

...

The spring came and went that year with me watching a calendar with silly hope. Each month had a focus on something beautiful, and for the life of me I can't tell you now what the themes of the months were, except June. I know what June was.

It was love.

Every month before, something had happened to fulfill the monthly theme. I was on a high with God, giddy that He cared to involve Himself in my life, giddy that anything could happen, that He could bring my friend back in spite of everything. He had told me to love him, after all.

There was only one thing that could happen in June that could meet the requirements of my love theme.

During the last week in June, I completely collapsed at the office with convulsions that sent me into the hospital. In the ER, I was given an IV containing what I was told was the same fluids that were in my body. I didn't realize it carried 5% dextrose into my bloodstream. I didn't realize it was going to make me weaker because of my sensitivity to sugar.

The first few days saw me accepting my suffering with hope. I read my Bible. I thanked God for the window in my room. I had landed in the old maternity ward. It was a safe place. I felt surrounded by love. I knew I was where God wanted me.

I had visitors, and the nurses were kind. They woke me every morning to draw blood, testing for God-knows-what. The person who got my room after I was moved was rather annoyed by all the callers for me.

Oh yes. I was moved.

And that is where the nightmare began.

...

I had known Pete for about a month at that point, but the month had opened such a friendship between us that I risked a call to him from the ER. I didn't know who else to call. I was still a kid in so many ways. I think it takes growing up to recognize how much you need your parents still, and too often, they're gone before you realize it.

He came. Every day except the three that he was gone on conference.

It was on one of those days that the hospital staff moved me. The nursing staff came in wearing masks at about 11:00 p.m. of the third day of what would be my nine-day stay. They were testing for something highly contagious, they said. I was being moved to isolation.

I was terrified. My sister had gone home that night, something she wouldn't do again for the rest of my stay.

Knowing he would still be up studying, I called Pete from my new room and talked until we were both too tired to stay awake. The room with a window that looked into a wall. The room on the hall where everyone was throwing up. I could hear them through the walls. It was in this room that I met Fear. It was in this room that he seared my soul with a perspective change that would forever challenge my childish view of God.

...

During my time at the hospital, I had been praying, begging God, really, to send my friend to see me. I asked Pete to ask him to come. I thought he might take it better from him than from me.

I wanted to ask his forgiveness. For what, I don't know. Loving him against his will? I still don't really know. I just wanted my friend back. At that point, I didn't care whether I "ended up" with him or not.

Every day I battled within myself over whether I should ask God for him to come. I expected him around every corner, waited for him to appear in my room - always looking, always waiting.

As I grew weaker and weaker with the dextrose in the IV compromising my blood, I began to wonder if I'd ever see him again. Finally one night, I fell to my knees, surrounded by fear, surrounded by the awful sounds of retching, by the weeping and the eerie hospital-quiet, and I begged. I begged God to send him. I turned my hands upward and surrendered my desire to God, for a final yes or no.

Pete found me beside the bed that night, too weak to climb back in. He helped me up and tucked me in as I faded into oblivion.

The last thing I remember from that night is his tender kiss on my forehead.

...

To my knowledge, my friend never came to the hospital. It was the closing of a door I didn't understand then, the opening of heart-questions for me that that simultaneously pulled me to God and drove me from Him.

How could He love me? What proof did I have that God really cared about me? What proof would I ever have?

In the weeks after the hospital, I cried through Job. I begged my friends for answers about God's love, about what it looked like, about what He meant. Pete stood firm that God loved me, that He didn't have to prove His love.

But how could I believe that?

...

I left the hospital with Fear, who would become my constant companion. Before I left, God had asked me to speak the name of Jesus to one of my doctors. I did. Before I left, one of my nurses came to me and told me that she was a Christian, that my witness had challenged her to live more loudly for Christ there in the hospital.

Before I left, the doctor told me I still had no diagnosis.

I left the hospital angry with God. How could He? How could He use me like that and leave me weaker, broken, without answers, without love?

The anger frightened me. As the days passed, I slowly shoved it away, behind the safer "Praise God, I'm out of the hospital. I'm in a wheelchair again, but it's okay. I'm not there anymore. My friend didn't come, but God is still bigger." The habits were there already. The patterns were set. I could act God, if I had to. And I had to, because nothing else made sense to me. "God" was all I had ever known.

I didn't know what else to do.

It would be years before the anger would surface again. It would be years before I faced those doubts and asked those questions, years before I opened my heart again.

It would be years before I faced God again.

I canned the calendar.

...

Love Stories: God and Me, Part I
Love Stories: God and Me, Part II

...

On Thursdays this month (because I never know quite what to post on Thursdays), I am writing out my love story. Not the one about my crushes or my first love or even my love for Pete - though those stories all play a part. Bonnie Gray at Faith Barista and Holley Gerth at (in)Courage challenged us to write out our God love stories, and I had one to share. BOY, do I have one to share.

So I know it's a little canned, being the "love month" and all, but I thought I'd take some time to write it out anyway. It's good for me to dwell on His love for me.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

White.

I'm doing the picture thing this week. The words aren't coming so easily. I can't even read very well; I'm miles behind on my blog-reading.

There are various reasons. Bredon is becoming more active, Piper has been sick, we have medical appointments four out of seven days this week. My Google searches would tell more, but I don't feel like sharing.

