Convulsing the Wilderness

I read that in the Most Important Book and it causes a movie in my head.  "He convulses the wilderness...by His voice?"  I walk in His world this morning, as close to wilderness as I can get with the money and time that I have.  I walk along the path already worn for me and a leaf swirls by me, and another, and then another.  Death is coming soon, I think, and realize how morbid that sounds.  But I know what I mean. While I gather white pumpkins because I think they're especially beautiful and don't get paid much attention to next to their orange friends, that soul wilderness always nags at me.  Hayrides and corn mazes can't shake it out of me.  Time is passing, has passed, I want to whisper to the person next to me.  But I'm afraid I'll scare them, defeat them.  It's not what I really want to say.

I want to bring my wilderness home to Him, the lover of all my nagging thoughts and stolen joy and everything that never seems to last.  I want Him to make sense of busy that sometimes feels empty.  I want Him to wreck my self created peace; to rock my ideas of what I think everything means and bring me to the knees of my self.  I want His voice to boom deep over me.  I want His voice to convulse my world.

Candy Crush in my Hair

I got to stay all day at my "job" yesterday. I actually stayed longer than my allotted time. If I'd had a cot I'd have stayed all night.  Because when I'm not smiling, I'm praying and when I'm not praying I'm writing and when I'm not writing I'm crying and most times I'm doing them all at the same time.  My heart lives there now at my "job".  I can't write job any other way except in quotation marks because it just feels like the wrong word to call it.

I'm slowly beginning to make my way into being seen and known there at the school where I've been planted.  I move stealth through the halls, looking for ways to plant a seed.  Sometimes I take pictures to capture the breath and life of the place.  I copied stupendous amounts of music yesterday for one teacher and looked up as I stacked the pages neat to see "Ten Things God Wants You to Remember" on the wall where I stood.  He's everywhere, I think.  The smallest of tasks seems to take on a greater shade of Life and I warm my hands and heart in whatever I put them to.

"What kind of person do you want to become as you live out the story of redemption?"  The question hit me in my heart as I was reading.  This is what I want to challenge the kids with; "my" kids.  Already my heart had adopted them.  So, my girl made a banner and slowly, kids are coming in to sign it and I ask them their names and look them right in the eye and really see them.  Yesterday, kids came in and stayed; like on purpose to wait on their parents. And I sat on the floor while the liveliest of boys grabbed a piece of hard candy and threw it up to the ceiling and it landed on my head and filtered through my hair like shattered glass and we both laughed and I felt a pop tart burst of joy.  

Today a mom, a reader of my words, came in to meet me and fireworks went off; bing, bam, boing!  Our spirits went right to it, forgetting any pretense, and we locked hearts strong.  We're soldiers together now, ready to shore each other up with hard words and gentle prayers.  And I marveled quiet in my car as I drove away later.  Father, you amaze me.  Life is hard, really hard sometimes.  The gift of each other, rough and tumble though we be, willing to be wounded in the journey for and with each other, is one of Your good gifts to us.  Teach us to be brave enough to reach out and lock arms.

White House Nights Are Beautiful

Every morning since school began I take my Bible and go out by the baseball field and read His word back to Him out loud to make it real to me.  I call to mind the faces of the people I've met the day before and sit them out before him like treasures I found on a seashore.  I told God when this whole thing began that I would bring back whomever crossed my path that day and lay them quiet at His feet and invite Him in.  And each day He seems to bring someone new, someone He gently lays as a stone on my foundation so we can build together.

Yesterday I left the school to do my other "job" and found myself back earlier than expected and went into the lunchroom to get something to eat.  There sat a mom I hadn't met.  In the time it takes to eat a barbecue sandwich, she and I, we joined hearts.  "We used to have White House nights when I was growing up to teach us how to act in public," she said....and I stopped her.  Did you say "White House nights?? I did that with my kids!"  I almost cried right there.  That my Creator would delight in such a small heart string to tie together the Body of Christ together.

And today I sat in a group of women who come to the school to pray.  That's all. Pray.  And I found a quiet place after to cry happy tears that fall even now as I type this.  My heart is learning to safely trust.

And this.  These kids who literally have grabbed hold of me and caused me to fall hopelessly in love.

I sat in on an art class today and watched a new teacher , who I've gone to church with these past three years, swell up giddy happy at being able to do this."I never expected to love this so much!", she bubbled. I watched the kids come up to her and ask her a question and listen to her explain and she turned to me with a big smile on her face.  "Did you hear that??," she whispered?  "I just taught them something!".  Yes.  Yes!  I heard it and I celebrate quiet in my head for her.  Because I get that joy!

I took a walk right after lunch and looked up at the sky.  "Father," I choked out through joy threatening to spill down my face.  "You did all of this on my behalf.  Someone who's felt so small; so invisible for so long.  There's so much for me now it all keeps dropping out of my hands."  Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.  You are so beautiful to me.  

Lagoon Water is a Small Thing Really But....

I had a Money Pit moment this weekend.  My utility sink overflowed and created a beautiful beach scene in my kitchen.  The bathroom sink next to that filled up with what can only be described as swamp creature gross.  And just to finish things off, my kitchen sink in the next room, when the water settled, appeared to be blessed with sandy granola.  It all caught my attention. Except, I didn't know what to do about it but to call my trusty little "retired" plumber who's played Superman to my plumbing catastrophes in the past at a moments' notice.  This time though, when I called, he did not answer.   And so there was morning, and there was evening and the day passed with no plumbing relief.

