if i doubted...

... That P loves me, I don't have too much room. These came yesterday for me. For no reason at all. I can't not post a pic. Especially with both kids napping. Which I think is God's equivalent to the flowers on this rather crazy day.

Just sayin'.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

A Post About Piper

She's so serious here. Trying to figure out the camera with the sensation of mother-love that comes all too little lately. I borrowed her for my 365 project today.

I'm working in a self-portrait angle this year, and three days into it, I'm certain it's going to be a stretching experience. I view myself in pieces right now. There is writer-me, depressed-me, insecure-me, loved-me, mama-me, person-me. The feelings ram against each other; my stay is not in my mood.

But this is a post about Piper.

She has grown so much. I hardly believe she is two anymore. Her homeschool-mama sitter sat Pete down after fencing recently (my husband is teaching fencing again, and taking Piper with him) and told him that she is operating at a four-to-five-year-old level. This report made one rather bad day of mine a rather good day at its end.

With her growth comes an expanded capacity for trouble.

I have an aunt who reads this blog who will cringe at this next photo:


Piper destroyed my grandmother's chair yesterday. I inherited a few small things from Grandma, things I treasure more than I should probably treasure earthly possessions. They're right up there with my camera in emotional value. Probably more so. This was one of those.

I didn't know it until I went into the living room to take a little time with her and found the pieces scattered all over the floor.

And mama-time went out the window.

Because I had told her. And I know she is old enough and responsible enough to know that she was not supposed to tear the chair up.

So I yelled, as all good mad mamas do. And I spanked her. As most good mad mamas do. And I sent her to her room, because I was too angry with her to not keep yelling, and I needed a little help with my self-control.

I didn't know what to do. When love rams up into loss, how do you react? What course of action can you take?

By now the baby was hollering to be fed, so I pulled him out of his bed and nursed him, fuming, frustrated, trying to figure out how to fix the situation - not the chair, the broken relationship. The relationship I had just knocked over the foul line.

I was still fuming when I heard her door open. I steeled myself, determined to keep my quiet, as she padded into the kitchen, crying softly.

She laid her head on the arm of my desk chair, on my arm resting there, holding Bredon as I nursed.

"I'm sowwy, Mama. Sowwy, Mommy."

Now it was my turn to cry. My anger dissolved. How did she know?

I got to forgive her. And then I told her I was sorry too, for yelling, for my angry. I told her I loved her.

And she moved on.

Childlike, childish - it was okay now. She could play again.

I sat and watched her, amazed, stunned at her tender heart.

And something else caught me. She didn't doubt my forgiveness once she knew she was still loved. She received the mercy she'd asked of me.

I don't even do that when I ask it of God. I'm too busy kicking myself for needing the mercy in the first place.

Wow.


Talk about lessons in abundant living...





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

All My Heart

There is a school of thought that says it is possible to love your husband more than you love God. It says it is possible to make an idol out of your husband. Logically speaking, this line of thought holds that it is actually possible to sin against God by loving your husband.

No way. I don't think so.

Eve's overwhelming desire for her husband may have been something God explained to her when He leveled the Curse against the snake and the ground, but He never said it was a sin to desire Adam.

He said Adam would rule over her.

In the head-of-the-house sort of way. In the Eve-you'll-submit sort of way. In the half-of-your-heart-walking-out-of-the-door-every-morning sort of way.

...

I'm guest-posting at Deidra's blog today. Head on over to Jumping Tandem to read just exactly what I wrote about this whole "loving your husband more than God" thing.

I'll give you a hint: I can't love him enough...





(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)

About Dad: How God Fathers Me

I've been thinking about my dad this week. Trying to remember what I know of him that I haven't been told. Wondering what relationship do I have with him, really?

I've always been pretty independent. As a child, I had my own ideas about life. My own decided way of doing things. It was usually the hard way, my dad would say.

But I remember needing him. He was the only one who could take out the splinters I got in my fingers and toes. "Pop's Splinter Shop," he called it, teasing me every time that he was gonna charge me a nickel I didn't have for his services. As if I would have paid him for doing something he was supposed to do. I knew he was joking, but part of me always wondered...

When I got older, Dad tried teaching me to let my teenage emotions roll, "like water off a duck's back." It never really worked with me. I was determined to have my emotions. I learned instead to control them when needed, then process and deal later. I'm a venter, a rambler, and once I get stuff out, I don't feel it anymore.

But I was talking about Dad.

...

