breathe...

We breathe… every day without thinking. In and out and in again. It is natural and necessary. Whether the air sweet or if it reeks, we continue to breathe. We continue to open our lungs to the unknown around us. There is no other option. 

The future is just as unknown. We don’t know if the next season will be sweet and full of things that give life or if it will reek with hardship and pain. But we can’t stop it. We can’t avoid it. It is coming. All we can do is close our eyes and drink it in. We must accept it with all of its joy, its pain, its silliness, its monotony and its business mingled together into the fragrance that we call life. 

As the wind blows over me and life rushes toward me I will empty my lungs and inhale deeply. I refuse to wearing a gas mask. I refuse to filter the air. When I breathe in, I want to breathe it ALL in. I will not shy away and I will not avoid what is coming.

beathe life in… exhale love...

~ written 4/19/16 ~

filled

i don’t have to make myself good enough… Jesus paid the price to cover everything that i have ever done wrong or will ever do wrong.  He is constantly sanctifying me and pouring into me so that i can change and grow.  

A balloon can’t, in of itself, become all that it can be without an outside force.  It is only when a powerful hose or wind is poured into it that it begins to show its potential.  It is only when it is stretched that it will grow.

When we are being stretched it doesn’t always feel good.  In fact most of the time it is painful.  However, as we are filled, we begin to realize that we are growing and reaching a potential that we never could on our own.  

He is the source.

There is nothing whatsoever that i can do on my own to reach the potential that He has planned for me.

~ written 12/09/2015 ~

beginnings and endings

i am sitting on the deck of their house now… in the corner furthest from the garage.  the leaves are falling.  they litter the ground in a colorful but shabby rug.  

delicate cobwebs decorate the railings of this balcony.  they glimmer in the sun as the wind makes them dance.  a lawnmower battles small green armies a few yards over.  a woman rakes her yard while her small blonde child, who is dressed in an orange shirt, and a little white dog, who sniffs about with an adventurous air, “help” her.  the breeze picks up again and i can smell the smoke of a fire or cigarette.  which it is i do not know, nor do i care.  

the little boy in the orange shirt makes an inquisitive grunt which doesn’t resemble any word that i have ever heard.  too young to form sentences.

such a newness of life and another day closer to death.

another day further from the womb.

another day of untapped potential.

the wind here is filled with music. the sound of far off trees play their songs in harmony.  breezes ebb and flow through the branches as God orchestrates the melody.  

how can this pain bring me to write these words?  is it true that such sorrow is welcome, for it helps us express ourselves all the more beautifully?  that we should be thankful for it because it makes our art somehow better?

just now i found where the smell of smoke is coming from.  the woman raking leaves is burning them as she goes.  the boy has moved back towards their house and is looking on with interest but isn’t going anywhere.  the leaves burn a thin hot flame that causes smoke to rise and fill the air in fitful billows.  

my bladder knocks impatiently, but the house i must enter is filled with the memory of unhappy images that i cannot erase.  they will always be with me and i with them.  i cannot forget, nor would i ever want to.

one day perhaps i will write about what happened this morning.  one day i will fill in all of the details that are etched into my brain… perhaps even now my fingers itch to tell the story but my heart doesn’t know how much it can bear.  i think to myself that if i could only record it here through the chatter of my fingers… maybe then i would be able to let it go and concentrate on the present.

with tears at bay, I begin.

-written 10/12/2015-

beautifully destructive...

today i was researching wisteria.  it is a beautiful vine that makes you want to draw nearer and linger in its sweet fragrance.   Its long drooping clusters of lavender flowers are reminiscent of a dream or romantic movie.  it is a beautiful, wonderful, living, moving gem.

it is beautiful as it takes over trees and fence. it is beautiful as it weighs down roofs and arbors.  it is beautiful as it takes over whole gardens, sucking the life out of and destroying all living things in its path. beautifully destructive... until all that is left is a whimsical mess of flowers and fragrance.

so similar is our pain i think.  

it weighs us down and causes us to crumble as it takes over our lives and breaks us down.  it consumes us and tears our walls down.  the places where those walls no longer are leave us weak and in pain, but sensitive to the Lord... if we let them.

those spots that are vulnerable and laid bare, those are the places that God moves and works.  those areas are what God uses to form our heart and our spirit into the beautiful creation that He made us to be.  

He takes brokenness and out of it grows beauty.  He takes destruction and out of it grows devotion.  He takes hurt and out of it grows hunger for Him.  He takes grieving and out of it grows grace.  He takes pain and out of it grows peace.

He takes our bitter, messed up, crushed, mangled selves and He completely - without hesitancy - covers us with the blanket of grace and mercy that is Jesus Christ.

the vine of pain that we see as gruesome has bloomed in all its fullness with the love of Jesus.

The fragrance of our life, a life devoted to Him... that fragrance causes God look upon us and smile.

God smiles! a hearty, jolly smile when he looks at His surrendered children.  His whole face lights up with joy when we submit to Him, when we are in love with Him.

"...the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of  life, and the man became a living being." (Genesis 2:7)

You make beautiful things out of the dust.

"He has made everything beautiful in its time..." (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

~ written 06/19/2015 ~

things...

there are so many things i long to say... long to do.  it has been so long since i have felt this way.

 i am jaded but the mundane of the day to day.  passion ebbs and fades when life's collar of duties tightens.  

oh how i fear and miss that passion.  desire to make a difference, to experience excitement, to find adventure, to become great.  how have i now been aroused but this passion, desire?  what is the cause? i don't want to be ordinary. 

 the emotion whelling up inside makes me want to scream.  to break through the ceiling and fly.

but no...

there is no leaving my current state.  no direction that my passion knows to follow.  no fleeing from my family, my friends, my love.  the feeling fades until it is nothing more than a fleeting hopeful ember, cooling slowly in my chest.

life is too necessary and practical to give way to passing excitement.  happiness doesn't stem from adventures.  how silly of me...

yet the question lingers... like the tide...  licking up along the edges of my thoughts... and out again.

-written 10/14/2014-

the past

a look into the past... leaves me trembling.

not the things that happened but how i felt.

emotions push me down further into a substance that clings to me.

the substance is despair.  

it is strong like an ocean's tide.  it is seductive like quicksand.  deadly like venom.

convincing me to give up and sink in.

 

i'm knocked over by the roaring gush of salty water, 

held firm by the groping fingers of sand. 

i breathe in poison as i gasp for air above the torrents of liquid despair.  

screams choke me, tears blind me, my heart beats wildly.

how to escape?

something, anything to stop this feeling - to stop the unexplainable, breath stealing pain.

a floating log, a rope, a tourniquet

at once it is gone and i can't feel it anymore.

something resembling peace, 

the water has receded, and the sand is still again beneath my feet, my heart is quiet.

 

...but the venom

where did that go?

it hasn't gone... it will not go... it has invaded my being,

it numbed my heart

what now?...what now?

where is the hope to heal my soul?
-written 7/6/11-

trash or treasure?

a twisted paper straw cover... some call it trash, others art...

a leaf strewn yard... some call it a saturday chore, others a collage of color...

 a broken body... some call it weakness, others love...
-written ll/3/11-

small sweet memories...

My sweetest memories... grease, oil, cars, forts. 

Not everyone grows up the same.  My childhood was full of hours at the shop, cars and the smell of all of the oils, greases, and fluids that are used to make it run.  The hours of building a fort out of sheets, of trying to climb up trees, of picking blackberries for my sister, of watching my daddy work on cars, of talking with customers.  
All of these things, all and more.
-written 2/21/11-