So, me being a single woman and having become used to the category of...."I have no idea what that noise is so I will ignore it and hope it goes away"....I just simply pretended the water was not a problem and waited until the sink had drained and then did another load because I needed to do laundry.  And then?  Then I mopped up the effect of that.  And there was morning, and there was evening and the sun set on day two of lagoon water.

Yesterday morning, though, the sun shone bright on my old Kentucky home and Superman, the plumber, called.  He'd had his own catastrophe at home but things were settled now and he'd be over sometime later that day.  Since I was going to be gone, I left the front door unlocked and prayed vandals would take only what they absolutely needed and leave me something to work with.  When I came back home and walked into the kitchen/laundry room the angels sang.  Not only was the lagoon water and salty granola cleaned up, but my floor had been mopped bone dry and all was right with the world.

For those of you who have your man by your side, things like swamps in your kitchen are easier to take in stride.  But for me, yesterday, I learned that, once again, while I choose to wait for Him to provide that man that will love Him more than me, or never provide that man at all, God is the God of Lagoon Water and nothing is too small for Him to show off ridiculous mighty to win my heart.

All Working Momish.....and Straight Up Jazzed!

See that?  It's me being ridiculous happy for no real solid reason except that I came home to my crock pot meal today and then I took the leftovers and made chicken and rice soup in my big soup pot and then I filled up the crockpot with another meal and I met some real live high school students that I didn't know until today when they came in the store at school and stayed and talked to me and it made me sky high happy and one of my twelve year old friends burst into the store at the end of the day, all rambunctious and wrestly and made me laugh out loud and I put his hair in a ponytail like Flinstones Bam Bam and my mama heart just wrapped itself up in seeing him smile and hearing the kids laugh and I know this is a run on sentence but I run on when I'm jazzed and I am most definitely jazzed!

My girl and I "had" to stop at the store on the way home and pick up something for tomorrow's dinner.   I said "had"?  Because it feels so fun to be part of the "working mom's club" when it's work that fills my heart up to the overflow point. We giggled ourselves giddy fall-into-each-other when we saw a younger child looking at Naomi in her school uniform and I looked at my girl, desperately trying to hold onto "cool and I don't care at all," face and she failed miserably and smiled in spite of herself.

I alphabetized school forms today and prayed for a middle schooler who is trying it on and finding it takes time to feel ok to be a middle schooler when you've only just been in elementary grades up until now.  I jumped in my car and met a friend for lunch and we talked about life and how we'd each named our year "impossible" back when the January snow was on the ground.  Turns out, God is in the business of the impossible and we're both holding our cups out for more.  

Here's to Tuesday!  Bring it!

Moving My Face

This morning, all foggy and damp outside, we drove to church, my girl and I.  The thought drifted into my head unannounced; "Anything could happen today.  Live ready for the dime to turn and still be fixed steady on Who holds the dime."  I wondered where the thought came from and if it meant something; some kind of premonition.  I wagered more likely it was in light of all those I've met, and whose stories I've heard that have changed my walk profoundly in the past several months.  The "anything" doesn't hit me as fear so  much as perspective of the temporary.  To hold loosely and live as if you're gathering up the hung laundry before a storm.  Live it.  Now!

Sitting in church today, hearing about a young high school boy, strapping and athletic, who just last week went from playing soccer to living with a pacemaker.  I put my car in park right before I drove off to home and jumped out to hug a friend whose husband was here on this earth two weeks ago and suddenly....just wasn't.  And I looked her in the eye and didn't even try to say anything other than I loved her.  

We came home and curled up cozy to enjoy an afternoon of nothing to do in preparation for our first full week of school tomorrow.  The first three days the week before hinted that we were not quite used to the pace and it would take some time before we'd not want to go to sleep at 4 p.m.  So, we piled ourselves up with books and computers and settled in when it happened.  My girl yawned.  Just yawned.  And then we grabbed our keys and drove to the ER because once her mouth had opened, it would not shut again.  And I was weirded completely out, the question marks flying through my brain.  What if?  What now?  What the heck??

It all turned out fine.  She's at home now, jaw back where God intended it to be, tucked in her room reading.  And I sit on my porch pondering that thought I'd had when dawn broke today.  What does the day hold, I wonder?  It turns out it held reminders that it's all fragile; all a gift.  Sometimes it turns out alright.  Sometimes it doesn't feel alright at all.  Sometimes it's as simple as moving your face wrong.  Sometimes your heart turns on itself and you can't play sports anymore for the rest of your life.

We're thankful, the girl and I, as I listen to the evening humming of summer, sipping my iced tea.  My mind calls up the image of a woman standing outside the ER door as we left.  She'd been there when we first arrived; that edgy, anxious look people in hospital waiting rooms have, as if they're hoping you can't find them if it's bad news.  I'm whispering comfort for her tonight.  

In the Middle of the Night

No baby feeding, no puppy sitting,  no bad dreams, no "excuse" for being up at this hour....which would be 3:25 a.m. currently.  Just, one minute I was sleeping where now I am not.  So I grab my electronic friend and tap out quiet words.

I think about my boy out in Montana, and the fact that he is probably awake in his Dan in Real Life house that he shares with others (If you've not seen that movie, do);  where the laundry room is part of his room, and that it suits him and pleases him to be there, learning life and sorting out truth.