In college, I called Dad a lot. So much so that Mom thought I just didn't care about her. I just didn't have much to say to anyone in college. There was so much going on internally. Most of the time I already knew what I needed to do to fix the thing I was calling about. I just needed Dad to validate my decisions.

I have realized in recent years that I was a pretty decent manipulator. I could talk Dad into just about anything - or he simply let me have my head, figuring he couldn't tell me what to do. He and Mom tell me they never really could.

Relating to my dad on any sort of emotional level is difficult. My dad is so pragmatic. It's the Langner in him. I know it, because I have the same pragmatism. I learned it from my grandma, his mom. There are places he reserves for Mom, feelings he just can't find a place for, things he just doesn't feel at all.

Just before he walked me down the aisle at my wedding, he leaned in and offered, "this is your last chance to back out." It wasn't what I wanted to hear. But it was definitely what Dad had to say. He wouldn't have been Dad otherwise and that would have been weird.

When I was in labor with Piper, Dad was cracking jokes that I wanted to hear, but you can NOT laugh in labor. Ask anyone who has done it. You need those laugh-muscles to end the pain. I asked him afterward what he'd been feeling. He said he was fine. He'd done it eight times with my mom. I found out from my mom recently that he loves babies.

I look at pictures of Dad and me when I was a baby. I see things in his eyes, in his smile that I don't recognize. Things that Mom said she saw again after Pete called to ask permission to date me, court me, marry me. She said he was walking around the house, happy.

I had a hard time picturing it.

...

Bonnie at Faith Barista wrote yesterday of "Looking for My Real Father." She shared excerpts from a book she has been reading about how children tend to view God through the lens of what they have known from their parents, from their dad.

I never call God Father. Not in relation to myself anyway. Jesus is God's Son, God is Jesus' Father. I simply don't consider the fact that I figure into that equation.

But I do, whether I realize it or not.

For years, I lived believing God loved me on a purely intellectual level. My response to this love was duty, and the sense that if I performed well, He would give me what I wanted. It was a rather detailed system I had worked out to manipulate the God of the universe into being what I thought He should be.

It wasn't that coherent. But it was how I lived.

God shattered my illusions with the reality of His deep, consuming love, love that wouldn't let me live in my misunderstanding of Him, love that required me to accept Him on His terms, the Truth of Him, the all of Him that spoke out of the whirlwind to Job and asked him if he really knew who God was, the God who came to Job as a man to show him the man wasn't enough to comprehend God's ways.

I can't yet call this God Abba.

...

When I go home, I know my dad is happy to see me. He holds my children, asks for hugs once in a while, and his eyes smile when he looks at me. If I dare to look into them, I see a question that is never asked, a little bit of awe, a deep affection that is never voiced.

I see my "Daddy."

But I'm grown up now. I'm not supposed to need a Daddy when I'm grown up.

And I'm good at being grown up. Most of the time anyway.

But sometimes when I cry, I miss knowing that things were okay because Daddy said they were okay. Because he was home or he was at work and things were normal and under control and Mom could call him and make things better during the day and he could help when he was home at night.

Suddenly, I realize that this is what I can't release when I think about God. This childlike understanding and trust of His sovereignty. The hope beneath my tears that everything is okay because He is God and He is at work and I can call Him and He will come for my heart.

He'll dig my splinters out free of charge, and put a band-aid on it to help me feel better. He'll whisper His words to me when I wished for something else. And because they come from Him, they will come to mean more to me than I could have known when He said them.

...

I pulled Dad out onto the dance floor with me at my wedding. Dad doesn't dance. I knew he felt awkward. But he came with me and went around a few times and smiled and cracked a few jokes I don't remember, in his way.

He offered me himself with that gracious acquiescence to my heart.

This is why grace means so much to me.

...

God loves me and gives to me and fills me with good things in spite of me, in spite of my frequent, childish misunderstanding of His Person.

This is why Jesus' life and death and resurrection is so vitally important. His condescension of God into flesh was driven by an incredible love, a deep Father-affection revealed in the setting aside of His God-glory to become like me, to dance with me where I am. This is grace, His Father-waiting and teaching and helping me to comprehend what I will never fully know until I meet Him face to face - when I will see Him as He is.

I get only glimpses of my dad that I can know as an adult. As a grown-up, I am learning to relate to him on an adult level. But my child-heart still thinks of him as "Daddy." I wonder if I will ever grow up.

With God it is backward. The growing-up means becoming more childlike, becoming like Jesus, the Son of Man who deeply trusted His Abba, Father.

"Abba, Father," he said, "everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will."

- Mark 14:36

Greater love...

...