But I've been taking pictures at least. Looking at pictures. Spending less time at my computer and more time doing other stuff. This other stuff, it's important. It makes me want to be quiet. To be white, for a while.

I'm not keeping up so well. It feels like we've been sick for months - really, it's been about two months, though, since Bredon was born. One thing after another, and Piper threw up this morning.

So I've been removing myself from the loop. Not Twittering so much or posting so much or reading so much or emailing so much. Ann Voskamp's auto-response gave me courage to let go... I've been resting, instead - well, slowly learning to rest, learning where I can let go, starting over again at the "I have nothing to give" stage and changing my priorities again. And again, and again. The schedule keeps changing.

I've never done anything like this before, this mothering-two thing. I used to be afraid that my dolls would be jealous of one another if I spent more time with one than with another. I imagined they fought over who got to sleep at my right side. It's even scarier with children.

Tomorrow, I'll be posting part three in my God-love story. Today, I'm doing laundry and dishes and house-cleaning. Assuming the little guy will let me have a hand free. The baby-wearing just knocks my back out...

Huh. There is a period after my title, "White."

I want something that finished. That clean. Maybe it's the photos. I'm tired of shooting around the clutter. I'm constantly looking for white space to frame my photos - maybe that's why I shoot so much macro - the details are cleaner than the full, messy picture. It's a challenge, making the mess look beautiful. I focus on the parts, rather than the whole.

That says something interesting about me, I suppose.

At any rate, I have to get back to my mess. I'll leave the clean and finished for the blog.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Love Stories: God and Me, Part II

The journals.

They witnessed it all. They caught the tears, the dark-etched pencil (I never use pen for my handwriting), the play-by-play of my first love, my first deep heartbreak. I don't know now how many I filled.

...

As a teenager, I asked God to guard my heart for the man He had for me. I had as many (or more) crushes as the next girl, growing up. Maybe it was because we moved so often. There were plenty of new rooms with new faces for me to walk into and select which face to dream about. Dreaming about a Prince Charming is an occupational hazard for a teenage girl. At least it was for me.

During my first year at my second college, I got serious about God. More serious than I had been when I gave my life to Him for missionary work in the third grade. More serious than I had been when I rededicated my life for full-time Christian service at camp when I was eighteen. More serious about Him than I had been a full year at Bible college.

Wanna know why?

Because there were other people around me who were more serious about Him than I was. My competitive streak was up.

He'll use anything to draw us in.

But I was serious. So serious that September 12, 2001 saw me on my knees, finally giving my whole life to God for real, to do whatever, go wherever He would ask. At the time, I fancied New York City. A switch to a nursing career. Saving lives. Helping orphans. Even going to Africa. You know. The obvious ministry stuff. I was determined to want God more than I had wanted anything else, ever.

Two weeks later, I got my "whatever, wherever" from God when I started collapsing without explanation or diagnosis. There would be no glamorous occupation for me. Things were going to get messy.

...

Questions began to surface. The questions that come from suffering. The whys. The constant search for explanation. Little victories that I had performed well rejoicing in suffering crashed down as the suffering intensified. My circle of friends dwindled. They were tired of trying to answer my questions, I think. They were trying to survive their own Freshman year.

But there was one friendship in particular that would forever change my life. He was probably the fourth real guy friend I had ever had. And he was a good friend. A true friend. He was the first person I ever loved with God's love.

And my girl's heart fell in love with him. Hard.

He loved me too.

The logical end of the love that grew out of our friendship should have been a happily-ever-after.

I looked in the mirror one day after he left on a school trip, and I saw it there, the thing I'd read about but never quite believed. I was glowing. I looked in the mirror and I saw what he saw. I was sparkling. I was beautiful.

I never wanted to lose that feeling. I was amazed at the love God had given to me. Of course it had been Him. I had asked Him to guard my heart for the man He wanted for me. I simply assumed He had kept me for this one.

Nothing could have prepared me for what happened next.

...

My second year at my second college was the loneliest year I have ever lived.

My friend who I loved, who loved me, rejected me out-of-hand. He ignored me. He "was over it now." He pursued my best girl friend.

His reasons were many and complicated, but I watched that year as he systematically destroyed every part of himself that reminded him of me. I felt as if he were deeply ashamed of me, of my feelings, of my love, of our friendship.

My heart shattered.

...

God asked me to love him anyway. He wanted me to speak to Him the truth that was in my heart about my feelings. He wanted me to love my friend as He loved him. He wanted me to see him as God saw me, to give him the same grace I was learning to receive myself.

My sister listened to numerous friends who questioned my choice to love, who questioned my motives and my confusion, but instead of counseling the end of it all, she encouraged me. It was the first time in the whole of our lives that she had seen me reach outside of my own self-centeredness to care for the heart of someone else.

And the love God placed in my heart for my friend was a lifeline that drew me through my pain and confusion into God's heart.

I learned that love doesn't always look like hearts and flowers and sparkling eyes and the honeymoon stage.

I learned how incredibly we can hurt God when we rebuff His offer of relationship.

I learned how deeply He could love someone. I learned how deeply He could love me.

I learned that love - real love - cannot be killed.

All these lessons I held to my heart, waiting until God would be finished teaching me what He wanted to teach me, waiting for Him to answer my prayer and bring my friend back to me, give me the love and the wedding I longed for.

