not gonna write you a love song

everything is either over done or not done at all. i don't know how to help my heart. pretty sure i'm doing it all wrong. no idea how to stop the ache. neosporin and morphine for the heart. soothe the ache and heal the wound in record time. but i can't get that over the counter. i feel i would cry for days if life allowed me the time and privacy and i feel i might let my heart grow caloused otherwise. i'm tired.

you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows

finding myself irreducibly grateful for...
the time to bake and clean
for long rides and sing-a-longs with my lovely sister
wonderfully ridiculous conversations with the Garcia-Torres extension of my family
a father who drives for hours so that i know i'm loved
a mother and aunt whose joy it is to prepare delicious mexican food for their children and spouses
people who remind me that the best things in life are indeed free
impromptu dance parties
& most of all for Love that restores my soul and gives enough grace for each moment

surely goodness and mercy follow me

this is grief
resting on grief
set on grief

the loss of one of the truest friends i have known to death
the loss of a part of my heart to a city i long to be in
and the loss of my true self to a crippling betrayal
these three, they are mountains on my chest weighing heavy and pushing all that's left of breath from my lungs. they are the shawdows that rise at the smallest pinprick of light, the tiniest sign of hope. they are the bastard children of a erroneous affair between my past and my present. their names Fear Shame and Longing and in their presence i have no hope
but in moments spent in the presence of grace i know it will come. i do not believe it, i cannot see it and most days i'm not sure i trust it. but i know it
he uttered something long ago and it resounds in my deepest parts. i hear the smallest whisper of it in the quiet moments. i feel it when he gives just enough grace for the moment
and for now its enough to keep me from going under.
thanks be to God

there's a path, and i've seen it before. and i know i've seen it many times before. And i know where it leads. i know the twists and turns and where it drops and raises. i know i don't like where it leads. but here it is again, in front of me, i've taken myself to it. there's a turn just a little ways ahead. i want to know what's around it. i've been around it many it times before, but i think maybe this time something different will be there. So i take a step in and go and look. it's the same. is another turn up ahead. i wonder what' is beyond that the same... and then the same... and then more of the same. and then i realize i've done it again. i've done the one thing i promised myself i wouldn't do. i walked down a path i had gone down before. down the twists and turns through night and day. during the day I look straight ahead but know every detail of every object beside me. it wasn't that long ago that i was walking down this path and looking at those very things. during the night I close my eyes and walk down the path in my head. it's been burned into my memory from repetition. at the end I look back and say goodbye to the path for the last time. here's the end and i know it's the end and here's a million other paths laid out before me. but I choose the one that leads back to the beginning of the old one. maybe next time I'll take the step forward instead of back.

what's lost is nothing to what's found & all that death ever was, set next to life, would scarcely fill a cup. - f. beuchner

the leaves are turning and i want, more than anything, my heart to turn with them

i need a fall wind to rush through and take all that is dying in me
i need a winter to bury me in white blankets and make me rest
i need a spring to uncover me with hope and grow new life in me.

there is a heaviness in my heart unwilling to subside. i struggle for breath and throw my lyimbs clumsily in an effort to move forward. my head is weary with dizziness and my eyes sting with the air of too many sleepless nights.

but they speak of him and my heart is overwhelmed with hope. i know now what the psalmist spoke of. the sound of his name is like fresh water to my parched mouth. it is the richest of fare to my aching belly. it is light to my eyes, strength to my bones.

you are my portion, forever

passing a pipe with my two favorite guys. crickets chirping in the dark. the low hum of cars passing in the distance. there is peace here and there is just the smallest sense of hope.

i don't understand my heart. how is it that in the same beat it can be so full and yet feel such a deep and hollow ache for something more?

i miss the innocence i used to see on my face. i'd never noticed it until he said something about it. and after that each time i look in the mirror i look for it but it's been years and now all i see is a tired and broken woman. there are lines that are beginning to show my age. my eyes are heavy and dark. my lips no longer hold a constant smile. so i pose them and focus on making my eyes look big and bright to avoid the "are you ok?" from those around me. i'm not ok. and lying (both to myself and all others) becomes increaasingly difficult. i don't know what to do to be ok anymore. i don't know how to process or grieve appropriately the things that have yet to be processed and grieved appropriately. I'm tired. i'm weak. i'm empty and spent of all good. my breath is drawn shallow from aching lungs. mostly i feel lost.

i need to be found again.

i need your breath in my lungs

i've been breathing the stale air of my own opinions and desires for too long now.
it was fine, for a moment. i needed to grieve and there was so much grieve.
for a moment, i'll allow my self that grace.
but it's been months and it's like i've been breathing in and out of a paper bag all this time and trying to make it seem normal. it's not normal. i'm putting the bag down and taking in, slow and steady, the breath of the One who restores and renews.
it's not the easiest thing but with every rise and fall of my chest i am reminded that this is what i was made for.

i kept having to remind myself today to stop thinking about my next words, about next week, about the next moment. by 5 it had become as simple as breathing.

