Faithful

There's distance in the air and I cannot make it leave
i wave my arms' round about me and blow with all my might
I cannot sense you close, though I know you're always here
But the comfort of you near is what i long for

When I can't feel you, I have learned to reach out just the same
When I can't hear you, I know you still hear everyword I pray
And i want you more than i want to live another day
And as I wait for you maybe I'm made more faithful

All the folly of the past, though I know it is undone
i still feel the guilty one, still trying to make it right
So i whisper soft your name, let it roll around my tounge,
knowing you're the only one who knows me
You know me

When I can't feel you, I have learned to reach out just the same
When I can't hear you, I know you still hear everyword I pray
And i want you more than i want to live another day
And as I wait for you maybe I'm made more faithful

Show me how I should live this
Show me where I should walk
I count this world as loss to me
You are all I want
You are all I want

When I can't feel you, I have learned to reach out just the same
When I can't hear you, I know you still hear everyword I pray
And i want you more than i want to live another day
And as I wait for you maybe I'm made more faithful

"Faithful" by Brooke Fraser

I Choose You

Today, I choose You

Though all that is in me

yearns and aches and craves

something "more"

something else

something temporary...and not You

Today, I chose You

Though it hurts

Though it feels like settling

like giving up

like a consolation prize

Today, I chose You

Though I chose

And speak those words

Through tears

and pain

and defeat

Today, I chose You

Because You chose me

Because You love me

Because You have mercy on me

Even now

Even when

I don't want to choose You

Today, I chose You

Because of your promise

Because of your persistent pursuit

Because of your limitless grace

Because You always know where to find me

And, because You always know how to get me

Here.

Choosing

Wanting to choose

Surrendering

Wanting to surrender

Falling

Wanting to fall

Into the everlasting arms

That bore the cross for me

And bear me and my burdens now

Today, I chose you

Because You chose me

And, because You keep coming for me

When I choose

something "more"

something else

something ...not you

Today, I chose You.

My Saturday Night

Some single ladies hit the bars or go out with friends. Some curl up with a good movie or do a little pampering. Some, so I hear, even have something called a "date". Me? I do this...

"A dream is a wish your heart makes..."

I dream. A lot. Most of them are silly and strange and quickly forgotten. Some of them, though, have a way of sticking with me. A few nights ago, I dreamed (dreamed? dreamt?) that my nieces disappeared and I couldn't find them. That one was hard to shake. One time, I gave birth in a dream. Waking up with no baby was rough. Last night, my dream took place in a bus station. I was there with two friends. Two guy friends. They were meeting two other girls...and I was along for the ride for some reason. The girls arrived. They looked like members of a punk-themed roller derby team. They sorta tumbled off of the bus and fell into the arms of my friends. One was very happy with the arms in which she landed. The other, well, she was not. She was kinda mean. My friend, his name was Peter, tried to be kind and help her with the big trunks clunking behind her, but she would have no part of it. I felt bad for Peter. Once we all got on the next bus to head home, she opened one of the trunks and dumped the contents, numerous masks and helmets, out the window on to the people below. Peter sat with me because his roller derby gal didn't want him. I tried to distract him from the rejection by pointing out interesting landmarks along the way. Then, I realized that I loved Peter...that I wanted to be the roller derby gal he wanted. Well, minus the roller derby. I could feel my face reddening and now tried to distract myself from all the squirmy, tingly emotions going on inside me. I pointed out some oddly placed catholic relics to Peter, we were both amused. I made a joke. We both laughed. Then, he kissed me awkwardly on the cheek. We looked at each other and laughed. Our laughs turned to understanding smiles. My face got redder. My insides squirmier. He leaned in to do it right this time...and then...

I woke up.

Of Unicorns and Tigers...

Once upon a time, when I was in the 6th grade, I went through a unicorn phase. I hearted them. I wanted anything that had a unicorn on them. Luckily for me, there was also a fad going around with these little duffle bag looking purses, which also had a matching tiny duffle bag coin purse...and they had unicorns on them. They were like THE thing to have. If you didn't have a unicorn purse... you were a loser. And no one, I repeat, no one wants to be a loser. Least of all, or rather...especially me.

So I begged, borrowed, and bartered my way to a maroon unicorn purse and I went to the K&B, a local drug store, and bought a silver metalic marker and I emblazoned my name upon said unicorn purse in a beautiful script with a squiggly flourish beneath so that no one would even try to take my unicorn purse and pass it off as their own.