I journaled and I journaled and I journaled, hoping that one day my friend would read the words that told the story of my walk with God through the pain, hoping that he would be able to see how much I'd loved him in spite of it all, praying that one day I would pick up a pencil and write on the page how amazing God had been to bring us together, finally.

I wanted to believe God would give me what I wanted. But I never could quite bring myself to it. Something inside could not be released.

...

God had told me to ask Him for my friend, so that He could say "no" to me if He wanted.

I really, really hoped He would say "yes" if I surrendered. I even made a vow to Him. My part of the bargain, if you will. Just so He'd know I was serious. I intended to keep it too.

I vowed that I would wait for my friend until he was married to someone else. I knew then what I'll admit now - I just didn't want to hurt him more than he'd already been hurt through his own choices. I hoped one day to offer him my love, full and free - no bitterness, no hard feelings.

Still, a vow was a vow, and keeping a vow made to the Lord was terribly important to me.

So I vowed. And I ached. Oh, I ached. And I waited.

I would still be waiting now, but for God.

I had learned much about His love, but I didn't know it. Not deep. Not yet. I needed to know Him.

...

NOTE: For some of you who read, this post will be quite a throwback to conversations and old places in my friendships with you. For some who didn't know, it may explain a bit why I was the way I was during this period of time in my life. Please bear with me. It is a part of my story I cannot erase. I have written as much from my own perspective as I can; I have shared here what I may not have shared with some of you. Thank you, real people who have walked with me, for being in my life on many sides of this.

...

Love Stories: God and Me, Part I

...

On Thursdays this month (because I never know quite what to post on Thursdays), I am writing out my love story. Not the one about my crushes or my first love or even my love for Pete - though those stories all play a part. Bonnie Gray at Faith Barista and Holley Gerth at (in)Courage challenged us to write out our God love stories, and I had one to share. BOY, do I have one to share.

So I know it's a little canned, being the "love month" and all, but I thought I'd take some time to write it out anyway. It's good for me to dwell on His love for me.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Love Today

Wednesday.

The week is blurred on both sides; it is only the moment that comes into focus, like a permanent shallow depth-of-field.

I hear the windchimes outside the house that will be ours for only a few more weeks. Already, we are moving stuff three streets over to our new/old/new house. Pete needs to put in the lighting there. We need more hours in a day.

But the windchimes are singing here today. Loudly. The wind that blew out the clouds overnight and brought the sun in this morning is determined and cold, frolicking as if spring is here, teasing.

I'm a little disoriented. Wistfully disoriented, I think. I feel a bit trapped inside my body today; I am annoyed with my physical limitations. The world is blurred. I am awkward. My legs don't work very well. Neither does my voice. I am weak today.

I've cleaned my inbox, quieted enough to string answers together and reply to a few letters. I don't sleep well in daylight so I haven't napped; I slept until 9:30 this morning, because Pete stayed home to help with the little ones. Now he is feeling ill, and the babies are sleeping.

Finally, I am alone with my thoughts.

...

Wednesday.

Ann Voskamp is hosting her "Walk With Him Wednesday." I have been thinking of how to love like Jesus, but all I can scribble here (is it scribbling to type the words, really?) is vivid memory-etching from Sunday's dim-lit worship, nameless faces, hearts indwelt by Christ.

He came to be me, came to be them, that we might all be washed in grace, clothed together in His righteous. I don't know them. I didn't have to know them. I didn't have to be hurt by them or forgive them to recognize Him in them.

The Motrin has eased the throat-pain now. I try not to be distracted by the fresh chill. I turn up the heat.

Ann has written of love during her family's sick time. I didn't know when I began this post. "One can't love too much," she says. But one can love too little. I am not good at this sort of love. Giving or receiving it. Both require stepping outside of oneself. And that is hard to do, when I am falling apart, body and mind.

But not soul. I can't remember the last time I felt well. I pull myself up, remember my mom's encouragement - "endurance," she has offered me many times. "Sometimes, you just have to get through it."

She is right. The living cannot just stop. Time goes on. Needs don't go away.

I wish for someone to bring a meal tonight. I think I can manage it, though, if I stand long enough. I need to get it before the baby wakes again to eat.

The loving can't stop for weakness.

It endures, doesn't it?

I remember the strep infection I got when Piper was four weeks old. I had a fever, 104 degrees. I was barely conscious, still waking to nurse her, burning hot flesh against my husband in bed, freezing too deep to get warm.

This is not so bad as it was then.

The sun is setting. Day is nearly finished. We'll be up for a few more hours with Bredon's colic now.

...

Wednesday.

Loving like Jesus. It must be done here, in the now - whether I am ready or not. This is how He loved. His eternal God-love met with flesh-limitation, and He sought rest too, bearing burdens, yielding His body to meet our desperate need, giving His life as He traveled with no place to lay His head.

It must be done in today, this loving like Him, leaving yesterday's failures there, taking no thought for tomorrow's grace not-yet-measured.

This love seems stronger than all the other times I love. It is life-giving, life-laying-down. It requires much, more than I know how to give; I grasp what strength I have and hope He will bridge the difference.

And if He doesn't? Well, I know about that. That's when I free-fall. That's when trusting His heart gives me strength to say anyway that "God is good, isn't He?" Sometimes that is more of a question than a statement. And sometimes it is just what I know, because I know His love deep now.