be here, now

thy kingdom come

i keep saying that i want to "be here" fully, to take in everything that this time has to offer and give more than i consider possible. but i feel i'm failing. i forget to love. i forget to seek. i forget to listen. and some days i even forget to breathe.

so here's hoping that this confession will make me more aware of my need and that this awareness will remind me.

thy will be done

on feeling useless

"being useless and silent in the presence of our God belongs to the core of all prayer."

i keep going back to what he has promised.
keep reminding myself that anything, and everything, i put my hands to is his work
reminding myself that apart from him anything i do is futile
but this leaves me feeling useless
leaves me feeling terribly irresponsible
my fear and pride tell me i should be okay by now
they tell me i should have a job by now
tell me i should have answers to the questions
and there are so many of them

but he reminds me, constantly, that without trust and obedience i cannot claim to love him
and that without faith it is impossible to please him. he reminds me that it is only when i see myself as powerless that he can show the strength of his power. he reminds me, simply, that he has done far more with far less. and he tells me again that he will not leave me. he tells me to rest in my useless-ness, trusting that he is at work and that his work is far more beautiful than i can imagine.

i will wait and i will trust and i will see

hung out with this tiny tot last night
at this point she had made a ketchup-milk soup
i was grossed out, she thought it was delicious
we laughed, quite a bit
for whatever reason it's the small ones that make this all feel worthwhile
i'm thankful for moments filled with their innocence
i want to take life in the way they do, with awestruck wonder
to laugh when i fall and get back up without a second thought
to run at each new thing, never wondering if i'll succeed or fail,
but just going for it with everything i have

updated my "current city" to Denver while listening to Josh Garrels' "Farther Along"
it seemed fitting.

i'm still at a loss. memories of the last 5 months weave their way in and out of my thoughts. i'm waiting for it all to make just a bit more sense. i've been left with a deep ache and nothing to soothe it. but i am convinced that this is not without purpose. and i have hope that He sees and knows.

breakfast for and with a few of my most favorite persons

try it again, breathing's just a rhythm

i feel ill with longing
my body aches for wholeness
my heart, to be undivided

i am set betwixt two realities
each unlike the other
my mind grows weak with each swing of the pendulum
my soul hopes for a time or space
where the pieces of my heart that have been strewn across oceans
will come together again.
i need it soon.

on trust

We put our hope in the Lord.
He is our help and our shield.
Him our hearts rejoice,
for we trust in His holy name.

He is faithful and able
He will perfect that which concerns me
He completes
He provides

I will wait
in hope
and i will not fear

my lips shall greatly rejoice when i sing to You, and my soul which You have redeemed

27

twenty seven years ago...
i drew my first breath and then let it out in a scream
my eyes were, for the first time, flooded with light and i squeezed them tight to shut it out
i met the two persons who would be the one's to know me and love me more than anyone else
and on that day i was held for the first time in their arms

they couldn't have dreamed i'd be where i am today
but He knew
He who gave my first breath
whose gaze held me long before my existence was known to any other
whose light filled my mind before i knew or saw with my eyes
Him whose love filled my heart with song before i could utter sound
He who knows my deepest and my darkest and still gives nothing other than pure love

may the words of my mouth, the meditations of my mind
the songs of my heart, and even the simple breath of these lungs
please you and bring you honor and delight

i know i promised songs.
it was foolish
because now i'm stuck with an incessant cough
and no one wants to hear a three minutes of music
stitched throughout 10 minutes of coughing
so instead i'll offer some thoughts...

it sort of side swiped me the other day that i'm 26 years old now
it's as though i've spent the last 8 years stuck at 18
and it dawned on me that some of my fears have been completely irrational
mostly because i'm not a child and they were fears based in assumption
that i am somehow subject to some adult power
(now i understand these fears were always sort of irrational since he is on my side)
but i am the adult now, and the only thing left to fear is my own will when left to its own advances
suffice it to say i sort of finally feel like an adult now, not so much like i'm just playing "house"
woah!

some days you take in a hurried breath
let it out with painstaking slowness
and hope desperately for restoration

because its all you can do.

thoughts at six weeks...

as much as i feel so far into this experience i also feel like i've just begun.
i suppose what i feel could best be described as an awareness of the new-ness of each moment and with that the understanding that His mercies are new every morning. when i am overwhelmed by the depth of the brokenness of humanity He reminds me of this. He reminds me that He is El-Roi and Emmanuel. He sees and is with us. i don't always believe it fully but i'm learning to trust it.






p.s. new song (or 2) coming soon :)

seeking and finding

i will rise now and go about the city;
in the streets and in the squares
i will seek the one i love


i'm finding him here
so good

it's a bit amusing
faith met by doubt
doubt met by faith

i feel the length of days being stretched, pulled tight and readied. the weight of my actions lightened by the absence of proverbial gravity in this state. its a good feeling, a strange feeling, a feeling unlike any i've felt, waiting somewhere between the pull and the snap.

this is good
and strange
he is good
and, even, strange