I consider that my granddaughter, Beatrice, is growing inside her mother; my beautiful girl, and that I get to meet her, at least from the outside bump, in just a few weeks.  Her mama and daddy will be coming "home" from Denver for a few days and I will gather friends they know, and some they don't, and some I barely know myself,  to celebrate life.

I hear my daughter, my last one at home, quietly moving and breathing in her bed in the next room. What a week she's had; her first "real" school in a building other than home, with pencils and lockers and bells.  She and I compared notes at the end of each day, checking for signs of growth and adventure.

It's Sunday right now and in a few hours we will make our way to church, where others have gathered from life lived, some with bumps and bruises, others with glorious tales to tell.  Oh, that we can be real with each other and find the courage to open the windows of our souls and not trample too hard or tread so gingerly that no one can feel that we've been there.

We'll stop at the school today, up the hill from church, my girl and I, and put the banner we made up on the wall of the spirit store to challenge the kids who walk by the window; to love them with words that make their heart think on purpose.

It's now 4 a.m. and I wish I had oreos and I wonder why my utility sink is stopping up and did enough water drain out so I can finish the load of laundry I started last night?  Maybe I'll go check and make myself a chocolate chip waffle while I'm up.  

Words or Constipation......

I'm grateful I have words or I'd be constipated.  Words help me make sense of what's going on around me.  They are the pictures I write that other people paint or draw or build with wood.  I am not creative that way.  But I have to  dance somehow and since I don't swing or salsa, except at the park or on my nachos ...I write.  I'm straight up flabbergasted when someone takes the time to read what I paint.  I lay it out shyly most days because I've spent much of my life trying to be invisible.  I figured it made it easier for people to not have to figure out what to do with me.  I'm a handful of sometimes contradictory bubbly and thinking deep and giggly ridiculous and then I spin out over to the side and write it all out.

I sustain myself on shoring others up; on speaking words we sometimes hold inside for no reason.  That is my food and it's also my way of serving up meals. To see someone "wake up" because I tell them what I see in them?  It's better than chocolate.  If I think you're lovely, I tell you.  If I meet up with someone coming down the hall and their spirit burns bright and I feel it on my skin when I walk by, I'll stop and speak that.  It doesn't matter if I know you, know you, you know?  This week, I spent each morning walking outside at a slow pace back and forth,  asking my Creator to give my heart eyes; His eyes.  To push past others' walls, my own walls, and just talk and act braver than I felt.  To risk.

I'm EXHAUSTED this week from all the faces I've seen and names I've tried hard to memorize.  They've all become one big head in my mind with one big name; "Somebody With a Face."  Sounds Indian.  I want to grow wings with feathers and take them all in, except I think I'd scare the little ones with feathered wings but, my point is.....to be exhausted from caring and seeking after Him hard to the point of a headache?  Its just the most fabulous ache in the world.

So, this morning I'm "listening" in my spirit.  I've had kids come in and sit on the floor this week in the Spirit store so I say...God?  Chairs?  A soft carpet where they can fall onto and just be. I "see" in my mind a huge banner that asks them a challenging question and they can sign their name to it to say "Hey!  I was here".  I want to craft a prayer box where they can drop in quiet pleas or praises and I will agree with them on it as I walk the halls during their classes taking pictures and listening to the sounds.  I took this picture because it looks like warm and comfort to me.  This is what I want to create around me.

FATHER!  I yell out in my heart.  Thank you, thank you, for gracing me this dance with words!  Make it crazy, wild and wreckless in love with You and what You're doing!  And help me pull others up onto the dance floor with me so they won't be constipated either!  :)

The Headache of Joy

I've spent each morning this week getting up wee early and trying to look like something that didn't just crawl out of bed before I get to school.  Are they just making light bulbs less bright,  because it surely can't be that I'm getting older.  I've begun to make note of who I talk to and what about so I can pray for it the next morning, me pacing back and forth in the parking lot calling out the names and hearts of those I meet each day.  I'm praying big and bold because I'm expecting big and bold.  I'm taking hold of the unseen, rather than the seen, as reality and frankly it's stealing my sleep.  Because I'm just that excited.  I've never been more sure of what I don't see in my life.  It's the wildest of adventures and I don't want to miss a thing.

Today I came in from outside,  filled up from praying and people came into where I run the school store.  I always whisper a prayer up fast to invite Him in to inhabit the encounter. He has rushed in like a mighty wind, and I sense I am standing on holy ground.

Tonight, my girl and I, tired to the bone from adjusting ourselves to this new path we're walking on, went to our first after school party.  I met some of the kids she'd met this week.  Lovely Naomi, who shares my girls' name; animated, full of life and Spirit ,sat and talked Life with me and I loved hearing her heart.  Kyle, such a sweet spirit, smiling, I'm quite sure of it, from inside his shark suit, made me laugh as he did the limbo.  The light in their eyes lit me up.  Even if you never know me, I said to them inside my heart, I will be your cheerleader.  How I love to see people fly free.  It makes me cry happy.

