from rest

I took Judah on a bike ride today.  He peddled fast then would stop, look around, complain about not being able to peddle any longer and sit, until a push from me would give him the momentum to continue.  There were moments of frustration when I would tell him to get to the side of the road and ignoring me he would reach down to touch the paint on the center line, or not listen to my calls of 'stop! there are cars' until my hand grabbed the bike and halted it.  

By the time we made it home I felt discouraged.  It is a beautiful day and I had eagerly taken my children out to experience the perfect coolness of the air on their skin and to soak in the warmth of the sun.  When I returned I felt drained and exhausted.

And in this moment I can just imagine how I come across to the Lord.  Willful and headstrong.  Defiant.  Certain that I know which way is best and that he should just follow after me.  Let me lead, let me set the pace.

I wonder, what would life look like if I fully gave control of the reigns.  If I moved from a place of peace and rest rather than my typical take charge attitude.

It truly is a letting go.  Trusting that he who formed me, is holding me gently cradled in his arms.  That he has set the path before me and if I will just listen to the sweet guiding of his voice, I will reach my destination unscathed.  Whole.  Full of joy.  As he means it to be.

There is a verse that says 'why worry about tomorrow, what you will eat or what you will drink?  don't you know that he who clothes the lilies of the field will also clothe you?'  How awesome that God cares about what we wear.  That the things that are important to us are also to Him.  That he values the mundane, the every day.

We are called to live quiet lives of peace.  Not boring lives of lack.  I think that somewhere along the line I began to believe that God wanted less for me, when in reality he wants more.  He wants my good, more desperately than I do myself.

Just as I long for my children to trust me.  To heed my voice.  To respond eagerly and with diligence.  Because I value their lives and their welfare.  I want them to enjoy their days, not suffer through.  I am heart heavy for their good and eager to protect them from evil.  Yet they have to allow me to guide them, they have to listen when I call.  Or we retire back, to spend the rest of the day in the house, practicing responding to my voice.

Let my heart, oh God!  leap at the sound of your words.  Let it turn eager and ready at the faintest breath of your call.  Let me be a life that brings you joy and peace, as I exist in the joy and peace you have prepared for me.  Let me live fully dependent on you.  Always desperate to bend at the slightest hint of your hand.

denying fear.

Fear.

It has crippled me.  Mocked me.  And left me desperately empty, longing for a life of freedom.  But, each step I take has me questioning, what if I fail??

What if. I. Fail.

And I live afraid of ever trying because I could fail.  I may not be as good as I want to be.  I could turn everyone against me, in a desperate quest to live fully and to live successfully.

My heart desperately wants to live a life of freedom.  To live my dreams.

But to reach that, I must be willing to fail.  To be honest, I never have been.  Failure is just not something that I am okay with.  Therefore I don't try.  I hide, desperate and discouraged, because daily, I hold myself back.

There are so many movies out there, where you watch as people living a normal life begin to self sabotage, until they have created this Hollywood drama type chaos in every single area of their lives.  Only to suddenly become self aware, make a decision, take a leap of faith, TRANSFORM themselves and their lives and then all of a sudden everything is perfect.  They now have their dream job, husband, friends, everything and all because they chose to move forward.


Sadly the Hollywood portrayal is not true to life.  For most of us when we reach the place of deciding to step out and risk failure, risk ridicule, risk.  We are ridiculed and we do fail.  It is in this place that the true test exists.  Will we run back to our safety net, curl up in our familiar chair and never move forward, because failure hurts?  Or will we push forward, step up and keep going until we have the lives that for MOST will only be lived in dreams?

I find myself in that place right now.  A place of choosing.  To risk failure, to risk myself.  To better my existence.  But in the doing I have to continually live outside of myself.  To remember that the best success stories come from the best failures.  I am moving forward.  I am taking hold of the reins of my life, because I am DONE letting everyone else lead me along.

I am joining the challenge to transform my life.

I hope that you will join me.  Because the status quo just wont work for me, any longer.

To life!!

To this, my love.

