The Hardest Conversation

I told him that I loved him.  Not in an "in love" way but in a way that says I know my heart well and I feel it wanting to learn him, to give and not take, to know if I will love him, to know if he will let me, to know if he will love me.  And maybe that only makes sense to me.  I know what I mean.  Every time I type a word I start to cry and I choke on my chicken biscuit.  Not from despair; because the hardest conversation is when you take the clothes off your heart and leave yourself wide open for the truth to hit you like a bullet.  And you do it because you love and you want to do it well.....so it makes you squint your eyes and squeeze out tears like looking in the sun.

The truth is, truth is messy and it colors outside the lines.  Sometimes it hides and leaves little clues behind that you can't make sense of right away.  Sometimes it moves and morphs like a lava lamp and you have to wait and watch it take shape.  You have to trust the Giver of Truth and hold fast.

So, I took this little seed of something tender and planted it in his heart and covered it with my prayer.  His heart is bleeding still from life ripping in so I found a small spot and laid it gentle to leave it quiet.  I don't want to make him bleed more than he already is.  It's no small thing to come alongside someone, for me.  Their pain and their joy splash into my cup.  It doesn't make it heavier but it spills over the side and onto my hands and I can feel it on my skin.  It makes me turn to look for the basin and the towel.

The hardest conversation pulls and tugs at what was bound up comfortable and hidden to protect.  It  lets in light for trust to grow and arrows to be pulled out of wounds.  It causes open space for hearts to stretch out and feel at home; to take a deep breath and try again to sing.  I don't know what will happen.  But, I can tell you, the hardest conversation teaches me to learn to love free of charge.

There's a place at the table for you, sweet man.  If you ever find you need one.

Create, in me, a safe place....Oh God....

This week I had something happen, something that felt like a kiss on my forehead from God.  A friend reached out to me.  She was hurting, she'd made some big mistakes and needed a "safe place" to come and tell the whole sordid mess to.  She chose me.  I hadn't seen her or spoken to her in months.  But she chose me.  As I waited for her to show up on my doorstep, all broken and flat worn out, I whispered to God...."tell me what to say.  And make it be truth.  Your truth."  

I listened to her heart spill out of her eyes and down her face and handed her kleenex and pizza.  I told her..."Tell me.  From the beginning."  And she blurted out the hard and the ugly of it all.  And I was honored to catch it up and hold it safe while she let it all out; too hard to carry by herself.  She'd talked to God but she needed Him with skin on and those she thought were her friends had turned their heads the other way.  And she chose me.

I marvel at that again and again.  You see, I've made a mess of things myself before and thought sure I'd worn out anything God might could have done to help me.  I've lived in a place where no one and nothing felt safe and so I tried to sew up a blanket to shelter me made from scraps I gathered up from people that weren't safe at all.  I couldn't go to God because I didn't really believe He was there for me or that He saw me or that He loved me.  I was sure I was useless.

As I sat there listening to my friend sob out her story, I heard myself say "Go where the grace is."  That was Him.  He'd heard my prayer and gave me His truth to speak.  And I saw the truth change the look on her face.  "You're right," she said and she started to breathe again.  

I watched her car drive off, this friend who needed to be loved back to truth, and I realized.....God had transformed me into that safe place for others that I'd always longed for in my own life.  There is precious little I treasure more than to hear "I've never told anyone this before", to be trusted with someone's heart.  

I cried that night; because I knew that He had chosen to love through me.  He had used my messy to be a safe place to be loved by Him.

Working for a Song

I felt like I "should" be doing something that was more...important; more impressive.  Maybe I lacked initiative to really DO something in the world.  Maybe I was nothing, could do nothing more important than what I did.  Maybe I should be embarrassed.  Maybe.  But I wasn't.  And sometimes even that bothered me.  

This is what I do.  I wash loads upon loads of laundry and have it hanging and sorted for a young mama who works all day and wants to be present for her kids when she comes home.  I go to the grocery store for an older couple who have trouble walking and come back and put it all away for them.  I clean the bathrooms for a woman who schools several of her children at home and her husband wanted to bless her with some help.  I run errands and pick up kids from school and take the cat to the vet for a woman who has it all materially and yet, finds herself watching her mother fade away with dementia and is shouldering the responsibility for that.  I come alongside a woman who needs help reaching and organizing because she hurts everywhere and it's so much easier to not have to bend.  