...

Wednesday.

The learning to love like Jesus happens quiet. It is not glamorous like I'd hoped. It is daily, kairos framed in chronos.

Kairos because it is outside time, because Christ-love never fails. Kairos because Jesus is God, God has no beginning or end; God is Love - I cannot fathom the infinite.

I grab another water bottle from beneath my desk. I need to keep drinking, swallowing help over my sore throat, so Bredon can have enough to eat. It is nearly dinner time.

Time to love, I think.

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This post also linked at Holy Experience for Walk With Him Wednesday.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Love Stories: God and Me, Part I

Once upon a time...

That's pretty much the way all good love stories begin, isn't it? The fairytale kind, the ones that star a beautiful princess and a handsome Prince Charming. (He is always "Prince Charming," because giving him a name humanizes him, and we can't have a Prince with flaws, now can we?)

Here I must dispense with my Dickensian rambling and begin my love story. Which does not require a once-upon-a-time. The princess is a normal gal with beauty issues, and the Prince - well, He has a name, a human name. "God with us."

...

I never know quite where to begin this story.

Sometimes, it seems that it must begin way back before I was ever born, in my mom's desire for a baby girl, in her long wait, the womb-knitting, and the beginning of her birth pains. Sometimes, it goes all the way back before the foundation of the world, with a Father's love for His Son, with a God-love for the world that gave.

But all of that happened long before I was aware of God, long before I was old enough to suspect His love. No, I first encountered the love of God between my year at Bible college and my Freshman year at the four-year school I attended until my health forced me to drop out.

Not that I hadn't been taught about its existence before. There is not a time in my life that I can pinpoint that I didn't know intellectually that God loved me. I grew up with God. I grew up with parents who loved me, and who taught me that God loved me. I grew up in church, and if there's one thing they teach you in Sunday School, it's that "God so loved the world..."

I memorized John 3:16 forty-eight times.

I knew that "the world" God loved was me.

But there is a difference between knowing someone loves you and knowing you are loved, and all the head knowledge in the world isn't enough to span that eighteen-inch gap of sermon-illustration fame.

I said a salvation prayer when I was a young child, on a day my parents never recorded, sometime around four years old. I remember kneeling beside a bed - it had a hush puppies bedspread; I remember the butterflies playing with the puppies on it - and asking Jesus to be my savior. I knew enough at that point to understand that sin was something I didn't want to have, so the expedient thing to do was ask Jesus to forgive me, which I figured would pretty much take care of things.

Such was my faith as a child.

It seems that from the beginning of my life, I was meant to be God's. I can't explain it, His pursuit of me that has spanned twenty-eight years and eternity past. In many ways, it has been for me a consistent deconstruction of what I thought I knew about God.

I used to think He displayed His love for me by answering my prayers.

There was the time I sat down under a tree on our 25 acres and asked God to send a deer walking by after dinner. I was putting out my fleece... or hunting for venison? The deer didn't come the first night, so giving God a second chance, I changed trees. I went a little further down the path toward the back of our 25 acres. Still no deer.

I figured at that point that God wasn't too interested in proving Himself by answering my prayers.

So I began to think that He loved me by indulging me. Maybe He wasn't actively answering my requests, but as long as He didn't interfere with what I wanted, I felt loved enough.

I never expected Him to let my heart break...

...

On Thursdays this month (because I never know quite what to post on Thursdays), I am going to write out my love story. Not the one about my crushes or my first love or even my love for Pete - though those stories all play a part. Bonnie Gray at Faith Barista and Holley Gerth at (in)Courage challenged us to write out our God love stories, and I had one to share. BOY, do I have one to share.

So I know it's a little canned, being the "love month" and all, but I thought I'd take some time to write it out anyway. It's good for me to dwell on His love for me.

...

Tomorrow will be my second "Leftovers" post, complete with a McLink-up for readers to share your own reposts.

NOTE - I am offering "Leftovers" as an opportunity to justify reposting a post you love. You're welcome to join this carnival of original unoriginality (since you've already said it!) here at my blog - just follow the steps below:

*REPOST a favorite blog post at your blog
*Please kindly INCLUDE A LINK to my blog in your explanation for your repost ;-)
*LINK the direct link for your repost (not the original post) into the McLinky I will provide here.
*LEAVE A COMMENT so I know you're there.

Hopefully, in two weeks, when I host "Leftovers" again (yeesh, people, if you have a nicer, more poetic, romantic name for it, leave a comment - NOBODY likes leftovers, right?), I will try and have an irresistible button for you (with CODE!) to add to your repost.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

This is Us

So. I had all these photos. And it was WAY too many for a post. So I made a slideshow, because I figured out how to do that now. So without further ado, I give you........ Us!



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My friend Emily at Chatting at the Sky hosts a weekly "noticing" party - giving us a chance to unwrap and share the little gifts (and the big ones!) God gives to us in the midst of our dailiness.





(Images © Informal Moments Photography)

When Barren is Beautiful

Thank you for this thorn embedded in my flesh;
I can feel the mystery, my spirit is made fresh.
You are sovereign still and forever wise;
I can see the miracle opening my eyes

To a proud heart so quick to judge
Laying down crosses and carrying grudges.
The veil has been torn -
And I thank you for this thorn

Thank you for this thorn, fellowship of pain
Teaching me to know you more, never to complain
Thank You for this love planted in my side,
Faithful patient miracle opening my eyes.