As I sat watching the fireworks to end tonight, my tired settled into my bones and my head was hurting.  I smiled to myself as I realized......I had the headache of just too much joy to contain.  I drove home feeling like a reflection of His hand prints and sighed deep as I crawled into my jammies.  My phone went off.  It was a friend reaching out.  "Pray for me." was all she said.  I'll go to sleep doing just that.  Just one more gift from the Father as I drift off to sleep

Strengthening My Parameters at High Five Salon

Disclaimer:  My teenager pointed out that I had inadvertently spelled perimeters as parameters and that, her being all techno saavy, said that while I could change it in the body of the post, the title could not be easily changed and therefore I must look like an idiot in the title so....I know what I did here.  Ack.  Ok.  Carry on....;)

I met my new hair guy tonight and he is swell to the hip-and-oh-so-cool and back again.  There are people I meet who make my soul vibrate like sound waves hitting it the second I shake their hand.  Jesse Gray is one of them.  We talked all things life; his favorite book is Inspire, a title that sent me straight to Amazon.  He likes the Bourne Supremacy trilogy, unless he's in a comedy mood; in which case he'll be watching Dumb and Dumber.  He has a son and a wife who is "amazing and smart". Jesus is his homie and he loves people, which I find particularly fabulous.  The haircut is never the thing, says Hair Guy.  It's always about the relationships.  I can dig a person like that.

I told him that I write.  That I like words.  That what usually happens is that I write in my head constantly about what's around me and how it hits me.  That a title will dawn on me and all the words rolling around in my head gather around it like bugs around a light bulb and form sentences. "I'll write about this encounter tonight", I told him.  What will you say, he wanted to know.  I'll know it when the title comes.  And then, just like that, I remembered what he said when I sat in his chair and he told me how he was going to cut my hair.  "I'll strengthen your perimeters," said Jesse of the Hair.

Encounters with others, when we're paying attention, can do that; shore up parameters that have gotten jagged or angry; closed off or wounded; despairing or apathetic.  Perimeters can fold up on themselves or strangle.  So we, Jesse and I, in the time it took to cut and color, paid attention and dared to be real where an hour before we were strangers, and made no requirements before we'd take down walls.  That's how friends are made and hair is cut.

How to Bag 380 Bags of Popcorn on No Sleep

One bag at a time.  That's how.  I absolutely could not fall asleep last night, so, after 380 bags of popcorn bagging , a special treat for all the students from my daughters' school at lunchtime, I got flat out loopy and started singing Taylor Swift songs to myself.  I refrained from dancing.  But I made better friends with a new friend who was working with me and my very favorite part was the antsy on the ceiling little guy who ran up, grabbed his bag and announced...."POPCORN IS AWESOME!"  Life should always be that good, yes?  He made me laugh joyful!

Today was our first full "real" day at school and, although I was sleep deprived, I took home treasures I would never in a lifetime have enough money to buy.  Standing in the lunchroom, watching my girl walk in with her brand new knee socks and back pack over her shoulder, I barely recognized her for a moment amongst the sea of khaki. I smiled.  She's my daughter and my little companion.  It seems strange to not have her by my side.  I had to ask the mama question...."Are you doing ok, lovey?" because, you know, she's mine and this is new and she's a little tired, she says, but enjoying herself and "I'm the only girl in Biology."  She's ok if anyone ever was.  She can hold her own in a roomful of boys.  

I helped out in the office and learned I may need practice with opening things with combinations and found a Reese cup and encouraging note in my mailbox and shook more hands I'd never met the owners of and got completely turned around making my way around the school because I am directionally challenged, that is why.

I had a twelve year old friend give me gigantic hugs and sit and help me in the store and say silly things because that's what twelve year olds do and there's nothing like a twelve year old boy.  I know this because I had three.  They are the spice of life.

My girl and I drove to get something to eat because that popcorn had long since left us empty and it was good to sit with her and hear about her adventures and tell her mine.  And plus I was in no shape to cook something without setting it on fire.

So, that is how you have a good day on no sleep and lots of popcorn.

Plum Tuckered Out

Just got home.  See these smiles?  They're tired but they're honest.  I stood in the school store tonight and laughed through tears that I had to keep pushing down to their chamber until I could let them out later.  My new friends will have to get used to me crying because I'm happy.  Until then, I tried to act like a normal person.  I had several people come in to meet me that had read my blog but never met me and needed to see my happy in person.  Maybe they don't know how much my heart wrapped that up like really expensive chocolate to keep on rainier days. It was a new experience to have had my heart read and then meet them.  I can't thank them enough for doing that.  I can feel the Father calling me to a different level of knowing and being known. Because tonight?  Tonight I met my new family....and they are a lot!  And I loved them all as I looked around.  God?  Show me how to notice them, how to see their "real", how to love them in their language.

I did manage to escape having to go up in front of EVERYONE and say my name and what I do.  I kind of "forgot".  ACK.  I do better infiltrating the masses quiet and stealth.  I told God He'd have to be more clear that I had to do that in the future.  I think He understood.

I got hugs from middle schoolers, all loud and rambunctious and silly and flinging themselves into the lockers just because.  They've given me their favorite candy orders to put in my store candy jar.  I want them to know, when they come in each  morning that I've prayed for them, that I will call them up to a higher ground this year, that I expect good things for them and from them.  As I walked away from them, I turned back to catch a glimpse and fell in love.  These are kids of the King.

So, tonight, my girls' uniform is laid out pressed and ready for an early wake up call and she doesn't mind that one little bit.  And to tell you the truth, neither do I!  I'd jump up and down except this girl is tired out from smiling.  Look out Calvary!  I'm onto you.....and I'm going to be praying for each person I talk to every single day.  So, when I ask you what your name is, and more than once because I'm old and I have a slot in my head where information slips out of, that is why.  