I watch Pete forming a relationship with Piper now, listen to her "Daddy!", laugh at the giggles and excitement only he can produce from her, and I wonder what questions she will have about him someday. I wonder how she will be disappointed by him. I wonder what she will learn of God through her relationship with him.

I hope she will know how much they love her.

------------------------


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






(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

What's In His Name?

Her name was Bethany.

It was such a big deal that her name was Bethany. It still stands out in my mind. I get into names.

She said that God had given her that name.

She said that she had known God intimately, the way I wanted to know Him.

She said that God had taught her to surrender fully and completely.

She said a lot of things.

But she never mentioned the name of Jesus.

...

Want the rest of the story? I'm guest-posting for @katdish today. Click over to "Hey Look, a Chicken!" to find out how God used my encounter with Bethany to reveal my own incredible need for Jesus.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Unwrapping This Hope

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.

In Haiti, they mourn. In Darfur, they suffer. In Thailand, in China. In New York City. In our neighborhood. In our own homes. In our hearts. Sometimes, it seems the clouds can't lift. It seems there is nothing but this gray, these tears, this pain.

The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.

In spring, expectation bursts forth, defiant buds pushing through wintered ground, daring to blossom, as if they have forgotten the heat of the summer, autumn's hazy sorrow, winter's killing chill. The sun rises after night, spreading glory over day. Joy comes in the morning.

Creation waits. We wait.

For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

Creation captive, frustrated, waiting, groaning under the weight of God-hope. We who know, who have this inkling of His glory - we have encountered Christ, and we begin to realize redemption, reckon ourselves alive to God, stand fast in God-justified free.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

The earth shakes, trembling, shrieking, falling into itself and over itself, writhing in pain, knowing what we know deep - we are not what we are meant to be. The mother knows as she travails, when transition comes on strong, when she cries out for "God, God, help me, help me please!" and then her baby comes.

And so we wait, and ache, and try to hope.

For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

An unseen hope that comes by faith, that grows in every spring our hearts know, that doesn't wither in the winds of autumn or freeze in winter's chill. A certain hope that at the end of this labor, death must die, and God will birth His life again into us by His Son.

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.

I shy away from that pain, from memory. Cling to smaller joys, try to ignore the longing. But always, it is there, in the depth of my spirit, constantly groaning, whispering of glory not my own, of God-joy, of peace that passes understanding.

Oh wonderful groaning, wonderful God who intercedes in heart-language we can't speak!

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

The suffering,
the groaning,
the waiting,
the hope;

The God,
His plan,
His Son,
His intercession for us...

We will be what He meant us to be, and He will be glorified.

How big is this God of ours?

(A meditation on Romans 8:18-30.)

-------------------------

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.

Do you have a gift to unwrap today? Stop on by and link up with Emily, and share in the (mostly) paperless unwrapping!






(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Do I Really?

The deep depression I experienced after Piper has made me consider more this time how much I need to be connected. I've been on my guard against it, taking my pills, using some gentle hormone therapy. The writing is a guard as well, a way to push out of the anxiety, put swirling thoughts down, get things out of my system. I try to remember so I don't forget the ones I love this time, so I don't miss them.

The thought crossed my mind yesterday, "do I really love God?"

I spend so much time thinking about Him, I must at least have a crush. But just as with my crushes, I am reluctant to come out and say it, say that I love God. It sounds funny coming out of my mouth.

I hardly say that I love my husband sometimes. I get embarrassed.

But sometimes when the days are hardest and nothing seems to be going right, I look up, and there he is Pete giving, or doing, or being - a good and perfect gift God told me he was long before I fell in love with him - and my heart would explode if I didn't at least whisper to him of my love.

And I've been saying it a lot lately.

I wonder if he will be there when we come out of these early days with little sleep and lots of change. I know neither of us will be the same. I think many people just live their way through this and accept the changes that come. We think about it as we go, though, and cling a bit harder to what we were.

But we're parents of two now. Last night, Piper was in her own bed for a while, and for a few short minutes before sleep claimed us, Pete and I laid together and held one another without a baby in between. I felt like a married woman.

How does a woman go about being a helpmeet for her husband when there is a new baby in the house, when her heart is going through so much, when she feels fragile and shell-shocked and uncertain? When he is at work and she is at home, when the babies have needs even at night, how does she make a place for him, give him the life she longs to give?

I realize I have been unconsciously setting me aside; I am afraid to need my husband - he is doing so much, and I want to offer him a place to rest that seems impossibly out of reach. But oh that ache for him that is constantly there...