There is something in the air.  The magic of a fall day.  The crisp, clean air that swells with mystery and promise.  It has been more than a while, since I have felt the click of keys under my fingers.  Since my heart has felt the weight of something to share.  A sliver of life to reveal with you.  Perhaps more it has been the overwhelming sense of a need to work through the cacophony of life, to find the sweet harmony of peace.

For the last year I have desperately sought to better myself, the sting of failure more often my fate than any sense of success.  I have strived desperate to break through this wall.  To be worthy of this life.  To be accepted.  Loved.  To not only know my value, but for it to be know.   Day after day I melted, lost, broken, discouraged.

Only to land in this place of peace, where I stand face to face with myself and realize that I am exactly the me I was created to be.  To find my life is worthy, not for any other reason then that it was handed to me.  I was created for purpose.  While that purpose may not always connect in my mind, it is in no way diminished.  My lack is never from reality, but because my eyes have not yet been opened to the abundance surrounding me.   I have chosen to live desperate for others to value me, because I did not value myself.  I was hungry for love because I could not see the one who embodies love and I would not receive the love he so desperately longs to pour out.

I was invited into the throne room and rather than enter in my rags, I first sought to better myself.  To clean off the dirt, to prove my worth.  That when I entered I would not be shunned or ashamed.  Only to be brought in, with dirt on my face.  To bite into the apple of grace and as the pure juice of life dripped down my chin, watch as my being transformed.  The clothing I once spurned as rags, change to white and the dirt, to gold.  Eyes to see and ears to hear.

I have come to realize that the reality in which I have lived, was not to what I was born.  I was called to destiny and purpose and yet I could only see it as servitude and lack.  My eyes were blind to the true gift of which I am blessed to live.  The joy that I can find in every day.  As I see clearly for the first time.

How desperate I am to fill my lungs with the purity of air.  To see the value of my life.  To pour out my blessing and worth upon my children.  To teach them to live, perfectly pleasing their Creator who is so eager for their joy.

I live each moment, each day, eagerly gulping the extravagant good to which I have been birthed.  Free of fear and worry.  To not desperately seek the pleasure of those around me, but that of the one who formed me.  Who has known me and who calls me, from deep to deep.


Walk soft on your way, drink deep of cream and spice, live with wild abandon.  Whisper gentle, laugh loud and dance in the falling of leaves.  Herald the season of change.

shoving forward.

Every now and then I indulge and have my cup of coffee with heavy whipping cream instead of half and half.  mmmmm.  There's something about the fat bubbles that gently spread to fill your cup with the rich lace of butter in the bite of a dark coffee.  It is goodness.  Though I suppose I should also admit that I've been frequenting the heavy cream a little more often lately.  Then today when I reached for my grande dark roast spiked with butter *ahem* cream, and the barista kind of smirked, like 'here ya go lady, enjoy your thighs with that'.  I was sad to find it didn't taste as wonderful as all of the previous times.  Not because of the snarky counter girl, but because I have become used to my sweet, indulgent, heavy cream and now it just tastes like regular half and half.  I am so annoyed.
Because I should be in bed I am now thinking of all the areas in my life that I began to indulge, to loosen the grip, to shirk responsibilities in the thought that it would just be this one time.  Until suddenly I wake to the realization that I have allowed the occasional to become the routine, and now the butter has lost its cream.
I could carry on, every now and then have the elusive sip that hooked me in the first place.  Or I could go back to square one and learn to appreciate the subtle nuances of the first sip of a black cup of coffee.  Ok, probably I'll just stick with half and half, or switch to tea.   Though now that I am awake, I cannot be asleep any longer and must root through the closets of my days and find the areas that need to be shifted, rearranged.  Complacency has snuck into more areas than I want to admit or openly want to change.  I like how life has flowed, I could choose to continue drifting in my whimsy down a winding stream.  And yet I cannot so easily swallow my laziness and must find ways to adjust.
Like an athlete who finds themselves stagnant in their speed and then push themselves, rejecting the desperation for rest, I too will push myself out of my imprint on the couch and get up to change the channels myself.  I will do this because I am embracing the change that is life.  The need inside myself to better, what I will only want to hide, if I continue.  