You are loved with an everlasting Love, and underneath are the everlasting Arms!  I'll remind you of that.  :)

On the Eve of My First Day of School. ...and Other Disquieting Thoughts

I sat outside tonight at my daughters' school. Those words sound like talkin nonsense in my head when I think them.  She was at a new student function, sinking her roots in with never-before-known peers.  While I waited I got hungry so I took a drive to forage for food and ate it greedy while I made my way back to the school.  I pulled back into a full parking lot, the first time since all this new opened up before us, that the parking lot was full of cars.  And suddenly, a swell of everything swooshed into my heart and lungs and bones and marrow and even my ears felt full.  What in the world  was I doing here??

A soccer game was commencing and men and women walked by twos, piling out of their cars, cars much nicer than mine, their kids running ahead of them eager to get in play.  My "new" car is a far cry better than what I had before.  Still, it's not a BMW or a Suburban and I smile sheepishly to myself.  Myself.  As in, not in a party of two.  I feel that "out of water" feeling again that divorce produces.  I used to drive nice cars and be a pair, I wanted to call out, you know, just in case anyone wondered.  I used to be like you.  I long for another half, one that sharpens me and thinks I'm cute.  One to take my hand and walk to soccer games with.  But tonight, I remember that I am my Beloved's and He is mine and however I think I feel, I choose to walk in truth.  I am chosen.  Plus, He probably thinks I'm cute.  He made me.

I decided to get out of my nice-to-me car and go sit on a big decorative rock in front of the school and watch the game unfold, except that as I look down to gather my things I notice that my top is covered in mustard that had dripped it's way down my front from that hamburger I was eating.  I stifled what threatened to be a full on laugh at myself because....well... because strangers were walking by and I was already alone, in a semi ok car, as yet unknown by anyone and now I had a mustard covered shirt.  This seemed a precarious way to introduce myself, and yet somehow so very me.  I hang my purse around my neck so it falls in front of me and covers my sad top and walk like an out of season Christmas tree over to the rock that is hopefully higher than I at this point.

I perch by the door of the school,  well away from the soccer field, so I can see them and ponder my thoughts.  High school boys burst from the door, all taller than me and hairy legs and deep voices and I suddenly feel intimidated.  This is so much....this car thing, and people in Noah's ark pairs and big scary boys and what was God thinking??  Are you sure about this, God??  I already love these kids, this school, these teachers.  You put that there inside of me but....is that it??  Is that enough??  What if they don't like me?  What if I don't fit in?  What if I can't keep up?  What if all I have is love?  What if I don't have anything to give that anybody wants?  Whatifwhatifwhatif....what if I'm not enough of anything or everything?

I start to feel like someone who slipped into the back door at a party I wasn't really invited to and the temptation rises wild to fade to black and white like I used to do.  So I had my girl take my picture as I smile brave and purposely fade the colors.  I'm wearing the school t shirt I find on the "free rack" because I could afford it.  I sit here, looking at my own picture, and I want to hug that girl.  I know her well.  She wants to love....and love well.  Just sometimes she panics and starts to believe lies.

So, tomorrow, I start school and I will meet people braver than I will probably feel, and hope my hair curls in a way that doesn't look too wild and that I don't say stupid things.  And I will whisper prayers just on the edge of fear...God?  Love them through me.  And maybe....maybe that's enough.

I eat macaroni and cheese with lots of pepper that my girl made me just now while I wrote,  and it tastes warm and comforting.  I read words from His word..."My feet have held to Your paths.  My legs have not given way."  My legs feel a little rubbery as I think about tomorrow, about the year ahead....and yet I know that He's placed me on this path.  And I'm grateful to learn how to walk it in my weakness and watch Him be strong

And wait......

s

Psalm 5

Give ear to my speech, O Lord;

consider my utterance.

Heed the sound of my cry,

my king and God,

for I pray to You.

Hear my voice, O Lord, at daybreak;

at daybreak I plead before You,........and wait

And wait.....that's the part that grabbed me this morning.  So I got in my car and drove until I found His beauty.  The kind that makes your breath stop in your throat.  And I sat.  And waited on the sun.  And realized, I was really waiting on the Son.  

At daybreak, I talk to Him.  And wait......if I do, He promises to make me strong, renewed strong.  I don't want to miss that

It's Wednesday. And I'm thinking this.....

This evening?  So much swirling in my mind.  It goes from random to profound.  I smile at myself sometimes.  Who could, or would want to, trouble themselves with keeping track of me?  I spent time today at the school I will be working at, come next Wednesday, helping out with needed tasks, a fun lunch and outing getting to know the other staff.  I sat across from one woman, sharing our stories.  Ah, how I love to hear stories.  Hers resonated with me and I reached out eager and touched her arm.  "Yes.  YES.  I know that feeling," I said to her and I knew I'd found a sister friend.

Later, I came home, my girl waiting for me, having spent her day doing chores around the house and we shared supper and bought shoes and sunglasses and went for a walk around the lake to try them out and she mocked frustration at her mama for "always stopping to take pictures and that's why we never get anywhere on our walks."  Who is this young woman, I think to myself, and she stares confidently into my lens.