I think it is something like the ache I know for God sometimes when He seems far away, the one that draws me near to Him to look up into His face for a moment, just to be sure of Him.

My love is so very limited in its scope. God Himself is love; how can I expect that any real love would be comprehensible, reproducible? No, I think the only love I can have - for God or for my husband or for my children or for anyone in my life - must come by way of His Spirit in me, and I wonder if perhaps I will never be able to define the why or the how behind it all.

Today, I'm okay with that.

I'd rather be in survival mode with a little God-wonder left than fighting it out with the anger and empty I've lived before.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Unwrapping a Morning

Noticing today.

Revisiting winter beauty in sleeping crepe myrtle. Oh, I love that stuff.

Figuring out that my lack of inspiration for a photo montage means that I need to go find these pictures of grace - fresh, new - soon.

Grateful for sleep last night, for feeling better today, for answered prayers (thank you for praying, friends), for sunlight in my eyes as I type.

Having breath, feeling baby movement and strengthening womb, drawing anatomy of my face with cold little girl fingers trying to figure me out - "lips, sad?, zit?, eyes..."

Replaying unexpected before-sleep conversation, stolen midnight moments.

Beauty in crazy, new supposed-to-be-un-pressured moments broken by toddler interruptions - for hug... after hug... after hug this morning.

Almost wishing to rewrap this Piper-gift that is so much chaos in my world sometimes.

Planning to bake cookies with her. Germs and all. Promise not to send them to anyone.

------------------------

Shared today with Chatting at the Sky for Tuesdays Unwrapped.

Original, unprompted material to come at some point soon. I'm disenchanted with my own writing at the moment. And disenchanted with Blogger, which spontaneously ambushed all the permalinks in my archives. Anybody have any suggestions?





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Tabulations

Fourth day gray and
craving space
between medicine runs and
doctor visits,
sleepless nights,
and a few last important finishings

A few days strong, I'm
tired already
embarrassed by short-term
cheerful care,
I am
too tired to pretend otherwise

Three-day tree lit up
to warm
with color
gray songs on repeat
embracing gloom
blurring stark in hopeful soft

Thirty-seventh week
of forty
gathering prayers
from those looking in and
looking on,
waiting for tomorrow's photos

Daily grace measured out
to raise head from hand-rest and
clear blurry eyes
unexpected prayers
and mail-gifts
because baby is coming with Christmas

One safe Place for falling back
staring up
through questioned-gray to
sufficient strength and
answering "Who do you say I am?" with
God-certainty -

"Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God."

Uncounted years for learning
could not supply
this answer
breathed long ago into this
doubting heart
easing now with relief at His incredible care

24-34 of 1,000 Gifts

------------------------


This post is linked at Holy Experience for One Thousand Gifts.

Shared too at Chatting at the Sky for Tuesdays Unwrapped.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Counting Today

My soul, wait silently for God alone, for my expectation is from Him.
- Ps. 62:5

------------------------

Someone called me an "expectant mother" today. I've not heard that one before. I mean, I have, but it wasn't about me. I guess it's true though. Six weeks from my due date, I am learning that silent wait, that God-expectation, that indefinable wonder that must have caused Mary's heart-pondering.

Every Monday, I check in at Ann Voskamp's Holy Experience, where she expands her list of a thousand God-gifts in photos and in words. I've shared a few "gratefuls of my own" here and there, but it is not easy for me.

I've been thinking for months that I'd like to join Ann's Gratitude Community, start listing and numbering and photographing what I find of God in my daily life. Recognize my expectation from Him.

But I am still learning what God-expectation looks like, how He meets it.

Piper is learning too. To count. You know, she can count to twelve now? Again and again, she practices on whatever comes to her mind to count. It's such a simple thing for a child to learn.

I'm too tired to choose anything but simple today, so I'll count with her, too tired to get up and dance with her; I hold and rock and count teardrops that don't make much sense except for feeling.

One - I noticed my shadow on Saturday. Straight on, it is still my own shadow. When I turn to the side, I see life that is not my own.

Two - We thought about moving from this little house to a bigger house recently. But the sun lives here almost all the time, and it paints everything with the most lovely light.

Three (or Phree, as Piper would say) - I don't know what I would do without the man I married, who I would be if he were not in my life. I can't imagine loving or being loved by anyone who isn't him.

Four - I caught little bare feet on camera, running through cold water-reflection at sunrise.

Five - We had a quiet moment alone yesterday, wondering how we can afford to have any more money removed from Pete's small paycheck to pay taxes and fines on something we can't use, with two children now and my health issues. God is still God.