I never thought I'd say it without reservation,
But I am truly grateful for this piercing revelation
Of a proud heart so quick to judge,
Laying down crosses and carrying grudges -
The veil has been torn,
And I thank you for this thorn

And if You chose to take it, I will praise You
And thank You for the healing in Your name.
But if it must remain, I thank You for Your rod
Evidence of Father-love for a child of God.

I join You in the sorrow,
So much less than You have borne,
And I thank you, really I thank You...
Lord I thank You; I thank You for this thorn

- Twila Paris, This Thorn

I hever saw myself posting this song, or even echoing it from my heart until today when I found myself humming it, voicing it, singing it during a diaper change.

Yesterday's words were for me. I meant only to give voice to myself and my struggle, meant only to shovel out some of my personal winter to make room for some spring.

Today, writing from here, I am nearly wordless at the depth of the response. I look at your words poured out in yesterday's comment box, filling my email inbox - words of encouragement, affirmation, identification. Words and prayers and Scripture and hope to refresh me, to make me feel young again, to let me know that there is still life to be had, to reach for my heart with yours and wrap it up and send it heavenward.

I have said thank-you so often lately, I can't help but respond with grateful all over the place. I am still with amazement today.

Today has been a slow day, a quiet day, a sunny day with March winds in January bearing growing excitement for us. It has been a day for making room, for choosing trust, for having and holding and trying again.

His mercies are new every morning, I learned in my first round of depression, when every night I fell into bed feeling I'd failed, knowing I'd handed in my miracles. They are still new, every morning.

This is what His faithfulness is.

I can't begin to describe it for you. It is simply something I know.

Last time I walked this path, I wanted what I wanted - the assurance that I would not lose, the end of my pain for crying out loud. God Himself was not reward enough for me. I was alone because I chose my isolation from His grace.

I am not alone this time. I could not have written what I wrote without the new knowledge I have of His love for me.

When I wrote yesterday, I could not thank Him for this, but today I step gingerly into praise. I learned last time not to feel guilty for the good days.

Worship aches out in breath today, in not-so-studied bed-making and hair-doing and nursing and diaper-changing and in writing and in cooking, which I have done.

There are not words adequate for this grateful, for this sense that God cares - He really does.

I look outside, absorb the sun and the blue and the trees and the glory of the morning traveling into noon and into early evening. The smile comes deep, peace that barely curves my lips, peace that lightens my eyes.

He has borne my burdens; you have borne them with Him. He has enriched my soul; He has used your words to do it. He has given me a good day; He has given me Himself.

Should it stun me that I am not wasted after four days in the dark? Should I be so amazed that I am not destroyed?

I am.

And I am, quite frankly, humbled. It as if I am seeing the world through different eyes today. I keep blinking, trying to make sense of it all, trying to figure out what to do with this "enfolded" feeling, with this "surrounded" feeling - this safe that isn't even a feeling so much as it is a faith.

I don't understand why I should feel beautiful like this. Why I should feel cherished like this. Comforted like this. Quieted like this.

Who am I to deserve such treatment?

Slowly, I learn now to pray.

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This post also linked at Holy Experience for Walk With Him Wednesday.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Thorn

I don't want to publish this post.

I haven't wanted to write it.

Writing it would make it real.

But writing it would make me real. And I need that. I need to be real right now.

I need to write off my excuses and face the creeping deadness and bring it out into the sunlight and expose it there. I need to write it here, during my me-time, because it is all the me-time I really get.

I'm barely getting shower time lately.

I need to write it while I can write it, corral it, give it a place so it doesn't rule me, spinning round and round in my thoughts and my head and my heart like the storm that came through last night, whipping rain against window and wall and roof.

Enough is enough. I can't hide anymore by changing the subject.

...

I am a very open person, but there are two topics I don't talk about with anyone but my husband. One is the topic of my first love. The other is my depression.

It was odd to realize this yesterday while I was talking with Pete. Odd to realize that I've been deliberately avoiding writing from where I am over the last week or so.

Repost an old post. Guest posts are a good idea. Keep it clean. Keep it shallow. Your readers don't need to know what is really going on. Just cloak it here. It's not a lie.

But I know it is a lie. I know because I care too much about what you think. Because I've suddenly found myself checking my statcounter and comparing numbers and trying to come up with ways to promote my blog so I get more traffic because I want to be just. like. somebody. else. And it's no one in particular. Just those somebodies I've run across who get a million comments or a thousand visitors a day.

I got about a thousand visitors one day two weeks ago.

So I've been putting my make-up on here. Covering up my blemishes, making me pretty, dressing up and putting conclusions on this barely-dressed me that is really shell-shocked, struggling, staring, weeping, working, waking.

I am trying to believe that what I am presenting is the real me and it is wanted, while I am hiding away the mess that I am, sweeping up my dust, creating myself one more place to hide.

I cannot do that here.

...

Four days of clouds will do it to me. And they did this last week. It doesn't matter what I do.

The first day, I will turn all the lamps on in the house to warm it, drink tea, cuddle in blankets with babies, write poetry.

The second day, it gets harder. I try to have a good attitude. The crying grates more. I start losing patience with Piper. I grasp at grace.