We talk school schedules, and she's memorized all the upcoming holidays.  "You know," I say to her....."I won't get paid for any of those...but......God......so.....I'm not going to worry about it.  It'd be ridiculous to."  I laugh to myself.  Who is this woman who used to think it was irresponsible not to worry?   I once thought people never really changed.  And then I did.  That verse in Proverbs...She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come? I get that now. I wear that strength easy now, because He put it there. And as I lay in my bed at nights, sorting out the uncertainties, I laugh at my lack of control. I read words true tonight in A Grace Revealed by Jerry Sittser. "Adversity does not have to be dramatic to have an effect. Strangely, I realize now that it has not been the grandiose events of suffering that have proven to be so difficult for me but the lesser disappointments along the way that have eroded my spirit, sapped my energy and put me to the test. Mundane adversity, like any other kind, reminds us that we are not in control." I look forward eager to see how My Provider...provides. I've learned to enjoy the lack of control, in a nervous laughter sort of way. I've learned that sometimes I have to look hard to recognize the provision.

My girl goes to read in her bed, tired from training herself to get up early for school. I sit on my porch, pondering getting irritated at her earlier for interrupting me....again...when I hear a siren scream by and I remember a family who lost their father sudden yesterday and I call her out to talk. I love you so much, I tell her. Just know that I love you so much. I pray those words thread their way into her sleep.

It's night time now and I gather up my thoughts like balls of yarn in a basket and offer them up to My Creator as prayers. I'm grateful full up that He enjoys hearing me ramble; that I sense Him dancing over me when I turn towards Him.  I've learned to make Him the man of my dreams. "I'm no longer a slave to fear. I am a child of God," I hum to myself and remind my sweet friend who sends me a message tonight.  And now I will make popcorn with my girl.

Bob Dylan Goes Chinese

This is vintage Naomi.....8 years old..  She's drawing peace symbols and singing Bob Dylan.  I have nothing else to say.  :)

Click, listen, and smile

Trip to Bountiful

It's 4:38 a.m. on a Tuesday.  I'm up in the early hours, my favorite time for reading, sitting with my coffee and talking all things life over with the Creator of it.  I've decided to read through the Psalms.  I heard David, the author of them, once described as bi polar because of his intense ups and downs.  I prefer to think of him as alive.  Human.  Real.  The kind of man who can look at life and cry when the time is right.  That's my kind of person.

When I swelled big with the pregnancy of my first child, I watched The Trip to Bountiful.  Maybe I was just pregnant.  But this movie. The colors, the sounds of the birds, the cicadas. Here is a woman, come to the end of life, and she longs to go back, just once more, to where she came from so she can just be there.  So she hides her pension check until she can cash it in and buys herself a ticket on a bus back to Bountiful, Texas.  They catch her eventually, her boy and his wife.  But not before she had a chance to sit on the front porch that was her home as a child, and then a young woman.  She and her boy, they sit together for a spell on that porch; the deep sense of legacy, of passing things on washes over me as they drive off.  "Come home" runs deep in our bones.  There is nothing like feeling home; hearing it call.

I saw myself in that young mother, running through the Texas field of flowers, her boy in her footsteps.  From the first time I watched the movie, I sang this song to my unborn child, sang to him with his first gulp of air in the birthing room and he turned his head towards me.  I've sung it to each of my babies. And then, one from Korea was placed in my arms at an airport and I sang the same to him.  In China, my girl heard me sing it to her in a dingy waiting room in a social services office.  I will sing it to my little grandchild, Beatrice, when I meet her for the first time.  I still sing it to myself when my soul longs for what I can't put in words.  I wonder if those who've gone before us are whispering this song to us from heaven.

And this morning, I sip coffee hot, nestled in my big green chair in the "wooden room" in my house.  And I think of the kids at school I will meet this year, whose souls long for a home they can't quite explain yet.  Maybe one day, in a quiet hall somewhere, I will sing it to them.  It will be small gifts I pass out quietly and plant in their hearts, softly, tenderly......come home.

Sweaty on the Street

Downtown yesterday, in Cincinnati, was muggy, humid.  The sun was unexpectedly warmer than it felt at home in my yard.  Two of my kids, a man cub and a girl in waiting to be a lady, walked over to the parking meter to print out a receipt to put in the windshield while I lagged behind taking in my surroundings.  I turned back toward them to see what was taking so long and saw a small family gathered around my kids, motioning to my son, holding out their five dollar bill for him to take.  They barely spoke english but they knew they needed that much; they just didn't know what to do with it.  "Take it, Solomon, and do it for them," I said, coming up behind him.  Bless that boy of mine.  He didn't want to make the man feel "stupid" so he hesitated.  No boy, no.  He's humbling himself.  He knows he's reached the end of knowing what to do.  He's asking for your help.  He's trusting you with his money.  See?  He's holding it out to you.

We walked on, and I continued to ponder that as the family thanked us and went to put their receipt in their car.  The streets were filled with people carrying folding chairs and making their way to the park for a concert; a concert that required money to enter the barricaded area that normally becomes a respite for the homeless.   They were still there.  Just sitting on the concrete blocks around the edge of the park.  We kept walking, unwilling to part with ten dollars just to sit on the grass when we could go there any other day for free.  I looked into the eyes of the ones clearly displaced and thought about how they were looking forward to the end of the weekend when the  barricades would be taken down and the park would be theirs again.