Six - Nanook is putting out her "kitty want ad," begging kittens or a $200+ operation. Our friends gave us a ticket for a free spay. The next day, our neighbors gave us seven coupons for free kitty litter, all good through April. And several more coupons for free dry food.

Seven - The pregnant pain is building slowly to its climax. I am still breathing. I have only six weeks left.

Eight - I caught Piper smelling the flowers on her dress this morning. I love that she finds beauty already.

Nine - Promises kept make memory that breathes over and over again.

Ten - We had a visit from two of my siblings come down from college this weekend. It was good to get to know them a bit more.

Eleven - For breakfast, I ate farm fresh eggs. The kind that have deep golden yolks because the laying hens get to eat bugs all day. (I don't think I want to know why the bugs make the yolks so healthy and flavorful. Something to do with the Omega-3 proteins...)

Twelve - My little girl dances. And hops. "Pop, pop, pop!" all over the house.

I think it may take us a while to reach a thousand...

------------------------


This post also linked at Holy Experience for One Thousand Gifts.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

unwrapped

I pulled out my camera to shoot the wall plaque gift I had re-noticed on Sunday night, the one that prompted my post-end yesterday, the reminder to my rueful heart to "be still" and know that He is I AM.

Standing beneath me, Piper began her little camera song, "Smiiie, Smiiie, Smiiie," waiting for me to turn it on her so that she could look into the replay screen and ask, "whoozat?" and answer for herself, "it's YOU!"

I found myself lying on the floor with the camera (unable to move my baby bulk up again without a crane) taking her picture, focusing for a few minutes at least on the little person who has changed our lives so much.

It is hard to believe she came from me, hard to believe that the tiny thing we held after five hours of labor has become this little pack of energy and vibrance and spit and vinegar and personality.

It is harder to believe there is another life with a God-plan inside me now, and I'm asking Him, "Why choose me for this? Why not someone else?"

The whys are left unanswered.

I watch Pip grow, wait impatiently for Button to come; I want to demand that God help me figure out a way to let Him into this growing vulnerability of mine, but the demand comes as a whimper by the time I get it out, because who am I to expect Him, to deserve Him in this, my "pain in childbearing?"

Piper has been more clingy lately. I don't know if she's picking up on my uncertainty about this whole mothering thing, or if it's just a new phase, a "Mommy?" phase. Even at night, if she is disturbed, she wakes long enough in our bed to assure herself I am there, touching my hair, throwing her arm over me - or tramping in from her room to cuddle in and be close. She's been calling me Mommy, with a sweet-toned question mark, looking for me, waiting for the hug she knows is still there even in the tired.

She's so much like I am, though she is so much more willing to lay herself out and ask for love I dare not allow myself to expect from her, from anyone, even from God.

I think I try too often to live without love. Piper just lives, seeing through my current standoffish approach to life, even sensing my heart within the changes it's going through, reaching for me in spite of me.

Emily encourages to unwrap God's gifts in the daily chaos of our lives; I think Piper is unwrapping me.

I wonder as I watch her sometimes - what does she know of Him that I don't? I think in her innocence, she may be more conscious of what love is. In her unselfconscious love, she is more like Him who is Love than I.

-------------------------------
Posted for Tuesdays Unwrapped at Chatting at the Sky.
Another good read, check out "The Little Island", sent to me this morning by my new friend Maureen.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Real Time

The clock is ticking sixty seconds in a minute,
Sixty minutes to an hour
Time is faster, time drags on
The days are long, they go too fast

The sun is moving, casting shadows
Day and night Time journeys on
Breathe in and out,
I am, I feel eternity
I am real.

Time stops; we hold our breath
Time flies; we hold our breath
Tomorrow comes too soon
And yesterday is gone.

The seconds turn to minutes turn to hours
The clock is winding down
Frozen hands and silence sing
Time’s march is done

The sun is setting, casting shadows
Night comes tumbling, day is dead
Breathe in and out,
I am, I feel eternity
I am real.

When time is gone, Life won’t pass me by
I can’t hold onto seconds,
Stars fall from the sky
Breathe in and out,
I AM, He is eternity
I AM real.

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Shared in response to a High Calling Blogs R.A.P. prompt - filling in the blank to describe "The Real...?"






(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

treasures

It was supposed to be a short walk. Really, it was. It hadn't been my idea in the first place. But somehow, Piper got it into her head that we were going for a walk, and I've let her hopes down so often lately, I couldn't hand her another "no" for her growing boundary collection.