Then when routine has become a stronger, more diligent, faithful, clean at all times, type of women, then I will allow myself the small luxuries of rest.  And enjoy my coffee with heavy cream, until I can no longer enjoy the weight and will wallow back to my black cup of joe.

Quiet

The day that I turn old.

Breath. Deep. Sweet.

Intoxicating air surrounds and I lie undone in the tickling grass of memory. Shapeless and floating life passes through my mind. Old and alone I am still in the face of time.

Breath comes and goes.

I cannot catch it, stop it, remember when it began.

Steady, deep and dark like the catacombs of a woman's mind. Dreams that once were, lie crushed beneath the waves of life and I would be still, but for the breath that clings me to this place.

I once danced in the arms of a man, beneath an open moon. Bled in the birth of life. Leapt at the sound of a song. I held the hurting, comforted the dying, whispered peace while I checked the monsters under the bed. Bold and filled with color my days were sweeping by, in joy and passion. Unable to hold tight the web of life created. I swallowed whole the sweet fruit and drank deep the nectar of each day.

At last all has faded, the colors of blue and gold now grey. The noise that once echoed so sweet, grates as it calls to another. The life I created now creates and I am simply a shadow too quickly fading, before my breath can cease to be.

In and out. Then out once more.

And at last my time will come.

I will cross those distant shores and dance in the light of the moon, with the man that never once I ceased to love.

a lesson in identity.

Words are powerful.

I read a comment not too long ago where a parent said, 'who are we to tell our child whether they are gay or straight, boy or girl'.

And I thought I'd share my opinion with you.

Throwing out the homosexual issue, because I don't feel like going there, I thought I'd broach the boy/girl part of the comment. It may seem, in the ever increasing areas of gray in our world, that we should just love our children and let them form their own opinions and beliefs outside of our influence. This makes me think of the story about the king who wanted to know what the pure language of man was, so he took a group of children, allowed their base needs to be met, so that he could experience their form of purity. He was to be disappointed. They all died.

Perhaps this is an extreme case, but may I say the comment was an extreme comment. There is a thin line we walk as parents, between control and indifference. Our children will learn from us, whether we want them to or not. They will discern our bad from our good, judge us right or wrong, choose the path they want to take, based on what they have experienced from us.

Allowing your child to decide their identity in a world where everyone is trying to influence them, is similar to throwing a baby into shark infested waters and telling them to swim.

The end will be destruction.

There is a season in a child's life when they are desperately looking for answers. They aren't looking to peers or teachers, neighbors or heroes. Just you. And if you choose to be, you'll be the best influencer they will ever know. Teach them now, when they're a sponge, when everything you say soaks in and they can't wait to learn more.

The bible says to train your child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.

If we fail to teach our children, they will search until they find answers on their own. More than likely you'll be disappointed in the result.

I want to train my children to understand who they are. To know, not only that they are loved, but they are mighty in the kingdom of God. This may seem a difficult lesson, because I find I'm training negative behaviors pretty constantly. The goal is to never allow your child to believe THEY are bad when they hit, steal, scream or any number of negative actions I find in ALL young people. But to speak truth over them. I often tell Judah that he is kind, so why would he hit, it's not WHO he is.

Another fabulous phrase from the bible, is that the power of life and death are in the tongue.

Let's just think about that for a minute. LIFE and DEATH. The SPOKEN word. Now, how are we talking to our kids. What are we SPEAKING over them.

This may seem like the most basic of lessons, but according to the comment I read, one that parents are missing.

It is our job, our role as parents to train our children in their identity. At their core, will be whether they are good or bad, a boy or a girl. Who better, than me, to teach my daughter that not only is she a girl, but that she is fearfully and wonderfully made. Confusion can only set in when clarity is not established.

Therefore, start teaching your kids now, who they are. Speak it over them constantly. They are good, they are loved, they are a boy/girl. Declare their destiny. If you can't see the amazing person they are, in their moments of weakness and self doubt, they won't be able to see it either.

As we love and teach our children outside of judgement and anger, they will grow to be the purity, not only we long to see, but that which the world is so desperately seeking as well.