My kids and I grabbed a cold drink at Coffee Emporium, all manner of hipsters and interesting looking people who clearly felt at home there.  I always smile to myself how out of place I feel there and that I want to thank them for letting my middle aged self even be there.  Boy, girl and I decided it was much too hot for our taste and we started back to our car, parked by the Salvation Army building.  Always, there are people there that make me feel something in my gut.  This time was no different.  As my boy piled in the car and scrambled to get the a/c on high and freezing, I looked out the windshield towards the building.  There was a man, shiny black skin from sweat, lying on the ground sound asleep, three others leaning back tired and dirty looking, against the wall, their belongings in a small pile around them.

"I wonder," I said out loud...."what it would be like to not have a car with soft seats to get into and turn the air on?  To never have that even enter in as a possibility."

"Yeah...but...," began my boy.

"I know.  I know the 'yeah, buts'......I just can't stop thinking...whatever those are, those 'yeah, buts'....they're still human beings.  And I wish it were different for them.  And it hurts my heart so."

Lunchroom Tears

I used my very own personal key fob this evening, the only key fob I've ever possessed, and let myself and my girl quiet into the silent school building we'll be calling home in ten days.  We walked the halls and I whispered prayers for the kids and their families.  I smiled to see the brightly colored wall decorations in the hallways of the elementary kids section and thought how wide eyed fun I'd feel if I were one of them.

We found our way to the lunchroom, shiny floor gleaming reflections that made it look like water, and I sat silent on a bench as my girl walked to the windows to look out.  It'd been a fair amount of years since I'd pulled my food out of a lunch box and now my girl would get to do the same, laughing so hard over shared jokes that milk threatens to come out her nose.

In my mind, I was suddenly back there, a young girl again, hearing the sounds, remembering the feelings, and the tears began to fall.  I cried to recall the tenderness of heart, that time of life ,and that it's far behind me now.  I cried with gratitude that leaves me open handed, marveling at the favor we've been given  now and no way to ever pay it back.  This lunch room will feel like home soon and memories will be engraved on my girls' mind here.

We get up to leave and I turn back wistful to look over my shoulder.  "Thank you, Father.  Thank you," I whisper and my girl reaches out and takes hold of my arm.  She knows my tears are happy for her.  She can't possibly know how deep they go.

The Interim Between Taking Steps

For years I was a stay at home mama, all in up to the part in my hair.  I loved the swirl of activity always around me.  I thrived in spontaneous hide and seek with my kids in the yard, the read alouds every single night while my girls "styled" my hair.  I even relished the night when, all six bathed and in their jammies, my oldest went outside and, wielding a machete.....a machete??  I can't now even remember why we even had a machete!  However, it found it's way into my mischievous boys' shin and off we went to the emergency room, packing the other five with me, where he proudly received his stitches and hardly able to wait until church the next day when he could show his buddies.  He's grown now and his scars come from skiing accidents or harder life lessons.  My oldest girl now styles her own hair far away in Denver as a wife and awaits her own little girl in a few months, already assembling outfits that are so cute I almost pass out.

Years went by and I stepped out as a divorced woman into the work world, landing myself a job at a private airport where I took faltering steps at figuring out what had just happened and who I was and how to walk again and smile real and not compromise and what not to compromise in the first place and who was God really and were we friends?  I'd only known rules and frantic compliance to feel okay, to gain footing.   I dressed up pretty and shook the hands of important people and steeled myself to learn to function in a world of mostly men that felt harsh and assaulting at times. I kicked back mad to make a space for myself.  It was a rumble inside me for five years until I let my flame die trying.  God decided to answer my questions for me and picked me up out of my own dust and set me in a quieter place, a humble place at the foot of others' toilets.  

Seven years came in the door and out the window.  In that time, I cleaned happy the houses of people I learned to love and shopped and ran errands and God began to patch up my heart to give me courage to try again in a brand new way.  He showed me who I thought I was, was not who He made me to be.  I looked in the mirror and saw my reflection, all no make up and yoga pants, and laughed at how lowly I looked, how unimportant my mark on the world was in the grand scheme of things.  Toilets get dirty again and groceries run out.  Everything I do with my hands is temporary.  And then it hit me.hard.  What had changed?  Was my heart had been wrapped in His love and I trusted His voice to be truth and I could relax and walk over the bricks that were crumbling from the wall I'd built around me.  I began to hear Him calling me out of my "safe" place; the heart hospital He'd taken me to.  "You're ready.  Do you trust Me?"  I felt restless, a new wind stirring that made me look around for where it came from.  I wanted to go where it was blowing but I didn't know how.

In eleven days, the wind will blow through a new door  and I feel myself in fast idle, revving to walk through it.  I take my youngest girl with me on this new adventure.  She and I, we're trees sprouting healthy and strong and get so excited at this next adventure we can't stop talking over one another and checking the calendar and counting again how many days till it starts?  But tonight?  The old tapes wind themselves thin through my head and my phone rings and it's my oldest boy.  The one with the machete scars.  He's in Washington D.C. tonight, his gig with the navy reserves takes him there.  But he takes a break to call his mama on the phone and just at the moment his mama needed it.  Because it's Friday night and I'm eating ice cream with fudge sauce and the evening is lovely and I have nowhere to go really, except on a walk, and the enemy of my soul screams loud in my ears that I'm a loser, that I'm good for a laugh but not good enough to "keep".  That I don't matter much.  And I start to panic, the particular sort of quiet panic that no one would notice if they were sitting next to me but it stops in my throat and sticks there heavy.  I tell my boy what I hear in my head and he prays true words that fall on me like a quiet country night.