I took a break from my work to change her diaper, but she decided we were getting ready to "go-go!" and laid down with rare compliance to get the change, complete with "goop" for the diaper rash she's had this week. (She always makes sure we remember the "goop.") As I finished, she was chattering away about "pants" and "shoes" and how we were going for a "wa'k" (she hasn't got that "l" yet), and when she was dressed again, she ran to the gate in front of the door with such a happy, "one, two - SIX!" (she knows "three,' I know she does! Only it's "pfhree" with her...) - I just couldn't turn her down.

So we went for a walk. I intended only to go to the end of the street and back, but the first 200 feet took us 15 minutes, because Piper was finding treasure.


She stopped for handful after handful of acorns to put in her pockets ("pox"), and we found feathers and a red dogwood "beerwee" and a round rock. She likes those rocks. We found little white flowers (that wilted overnight).

Finally, after stopping every ten steps or so, I impatiently asked her if she wanted to go to the park (for the sake of getting somewhere, since I was already time-wasting in my mind) and we finally started walking, treasure-laden.

I don't think of fallen acorns and rocks and feathers and dogwood berries and random pink squirrelies as treasure. I've been so busy trying to record and process pictures of others' memories in time for Button's birth; it's all I can see most of the time. But I'm missing my own treasure, holding back my heart from her "until later," because I just have to get through this so she can have all the time she wants.

But I wonder, will she still be here when I'm done?

It is not as if I'm at work, putting her in daycare. But working from home has its own set of challenges, because the work is always here, always something I should be doing, should be getting done. I'm not smart enough to balance this; her heart-needs don't fit my schedule. They don't fit any schedule, stopping every ten steps to collect something that she values, something I roll my eyes at, because I just need to get to the end of the street and back so I can do what I need to do.

Last week, I worked non-stop, up early, up late, ignoring Piper as much as possible - and I didn't meet my deadline, because my baby-body is too tired. My eyes just quit working after a certain point; I couldn't stay awake. I don't know how I'm going to finish this month. I don't need any more interruptions.

But Piper's not simply an interruption. She's not even a break from my work. She's a treasure. I have to stop, pick her up, put her in my heart-pocket, even if I've only made it ten steps in.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Sun-break Meditation

"The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit." (Jn. 3:8)

The sun forces a break in post-processing this morning, streaming in, offering a chance to breathe from the frenetic (and at times frustrating) "on to the next one," "it is what it is" that is the truth of what comes out of my camera sometimes before I retouch my images. The brightness conceals both error and edit, inviting me to notice what is beyond my computer screen. There is life on the other side, and it helps to remember.

The windows are open today. I can breathe the air; it is bluer than the thick humid yellow we've avoided all summer. There is that lovely breeze I felt last spring... It is the sort of day that makes me think, "No, I don't need a bigger house with smaller windows. I'll stay here in the small and watch the light."

Piper woke this morning where she fell asleep, wanting to watch "Duh-bo," to cuddle with Mama and Daddy on the couch. When the movie finished, she collected her block box from her room and padded into the kitchen where I was working.

"Good morning, Mama! Blocks!"

She dumped them in the pile of light in front of the refrigerator. She likes to play in the bright spots. I remember that I did too.

I'm cataloging beauty, in spite of my discouragement over low lighting and blurry, grainy story-pictures.

I don't want to stop taking pictures. The hope is always there that I'll get to be that photographer, shoot that one wedding, capture that one look, record that one girl in a white dress so that she'll lose her breath looking at herself. I want to capture wind capping waves, brushing through trees, jeweling hair in sun. I'm still searching out beauty, still composing, changing my rules, adapting, becoming.

This is only my today; I haven't seen tomorrow. It is the way of the Spirit, alive in the waiting, working ever in the Father's time, comforting, convicting, teaching, revealing God-heart to dust.

I tell myself again as the sun slips behind shade and I go back to work that it is only a few years before they will be grown enough to be busy in their own right. I won't be a baby-toddler mom forever. Now is not the time to give up the dream. It is my time to learn to see again. To shoot from my heart again. To be a beginner whose new-wings won't be clipped too soon.

Who can see the wind, anyway?

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Check out yesterday's third post in my authentic relationship series, Nothing Hidden - The Breaking, continuing my story of the reality of God's grace for relationship. "If I’d known how hard it would be for us, I would never have married Pete..."


"Within the next month, what do you think about planning a night to spend with your sisters? ...We’re having our own Sister Parties! What about you? Want to giggle, eat, cry, whatever, and then maybe afterward join us for a little blog party?"