On the third day, the fog sets in. Doing anything requires herculean effort. Focusing my thoughts beyond putting one foot in front of another is almost impossible. I start to feel fat. Ugly. Lazy. I start to notice that I'm not seeing my kids. The condemnation-whispers intensify.

By the fourth day, I'm almost non-functional. I spend long periods of time staring into space, trying to figure out what I need to do to stand up, put my clothes on, get food, take care of babies. I feel wooden, frozen. The guilt is overwhelming; condemnation roars at me. I have no energy to answer it. I pray for sun.

Additional factors worsen the freeze. The new diet I have to figure out for my gallbladder. Tailoring that diet even further for the baby's thrush. Curling up inside because I know his sick is my fault, and why can't I just get this right. Raising garlic and B dosages and setting off a deeper herxheimer - for both Lyme and Candida.

And every time I herx, the depression deepens for a week until my body adjusts to the new treatment levels.

I can't cry.

...

I register things internally that I can't express. I photograph the light so I can see it on cloudy days. I write my rememberies while they are fresh so that I have them in words, etched in my mind so I can look back and remember what was on the other side of these closing walls.

I try to see Piper, try to see Bredon, try not to look at Pete because I know it is happening again and I am so, so sorry that I can't fight it away every day. Ignoring it doesn't work.

It must be engaged.

I read others' stories of their struggle with it, and I acknowledge it deep but I don't admit.

It must be engaged.

I write about everything else in my life, because I don't want my readers to think it is so hard here, because it's not so hard here every day and this is not the sum of who I am.

But it must be engaged.

And so I am writing it here. I am bringing out my unmade face with the circles under my eyes, the slack expression, my thrown-up hair, frumpy clothing, my post-baby-squared body. I'm writing out the unmade bed, the toddler-toys all over the house, the dishes that I don't do, the laundry I barely notice until I realize how much Pete is doing for me, for us.

I'm opening the door, because I can't keep it closed any longer. This needs to be real. I need to leave my denial behind and spill out the dark the same way I need to spill out the fun and the light and the shallow.

I didn't start this blog for the whole world. I started it to write what I couldn't say. My goal here is not to cloak me or present someone I am not. What good is Jesus to you or to me if I write outside my humanity? What merit does my grace-description hold if I don't share my need of it?

...

I suppose I could journal it, instead of putting me out here for examination and suggestion and judgment. But as long as I can hide from it, I don't have to acknowledge it, and for me the writing of it makes it real. The saying of it, the sharing of it clears my head. It takes the swirling, toxic phrases that play on repeat and turns the light on them, revealing them for the lies they are.

Paul wrote to the Corinthians of a thorn in his flesh that God didn't remove.

I know the depression is my thorn.

I am struggling to understand how God's grace is sufficient. I know it is for me. But I need it to be sufficient for Pete and for Piper and for Bredon.

This is not the way I pictured my life.

But it is what it is, and part of living my life means living this too.

I hope, as always, that you will pardon my dust.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Metaphor

New Orleans.

Everywhere, you could see lingering evidence of the storm. Whole apartment buildings stood gutted. Water marks crawled up walls, seeking disguise beneath mossy grime. Houses that had been homes stood empty, windows shattered, gone. There was a boarded-up Walmart that was missing its sign. A Burlington Coat Factory with a Baby Depot hosted only shopping carts in the parking lot. Car lots with spanking new vehicles boasted only temporary or damaged signs. We drove over Lake Pontchartrain on a bridge that had been patched together.

After the storm, there was talk of abandoning the city. Leaving it a ghost town, a silent, eerie memorial to Katrina's wrath. So many were killed. So many lost everything. So many chose not to return.

But some did return. There were new houses, new siding, new landscaping in neighborhoods that still housed condemned and destroyed homes. The city's French Quarter was packed with humanity and gridlocked traffic around the famous Café du Monde. New Orleans was hosting some rather important football game in which fans for both teams wore red and white. And parallel to the patched bridge was a new bridge being constructed of pieces from the old.

At first, I didn't notice the damage still visible in New Orleans. Like any other city I have visited, I was first struck by the character of the city. I could taste its wildness, its passion, its pain, its memory. As we left the city, however, I saw. There was an ache that brought tears.

Aftermath. That was the word. The word that focused the emotions of my journey, my personal storm, the word that focused what I was seeing all around me. And then, hope.

After every storm, there is life. Not everything dies. But the damage - that stays. Unless someone returns to restore it. Unless someone rebuilds what was broken. If someone can see hope for future in the ruins of what was, even what was can be raised again to bring life.

There is no measure to time out the aftermath. It is what it is, and each day is a new day, when piece by piece, old bits of rubble may be gathered, removed, salvaged, turned into something new. It will never be what was, but then, who knows yet what it was meant to be?

...

I ran across this post in my archives the other day, first posted in January of last year, and I thought it bore a repost, which I often think when I reread my old writing after a while. This, of course, got me to thinking that this must be some sort of shameless, narcissistic self-promotion, and I wondered if anyone else felt that way about a favorite post of theirs.

So I decided to turn my self-promotion into an other-promotion opportunity and give you a chance to link up one of your favorite posts from your archives. Yes, this is your chance to promote yourself too. I am being an enabler. I hope this is okay.