I hang up grateful.  The voices still sneer at me.  I want the eleven days to pass overnight while I'm sleeping so I don't have to feel what I'm feeling, to hear what the tapes are playing.  I decide to ignore them and pay attention to how the hot fudge tastes and that a walk would be lovely and that I will seize this lonesome moment as real life and hold fast to it and not run from it.  It's what I have right now and I can't wait eleven days to live again.  Because what if eleven days never comes?  

What I've learned, what I'm learning to learn, is that the interim is still living.  And I must be about it.

Senior Picture

Yeah.  No kiddin, "senior"....but still....today I got a sweatshirt with my girls' school logo on it and I'm so excited...like the kind of excited when I used to buy my boys cowboy boots and they wore them to bed the first night?  I'm so doing that.  This transition from homeschool mama to "real" school mom is making me feel like the young mom's I met today with kindergartners.  And then I look at their hands and their skin is young and smooth and fits just so and mine......doesn't....and plus my child is looking me in the eye, which would just be creepy if she were a kindergartner.  But reality checks don't stop the happy and I don't care if I am ridiculous.

Today I worked the student store and learned how to sell student uniforms like a boss. I got to meet some parents and kids and I gravitated to the youngest ones because they were "new" like me and, wide eyed,I asked them if they were excited and I whispered, "Me too!"  They couldn't wait to eat lunch in the cafeteria, cause, what could be funner than that, I ask you?  PBJ's always taste better in the big world.  Remind me to order that the first day of school.

It's a wonder to see a little person just setting off and be able to feel their excitement with them and find out their name is Mathew, who told me quite confidently how to spell it without me even asking.  No grown up spelled their name when they introduced themselves to me.  That's because we've all forgotten how fabulous it is that we learned to do that all by ourselves and remember it!  It equally jazzes me to see young man and woman "cubs", all voice changey and giggly curls, stepping into their soon-to-be-adult lives and feel my stomach jump for them at all that's ahead.

So, I finished the day and turned off the fan and closed and locked the door with my brand new shiny key fob and thought..."Girl.  You are silly."  And you know what?  I'm okay with that.  :)

Dipping in Up to My Waist

When I started this thing, this reaching up in the air and grabbing my thoughts and making them into words and setting them free, I named it "Dipping the Toe" because that's what it felt like.  I was a shy, scared little girl on the inside with such big thoughts to share.  Would there be an echo?  Or angry words back?  Or worse.....yawns?  Would anybody care to hear?  Did it matter what I said?  But, the thing is, I'd been let out of my cage and I could feel myself wanting to sing out loud.  I could sense my Creator urging me to.  So I trusted Him and sidled up to the water and put my foot gingerly into just the edge of the pool of letters.  A curious thing happened.  I grew courage and boldness and a tree that seemed to sprout from my spirit and grow words and more words.   So, I planted myself there and grew green and stronger and my words were my heart beating out strong to others and I found others weren't so scary after all.  I made friends with the world around me.

My writing opened the doors to me and I started to think and dream bigger than what I could already see.  What if, says I to me, what if I just walked right into people's lives and stayed there instead of running shy if they noticed me.  Yesterday I sat on the second row of church and watched the kids choir singing and I found myself in that group.  There was one little girl standing as brave as she could make herself, her mouth barely moving; no smile because that may have taken more energy than she had left just to be there in the first place.  I wanted to run up and hug her hard and tell her that what matters isn't whether she gets noticed or doesn't get noticed but that she's here and breathing and please just sing out, sweet girl, while you're alive because it's just so fabulous that you are alive and that you are just exactly who you are!

So, now?  Well , now I find myself on the ledge of a grand adventure, perched  ready to jump, and I'm so jazzed I feel like I could fly! A few months back I spent a day with my girl and a young boy and it lit a fire in my heart, just to watch him run and sing and be silly and eat his ice cream messy and it stayed there with me in the places where my dreams are made.  So, I slept on it for days and nights and days again until one day I ventured to make the dream grow legs and I sent out a little note to my friend that maybe, just maybe, there might be a place for me to go back to school where she works?  Only this time as a mom and a mentor and a friend and a passer out of hugs and smiles and words of encouragement and noticing when someone needs to be noticed.  To love those kids as if they were my own.  To pray for them as I look into their faces.  To find a place for them in my heart.  To make a little home in theirs.

Today I went to that school to sign papers to make me official and to get my key fob and laugh with the accountant because I told her I thought accountants were weird and that I couldn't wait to make her my friend; to hug the school close to me as part of my family.  And the best part is, my girl goes with me as a student in a "real" school for the first time in her life.  She has her backpack filled, 17 days early,  and we talk giddy and make excuses to drive by the school and try and imagine what it will feel like to be included in that world.  I ask her what she's most looking forward to.  "To be bored in class.  I want to experience all the things I've heard kids complain about."  I shake my head at her, laughing at the unexpected answer.  But I get it.

My girl and I?  We're seeing dreams appear on the horizon together.  We're anxious to learn and grow into loving bigger.  I'm looking forward to gathering more stories to tell, to being known as the crazy red headed lady in the student store, walking the halls passing out smiles that won't fit on my face.  Most of all, though?  Most of all, I'm looking forward to hearing, "That lady there?  She loves us in a way that reminds us that God loves us."