(Image © Informal Moments Photography - print available here)

Owning Truth - From Romantic to Real

Part II of my authentic relationship series. Read Part I, The Fact Is, I am Eve Too.

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The important thing is, God drew me to Himself through the loss of my first love.

I spent years waiting for God to bring him back to me and heal my heart up; I had watched my ideal become a shadow of the man I knew as God all the while wooed me to Him. It was through this loss that God taught me excruciating honesty with myself - and with Him - about what was in my heart. (Ps. 15:1-2) He asked me to pour myself out to Him, challenged me to bring the whole mess of my heart into my relationship with Him.

It wasn’t as if He didn’t already know what was there – my emotions, my struggle, my misdirected passion. “No brave front, no measuring up, just Kelly,” He overrode my broken-hearted embarrassment, taught me of my own humanity, created in His image to feel His own heart. Long months passed into years, and I found His heart to be the safest place I’d known.

As I grew into this God-love, it became apparent to me that if I were to marry (even the man for whose return I prayed), I would have to be the same person with my husband that I am with God.

Pete - Peter, my now-husband (I am still bashful to say his full name! It's like Jesus, so precious to me, so secret-deep in my heart-space...) - was a coworker that I didn’t know until we got rained into a coffee shop together with the Lord pushing him to ask the real that would cause me to set aside the shallow "deep" to which I’d resigned myself. When he asked about my God-passion and revealed his own, the layers peeled away from my heart with the shock of it. We didn’t stop talking for six months, until he was in love with me and I found hope that I could, indeed, love again.

But the transition between my wait-love for another and my it’s-time-now-love for Pete was shockingly abrupt. Neither of us realized the long healing process ahead for me, and ultimately, for both of us.

I married my husband with a broken heart.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

The Gift in the Ache

Sometimes, I want this more than I want Canaan, more than I want to live the faith that led me out of my chosen earth-home to follow my husband where God opened a door for him, for us. Sometimes, my lip quivers and I swallow tears, watching light and countryside and memories I have loved flash past, peeling away with a lingering ache behind our car as I ride back into yellow and scrabbled foliage and heated flatlands that just aren't home.

It is time, I know, to let God lead us, and He does in His time, in His way that is not my way. It is very vulnerable, this faith of mine that hopes, hopes, hopes He might lead us back to a place we know and love, while living grateful where I am, learning to love a new place for what He has given, despite the biting bugs and allergic humidity and soupy yellow light. And when He gives good, the holding-it-loosely feels as though it will break me apart with the constant knowledge that it won't last, it can't last, I can never be home here, because my heart-home is with Him, beholding Him, more complete in Him than I can fathom or dream or imagine.

I wonder where Canaan is, wishing it was here, half-praying an earth-fulfillment of the promise, knowing and groaning with an ache and a hope that wasn't mine before Jesus, before His Spirit filled me up with desire to be one with a heavenly Father, my Abba who cares for me.

It is a repeated theme, a constant reminding ouch to redirect my eyes from here to hope, an unfulfilled wish, thwarted desire that draws me into Desire Himself. And joy is quiet, glory-light seeping into my heart through diamond-tears, crystal-tears, salt-and-water-tears, something outside my dust. I see His faithfulness. I learn to trust His slow working that feels too slow, but must happen in His time, when He brings morning after the night.

It is time, I know, to be grateful, and I will learn rest again, because I know He is good.

Is this contentment, this whole-body-ache that keeps me stayed in Him? I probe and I ponder and I cautiously assess His gifts, Himself, the Truth that is a Person, the Word that is not mere words, that lives powerful in me and binds my heart up with Him.

And in the all-I-want-and-do-not-have, I have found the real, the grateful,

the small house that is not too small,
the baby boy growing and living in me,
the little girl learning new words and new love
parent hugs and sister hugs,
and little-brother salvation to leave me speechless
one soft night in my home-bed
and enough. Today, I have enough

and God is good and He is who He says He is, and I am not afraid.

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This post also linked at Holy Experience for One Thousand Gifts.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

I live with them and I learn to pray

I don't always ask P how he's doing. I don't always tell him how I'm doing. Sometimes, we are a series of interrupted conversations. Sometimes, we dwell, but not together.

I wish to pray without ceasing and hold my breath; only faith (that is God's gift) reveals God's face to me. He is my Life-line, though I weigh too much in silent introspection even as desire unfolds and aches toward Him from eyes that hope for understanding. I am shy to whisper words and feelings only just discovered.