When I get my computer back, I'm sure I'll come up with a button for this, but for now, just repost your favorite on your blog today with a link to my blog and drop the permalink into the MckLinky below before Sunday at 11:00 p.m., EST.

Oh yes, and be sure to leave me a comment after leaving your link - just so I know you're here!

If it goes over well, I'll make it an every-other-Friday feature.

And for a promotional bonus: next Friday I will feature a shout-out to a favorite from the posts left here, in addition to my own repost.

...







(Image © SXC)

Diet Change: Help Wanted

No, we didn't make it to the beach this weekend. I am scrounging through my archives for photos lately. I apologize for this. I so want to reveal the new I am seeing, capturing, living. I have a couple hundred new ones awaiting processing, awaiting the arrival of my new computer, awaiting the software I need. I want it for you. I want it for our families. I want it for me - I take the picture because I forget.

Still, this is the same light we saw tonight on our organic co op run. The light that was streaming through bare trees onto standing water left over from last night's rain, glory reflected in pools of sky-tears.

Breathe in, breathe out. This is what the light helps me do. We had spring today - sixties and open windows. It was amazing. I love that spring comes in January here.

But I'm getting a little sidetracked. At the beginning of my post. Go figure.

...

I have been attempting to formulate a diet plan for us that began as simple meal and menu ideas to help with grocery trips and snowballed on Tuesday with our discovery that I have gallstones and must eat better for my gallbladder.

I need to cut sugar and dairy and refined flour from my diet. I have some old allergens resurfacing with the lack of sleep that contributes to my body's post-pregnancy breakdown. It is my goal to attempt to put off surgery for my gallbladder until Bredon is weaned, since I'm not sure what pumping to avoid his getting my anesthesia would do to this baby/mommy bond.

I have a few recipes left over from my old no-sugar-dairy-corn-lemon-onion diet, but with all of the changes coming at me with a new baby in the house (and the need to retry this without potatoes because of Pete's death-allergy), I'm coming up a little short on fresh ideas.

So I have a request to make:

Would you be willing to share a link to fresh, healthy, family-friendly (delicious would be good too!) recipes that are low-fat (to be gallbladder friendly) and use no sugar or dairy?

If you have a link, please leave it in my comment box or email me. I would so appreciate your ideas. After nine months of not being able to think about food, I was so hoping to help out by planning for us in this area.

...

"Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." (1 Cor. 10:31)

There is a post coming on this soon. At least, I hope there is. I have a lot of thoughts chasing around in my brain, and when I sit down, I'm too tired to figure out what goes where. So you get my mish-mash in poetic prose.

Thanks for "listening."

...

Oh and yes, I know. What does the light on the water at the sea have to do with food?

Not much.

*happy sigh*

It's just so preeeetty, isn't it?






(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Clean, Important - and Worth Doing

She always felt it when the train went underground - this sense of eagerness, of hope and of secret excitement. It was as if normal existence were a photograph of shapeless things in badly printed colors, but this was a sketch done in a few sharp strokes that made things seem clean, important - and worth doing.

- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged (p. 25)

This is the nature of the New Year. The nature of this new life into which I have been thrown. The fresh, the clear - they take me forever to sort. I have mental lists. I make small goals.

Lots of them:


*Getting out of my pajamas
*Getting Piper and Bredon changed and dressed.
*And feeding, the kids must be fed.
*Making the bed is a huge accomplishment. It is made today.
*A shower (without Pete in the house) is a bonus
*Making meals for myself
*Taking my pills

And there are other goals, bonus goals, the

*writing a post for the day
*visiting my online friends while babies nap
*cleaning out my inbox
*grabbing a photo here, a photo there
*figuring out the paypal so we can order my new computer so I can
*process my photos and
*fix my html code in my blog template (oy!)

I move in circles, slow circles.

My mental lists tangle with the hearts in this house. I keep quiet, breathing slow and trying patient, staying me for them, for me, for you. I try not to panic when everything goes crazy at once. "Just do the next thing."

The next thing that meant an ER visit Tuesday to find out that I have gallstones and need to have my gall bladder removed. Which means that I have to add to my list

*researching gall bladder and lyme treatment issues
*calling people who know
*planning different meals to stay healthy and push off surgery
*praying for wisdom and timing with my breastfeeding baby
*crying. I want that on the list. It hasn't happened yet.

And I added worrying yesterday.

My major goal yesterday was to clean and vacuum the living room before Pete arrived home. And maybe do the dishes. Which was his goal. If I did them, he would probably find something else to do. But I didn't get them done. He did. And we made dinner. And we had had a small, quiet window that felt sane. It felt like us.