Shortly afterwards, I was riding the bus to school, cradling my unicorn purse in my lap, basking in the glow of its glory, minding my own business when an older girl (who also lived next door to me and was somewhat of a bully, especially to me and mine because her dad was a small angry man who hated our family for some reason) walked by and noticed my purse. More to the point, she noticed the carefully scripted autograph on my bag. Only, because it was sorta dark in the bus, and because she was partially illiterate and because she hated me, instead of seeing my name in beautiful script with a pretty flourish beneath, she saw the name of the boy she was currently crushing on and had, as recently as the previous weekend, made out with (so she said). His name was "Tiger".

In her illiteracy, hatred and impaired vision due to darkness, she charged at me and began hurling accusations and questions and insults. Nervously, I tried to explain what was really written on my bag, and internally questioned whether I really did like Tiger and through some wonder of subliminal, psychological effort actually meant to write "Tiger" on my bag. Despite my internal questioning, the bully soon believed my 'story' and left me be.

All that to say, up until about two years ago, any time my mom would see something with a unicorn on it, she'd buy it for me, even though my unicorn phase ended shortly after the Tiger incident. The last unicorn related purchase was a small cedar box with a well-shellacked top featuring a unicorn, of course, being tamed by a wizard. Classy.

p.s. tiger, his wife and children, now go to church with me. and the bully...she lives in a trailer with a few kids and one of her baby-daddys.

the end.

7 years later...

This face still gets to me. I saw it first in a dimly lit hospital room and I was transfixed. Emotions, levels of love I'd never known before flooded me and I was done for. Now, all these years later, though she's bigger...and sassier...sometimes, when I look at her face, I'm in that hospital room again. My heart is slain, again. I see those wide, inquisitive, tender eyes, those delicate lashes, that nose I would caress with my chin as I sang "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". And. I'm. Just. Done.

I think, no matter how old she gets...or how sassy...at the end of the day, it will always come to that. She will always be that sweet girl, that amazing, tiny, sweet, wide-eyed girl staring back at me from her incubator, slaying my heart.

At least I hope so.

I sure do hope so. I hope that there will never come a day when I will look at her face and fail to be be struck by what an incredible gift she is in my life...what a miraculous, amazing, sweet and sassy gift. I hope there will never be a day when I don't want to hold her, caress her nose and sing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"...

and maybe kiss these.

Un-Giving Up.

Mornings. They used to be my prime time. I'd wake well before the sun, "rarin' to go", as they say. I woke, really awake and not at all zombie-like. I didn't hit the snooze button. The morning was here and I was glad. Mornings were my comfort time, the sweet spot of my day. I loved the look of my living room in the pre-dawn hours, illuminated by a lone lamp with small beaded fringe. I loved the smell of coffee (light and sweet) filling the house. I loved the feel of the little love seat I snuggled into, digging my feet between the cushions for warmth and coziness. And, most of all, more than the little lamp and the cozy love seat, even more than the coffee, I loved what came next.

After I got settled, I laid a pillow across my lap, placed my journal on one side and my bible on the other and read and journaled and prayed and read and journaled and prayed until the sun was up and it was time to get ready for work.

From this vantage point, those mornings seem like a crackly, black and white movie...recorded on VHS.

I'm not sure how, or specifically when, but those mornings were slowly picked apart and destroyed by TV at night and hitting the snooze button...and then, eventually, hitting the "giving up" button. And, since then, it seems, the fruit borne of those mornings is slowly rotting away, too.

But God...

A few cold and hazy mornings ago, I managed to get up without snoozing. I managed to read a tiny bit. I managed to get out of the door early enough to not be 3 minutes late to work. And, as I drove, I listened...to my thoughts, to the sounds of the road and to the music coming from my iPod. Just before I got to work, this came through the speakers and filled my heart with something I've known only rarely since those mornings of old ceased to be. What I heard was:

"Hope...is coming for me."*

In that moment, it was as if God blew on the faint embers smoldering in my heart and then, there was a flame again.

"Hope...is coming for me."

It was like I could see "Hope" running after me, searching for me, determined to find me. Desperate, even. "Hope" is coming for me...not to devour, or destroy, or disappoint, but to fill me and my life to overflowing with the things I truly need. Hope is coming to fan that flame to a blaze, consuming fear and doubt and disillusionment. Hope is coming to give me joy.

So, today, I'm hitting the "un-giving up" button...and waiting, because "Hope...IS coming for me... He's coming for me."

*this is the song, if you would like to hear it. :)