That is what I do.  None of it uses the college degree I have.  None of it even requires much special skill.  Most of the time I look a mess, all bleach stained yoga pants and no make up. Sometimes I miss getting pretty clothes on and feeling like a lady.  And yet, I noticed a curious thing one day while I was on my knees scrubbing at a toilet.  I was singing without realizing it and it seemed to be coming from my heart.  What is wrong with me, I thought to myself.  Why am I so happy??   No one should be this happy cleaning a toilet!  Perhaps I am too easily amused.  I should find higher ground.

The singing got "worse".  I couldn't seem to stop myself.  The joy and contentment was out of hand.  I was getting worried.  And then, one day help arrived.  I took a "gifts" assessment and received my diagnosis.  There, at the top of the page, shining like the emerald city, was my one word prescription.  "Server".  And then I knew why my little caged bird self sings while I haul someone's cat to the vet....I am finding my joy in doing what I was created to do.  I love by serving and, in return, my Creator loves me by setting me free to do just that.   And all that is within me sings out spontaneously to Him.  

So, if I'm ever serving you, please try to look beyond my messy hair and "robe of splendor" that looks suspiciously like work clothes and know that I am loving you because He loved me and showed me how.

The Day I Stopped Talking

I wore fear like a muzzle from the time I was a child.  I don't know all the reasons why, really, but I always had a nagging sense of being uninvited.  To protect myself, I chose, many times, not to speak.  If I didn't speak, you might not notice me and if you didn't notice me I could hide and if I could hide I felt safer and make sure that I wasn't too much trouble.  The thing is, I carried inside of me a world of color and imagination and when I felt, I felt REAL BIG and when I imagined,  I imagined a n i m a t e d l y.   I would look for a place to let it out of me, like a bubble coming out of my mouth, getting larger and LARGER.  And so, I would retreat to my bedroom, which became a stage for me to dream out loud.  I remember singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow, when I knew my mother was outside hanging laundry and I could not be overheard.  That song seemed to understand me and made me cry.  It still does.

As I got older, I found a new friend, a friend I could trust to share my secrets, to help me speak.  I picked up a pen and words came out.  My writing hugged my heart and squeezed out of me what was bound and gagged.  I kept journals and wrote stories and maudlin teenage poems with trite phrases like "pipe dreams", when I wasn't sure what a pipe dream was.  But I wrote, laying the words out like diamonds on velvet.  The meanings of them, the sound of them, finding just the right one, mattered to me and kept me company.

I grew up and became a mama, six times over, and my world was a swirl of motion and noise and playdough and dandelions.  I used my hands to wipe up spilled juice and wipe off runny noses and hug my babies close.  But all was not as it should be in my world and parts of my heart were breaking and that haunting uninvited feeling crept back in, and so, when everyone was asleep at night, still I wrote, so that I could feel like I belonged someplace.  My words warmed me up when my soul felt cold.  I held nothing back and it kept my spirit from getting infected and helped me sort out what felt like puzzle pieces that made no sense.

One day, one really bad day,  those words were found and passed out to others, like a peddler selling wares.  My heart gasped and ran down the front of me and I felt my voice, the one that my writing gave me, go mute. The words that I'd heard in my head to navigate my life were gone.  My gift had become a weapon against me.  I thought I'd disappeared for good. I didn't write again for four years.  I stopped talking, really talking, to everyone.  No one would know my heart again, I vowed.  It was too violent of a business.

But God?  He had another idea.  He waited, like a gentleman does, until one day He knew I was ready, and He came and asked me to dance.  He told me that He loved me and held out His hand to me. No one had ever asked me to dance.  I lifted my eyes and decided to believe Him. That was the day my words came back and I could not contain them.  Except, this time, the words had Life to them and they pushed their way to the surface with a heartbeat, strong and vibrant.  These were His words, and He'd allowed them to be born in me.

Today, I have more words than I know what to do with and put them in containers full and running over.  I rush to write them down some days, they roll up on me so fast.  I still find myself in the middle of life sometimes and feeling something bigger than I can seem to figure out how to speak out loud,  so I sit down and quilt a covering of words, quiet and thoughtful.  I pick them careful, the shades of color mattering deeply, and pass them out to people, sometimes shyly, tentatively.  Sometimes, when fear wants to visit again, they are almost too quiet to hear and you have to lean in close.  My words are the deepest part of me, the biggest thing I have to give.  They are my heart on a plate.  And He gave them to me and has asked me to give them away.


"Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body."  Proverbs 16:24

The Most Perfect Human Being

They walk IN water puddles, not around them.  If there's a more challenging way to get from one place to another, they take it.  When there are noises to be made, they make them with gusto.  A song to be sung does not need to be sung the "right" way, but words can be bent and morphed into silliness and please, let's not necessarily sing it in tune.  

They call objects with grown up labels like "structures" ...."the big metal thing" and they want to climb it simply because it's there.  They make things for their momma's because they can't imagine loving another girl as much as they do her and they are not ashamed of it.  Their hair falls in their eyes or becomes a "toy" to mold into other shapes and stand straight up and it doesn't matter if others see it because why else would you have hair?  They fish with sticks and string and don't care if they catch anything; it's not the point.  The point is you have sticks and string.  Their shoes are raggedy from being busy living.  They eat and eat and then eat again.  They gather treasures that aren't worth much except to them, which makes them worth it all.

I recently spent the day in the company of one just like this.  And I can tell you; the most perfect human being is a twelve year old boy.  I know this is true.  I've had three of my own.  And they taught me what joy looks like.  <3

Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth.--Eccl 11:9

Worship plus Nothing

I've tried to write a blog post for almost two hours tonight.  I pawed through words like scrabble pieces but they sat mute in their little wooden pews.  I wasn't hearing anything.  Except "worship".  Then I realized it was Him, telling me what He wanted.  The thing is, I wanted the "company" of words and I'm feeling lonely.  

In a minute I'm taking the list of names of those of you who have messaged me today to pray for you.  That will be my only companion, at least one to hold in my hand.  In November, I had someone pray over me prophetically.  In that prayer, God specifically said two things that I can't seem to get away from; not that I'd want to; but it keeps coming up to me in what I read, conversations, in my spirit.  The first is, "I've created you to be exactly who you are.  You are unique and I have placed inside of you a spirit of joy.  BE WHO I MADE YOU TO BE.  With that joy, you will bless others and draw them to you, and thus to Me."  The second thing was "I am taking you to higher and higher places with Me.  I have a new place for you.  I want to bless you.  Make yourself ready before Me."

As I type this, I'm shaking.  I feel Him asking me to give Him the control.  Not that He doesn't already have it?  But He's wanting me to do it deliberately.  I sense He's telling me that He is waiting to speak until I do.  I have run many times lately to my room and gotten on my knees asking Him hard questions, craving to hear.  Tonight, He's got His hand out.

I know I'm not alone.  But all I hear right now are birds, all I see right now is me in my yard and one lone deer.  If you are reading this, could you pray for me?

I want to learn how to worship Him even when I feel like I have nothing else to live for.

A Slow Dance for Raggedy Anns and Andys.....

The  white Christmas lights that I keep up year round, just because their light makes me happy, are glowing warm tonight in my otherwise dark kitchen.  It's been raining for hours.  The trees outside look sad because they don't have their leaves yet, but I know growth is happening on the inside of them.  He promises that.  My girl is in the next room crocheting a blanket from a bag full to the brim with balls of yarn, like multi colored scoops of ice cream.  I have my music playing in my ears, singing me truth lullabies as I write.    "I'll love You with everything.....Hear I am, Lord; all I am,  Lord." haunts me and I play it back over and over.  Faces of people I know and love, their stories, weave their way in and out of those words like disonant chords.  It squeezes my heart and I find my eyes filling with tears.  It hurts to sing that, God.  Some of us, most of us?  We got nothing to give You but what already hurts.

I start to sing the song out loud to God, and close my eyes to imagine what He had, what He still has in mind for us.  We are a wounded, raggedy lot, the bunch of us.  And we gather around together to warm our hands a bit and somehow find love and hope and the courage to believe again, or for the first time, that our stories mean something.  The notion that "breath and sex and sight" can be pulled out of the mud and made new and beautiful and sacred; that they are gifts this side of the veil, to give us a light that points to Him, fills our lungs with clean oxygen and sets us upright to dance again; it makes me throw back my head and open my arms wide to take it all in.  

I ask Him to hold us tight, to wash off the dirty tear trails on our faces.  I ask Him to help us trust Him again, or more, even when nothing makes sense.  And He?  He invites us to slow dance with Him.