I do have other goals. Long term goals. Small goals. Things I can see happening. Things that might not happen, but I'd like to try for them anyway:

*learning how to make Lightfoot Creamy Tomato Soup
*reading to my children
*creating a flash website for my photography

And then there is the grateful and the happy things to list that I breathe in and out and barely have time to count, the

*baby scent in my nose
*IV without dextrose
*sun in my eyes as I type (oh, it is beautiful, isn't it?)
*numerous comments and emails from friends
*enough milk
*love that goes around what doesn't fit in my arms
*sponge baths
*showers with my toddler
*hope that surgery may help the Lyme
*quality time with my husband, even in the ER
*eyes to see
*gasping astonished moments because God chose me to know Him
*phone calls with my mother, my friend, my new confidante
*a love story God wrote
*little girl time
*visits from family with perfect timing
*emails from friends I didn't know I had
*emails from friends I do know
*courage
*prayers
*familiar
*new
*toddler messes and imagination
* "yes" that lights up little girl eyes
*baby smiles that light me up
*naptimes to hide in kitchen and gain perspective
*light that falls across my bed into my rocker and onto my son
*the sound of baby breathing at night - one on each side of me

And my not-alone, those friends who have taken the time to offer me their "I see you..." in these last weeks of silent crazy:

*Ann who has so often given to me
*Lyla, a fellow introvert who emails and offers
*Anne, who followed God into my life
*Sarah, who found rest in my restless
*Corinne, who knows and cries and comments
*Maureen

Love Does That

All day long a little burro labors, sometimes
with heavy loads on her back and sometimes just with worries
about things that bother only
burros.

And worries, as we know, can be more exhausting
than physical labor.

Once in a while a kind monk comes
to her stable and brings
a pear, but more
than that,

he looks into the burro's eyes and touches her ears
and for a few seconds the burro is free
and even seems to laugh,

because love does
that.

Love frees.

- from Love Poems from God by Daniel Ladinsky

*Cassandra

I considered putting this in an email, but then I thought it might encourage someone else by being here.

Beauty heals. Beauty restores. Beauty is somehow deeper and more powerful than all of the other things we know to be true about our life in the fallen world. Even when
we don't have the answers yet and when life is not organized properly, if we can stop for beauty, however simple, every day, it can do an amazing work of grace on us.

I've noticed that beauty means much to you and that it charges your personal battery like it does mine.

Every time it happens, I'm astounded at how much beauty restores and strengthens me, even when my problems are not yet solved.

But I have to be deliberate about seeking it. Beauty doesn't just come to me often enough to nourish me in the hungry places. I have to search for it and arrange for it.

So here's a prescription: take a beauty vitamin once a day. A picture you adore, a vase of flowers (especially in winter), a bird on the window, music that soars, a book of poetry. As much as possible, surround yourself with it. Don't feel that you have to "earn it" by getting to a place where you feel like there is room for it. Just do it now, in the midst of the mess and the confusion and the sense of being overwhelmed.

I wish -- how I wish -- someone had told me this when I had babies.

I hope it helps.

*Laura, who tells me I'll capture the sky
*Elise, who sends prayers and wonderful advice

And you, my friend, with your world weaving in and out of new son and helper daughter and less sleep and heart-cracking love... I've been meaning to pop in and share something...

Every time I see Gideon and his stiff-step walk turning the corner into his sister's room, and I hear her shriek of excited laughter as she runs to pull him in and hands him a toy and begins jabbering to him, I've thought of you lately. I've tried to instill in Eliana a *peace* about her brother being around... to point out how very much he loves her and admires her and wants to be with her. And so far, I haven't once heard her ask him to leave her room. (except when she's changing! :)

So I wanted to share... cultivate that love between Piper and Bredon. Constantly point out, Oh, he loves you! See him look at you! and exaggerate... Oooooh, Bredon, look at sissy's (or whatever you're calling her to him- Pip?) toy, or book, or dress- isn't it beautiful? Isn't it fun? Thank you, sissy!

Gideon is alight, Eliana is alight, and I'm loving their relationship.

May He give you eyes to see, my friend. (And may I add that I'm praying you into the Light, in this time of potential dark...)

*Jennifer, who listens and feels what I feel
*Jessica, who shares in this time
*Faith, who gave me courage to trust
*Bonnie, who prays and writes simply what I can't always say
*Glynn, who gives helpful courage and kind affirmation
*Holley, who asked for my heart at (in)courage
*Heidi, who asks how I am every day, who is blogging again
*Arianne, who wrote to me even in her own sadness - in spite of my joy

I leave you with a happy award today, given to me just last night by another friend, Amy at Haven Space. If you like, consider yourself tagged (but I don't have time for memes right now... *wink*)

And there are more of you; if I were to write out the words that are living in my heart and giving me courage, I'd be writing all day, and I started this post yesterday. You have given me so much extra courage. I have felt your prayers. I wish I had time and energy to encourage you all in return.

Normally, I have a plan. A prayer, really. Something specific to ask God for. But here I am two weeks into the New Year, and I can't begin to nail down anything specific. Maybe I would ask for

*relationship
*patience
*tenderness
*one day at a time, because I can't live a whole year at once right now

But I don't really know what to ask. My prayers are mostly wordless right now, the aching, breathing, tearing-up kind that wend their way past ceiling into atmosphere that is not comprehensible by flesh and blood.

Ann suggested naming the new year. The only name that has come is Immanuel. This year offers me time, hope that I will

*look for Jesus as God with us
*speak more of the Gospel than I have
*pursue His heart in caring for other hearts

It is not much; it is so much. I laugh at that statement. My whole life is such a paradox right now.

I have thought many times in the past few days how we live in the mind, and I want to stay awake, to live for what isn't tangible, even as the tangible calls me into itself with baby cries and dishes and laundry and food. Really living is a miracle.

I think only God could figure out how we can do this and learn to love Him. There is so much that is worth doing. I only know what to do in the moment meant for it.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)