There is no last word on how it should be; prayer is the ebb and flow, the interrupted conversations of relationship with One who wishes to dwell together, and every relationship is different. Every trust takes time to build.

I reach for P, and I reach for God, and our fingers brush and the dwelling is intimate; our hearts intertwine and there is nothing else in the world - except the toddler, who is always reaching, always asking, always praying for together-love.

I learn slowly.

As the deer pants for the water brooks,
So pants my soul for You, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?

Why are you cast down, O my soul?
And why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him
For the help of His countenance.

- Ps. 42:1-2,5

(image from sxc)

drops of grace

Our summer is raining itself into autumn this week. We may still have two more months of heat and humidity, but I can feel with the subtle changing of the light the tipping of our world toward the end of the year, toward the falling of the leaves, toward the birth of our baby boy, toward the deadlines I have set for myself.

I am waking inexplicably early this week, wide awake in the dark at 5:30 in the morning, resting my way out of bed, finding quiet moments for me until Piper wakes, disappointed that Dad left early for work and she missed him again. I woke with him this morning, and we found one another again outside children and work and the many things we must finish before the rain is over.

And then he is gone, and I am left to figure out how to best fill this day and I hope not to let me down again, but the load is overwhelming, and I take a little more time to breathe before it swallows me.

Every day I choose to live or run hiding from my life to finish what I must before I can be.

I don't know the spiritual thing to do, the right words to invoke the strength promised to me for the "all things through Christ," but I know that I have really smiled today, and Piper is dressed and I am dressed and showered and my hair is done and breakfast is eaten. It is only morning, and I have lived today, present-and-accounted-for, listening to the pitter-patter of the water on my bedroom window, watching the soothing gray dropping August into September.

It is a measured grace, this "all things" I am called to do; perhaps the things to be done come in measure too. Perhaps I too often shoulder more than I am meant to bear, when the grace is given me to live and to love and not to run, to stay and not to hide. Laying out my living, choosing the grace instead of the soul-killing grit-your-teeth-and-get-through to some imagined rest in the end, it is a yoke that does not seem easy, but is walking easy for a baby taking her first step? Babies don't hurt as easily as adults, they say. Their bodies are more flexible, not so brittle as our older bones and ligaments.

The gray dawn breaks and I do quietly and I learn to wait and I learn to listen. He is gentle - and meek, with the strong sort of meekness that channels strength - and the rest He gives transcends even toddler tantrums and frustrated goals.

A bird drops a happy rainsong outside my window; I know he is well-provided for. Today I am here, and I will do what I can, let the rain do what it does. Tomorrow is tomorrow and it carries enough trouble for itself; there's no sense hiding from it today.

At that time Jesus answered and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight.

All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

Mt. 11:25-30

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Don't miss out on my weekend giveaway, Praise, if you're just stopping in today. Simply leave a comment at this post for a chance at winning this 8x10 print.

Also, I MUST throw out a recommendation for Amber's Friday Funnies post. What a lesson her neighbor boys got!

Summer Haiku

Mottled color patterns
The softness of my blanket,
Spreading shadows on my paper.

At sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, I'd pack a small bundle - blanket, journal, Bible, good book - and trek to my favorite spot on our 25 acres for some being time. It was my dreaming time: I was the heroine who fell asleep and woke to the handsome hero's bemused gaze; I was the girl who sang the prettiest songs in the musical; I was the only one in my world and God was so available to hear my plans and questions about the future.

Sometimes I tried to read or write, but I never got anywhere. The feel of the breeze and the warmth of the sun distracted my focus. I would rather have listened to the birdsongs as I lay on my back, looking up at jeweled blue through the golden green of the summer trees above me.

I was a poet then. Finding that poet now challenges my grown-up perceptions as I grope for words I didn't realize I knew then. I hope for originality that seems lost to me. It seems there is always someone who thinks what I think better than I think it. (This is a recurring theme in my writing, isn't it?)

When I look up to point my daughter to the sky through the trees, I can't help remembering just a little who I was when I was younger, when the world was all mine for the dreaming. When composing haiku about sunshadows on paper I should have been filling with words was a worthy accomplishment. When I was curious and unafraid of what good plan God must have for me.

Trusting Him, I meet that poet again. I am freed to dream, to be, to be pursued by Him in this, His story about me and Him. There are dreams I dreamed as a child that never came true, and dreams I dream now that will likely never come true. But as I gaze at jeweled blue through whispering tree-tops, the words sneak in, like sun and shadows on my paper, and curious, I write them down and wonder what His good plan for me must be.

(image from sxc)