In A Field

She sings softly confident in worship and her words cut to the quick.  Penetrating bone and marrow, into the deep.  God's very breath calling into the hidden of me, prompting me to step out of this place and into His light. I'm too easily contented.  Happier to be safe and comfortable than teetering on the unknown; heart racing, eyes wide and expectant.  I hear You call.  I sense it in the recesses of my soul that are covered and grown over with thick vine and weeds.  I do long for You to break me free of them and yet there is this stubborn part of me that will not surrender to the rearranging, life-giving, hurt-encompassing, death-releasing grace and love You offer.  I am lulled by my own state, unsure, uncertain, hesitant, blindly believing safety equals happiness. And still You call, gentle and kind.  Not like I've been told, not the god of my childhood, You're so much more than that frightening, demanding, "no-god". You, patient as...

A beautiful thing happens behind the walls of 87 Church Avenue every second Monday. Smiling, giggling girls play with hula hoops, soccer balls fly through the air, adults sit around a table eating popcorn, drinking sugar-laden tea and laughing as another tells us Namaste  is the Nepali word for "Happy Birthday". Communication is not always smooth, stories take longer to tell and strange looks on puzzled faces are the norm. There is always laughter.  Most nights there is homework being done, stories told, games played and English language instruction.  We are from all over the world.  We all come for refuge, finding it with each other in this church building. We are a mishmash of community, a mosaic of different language, skin colour, faith, and tradition.  The things we hold in common create more unity than those things that would separate us. We are family and this building our kitchen table. Recently we have had the chance to see so much more happ...

I wonder if you remember me. I've been present in every instance of your life.  I was with you when you took your first breath; your eyes bright, your life spread out before you. I delight in you.  I love seeing your face, hearing your voice, watching you grow.  I know every little thing about you.  What takes your breath away, what makes you angry, what you're really afraid of and how many times you've given up only to begin again.  There is no mystery in you that I cannot solve. You have a knack for going from one thing to the next, waiting for your life to start.  You want desperately to truly live and you seek so much of who you are in places where you'll never find it. Those places leave you with a dismal contentment that comes and goes with the setting of the sun. I've cried with you in the darkest moments of your life, sat with you when you felt like you couldn't bear to take another step, when you thought you'd come to the end of you...

And he is six and he walks into the kitchen, all tousled hair, sleepy eyes, and sweetness.  And we tell him. His face is so small and dear, so tiny and he doesn't understand the depth of our words.  In that moment I am 11 and instantly have wisdom beyond my years because of that look of innocence and because I know a little more than he. And he is thirteen and he is confused, growing and lonely.  I'm driving us down the road and I'm singing a song of love for a God Who is beginning to fill in my blank and wrecked spaces.  He is dozing beside me, mumbling that I am a good singer, that he likes the song.  Yet I cannot be the arms that hold him because my own grief wells inside of me, by times, that I fear it may consume me.  He is still so small and young and yet he knows too much and has felt too much.  I feel I am his protector and I am not able to fix this.  I cannot be what he needs and there is an ache that I shouldn't know and I do and be...

We live in a fairy world where we think everything should come easily, where things stay calm, no ripples on the water, no contest we can't win, nothing we can put our hand to that doesn't turn out just right.  But this is not the truth of where we stand.  This world is hard.  Relationships are messy.  People grow old and weary or sick.  It infects each one of us.  Nothing we do can protect us from the wear of this earth.  Yet there is such beauty in this place; love and laughter, kindness and hope, joy and excitement. But I cannot have one without the other and so I dance between the two. Sometimes the steps falling into place, one emotion closely behind the other. Other times the separation of the two so vast I cannot see their connection. It's delightful and ugly in the same instance.  I carry the promise of new life in a body that daily is wearing down, the beauty of God working through the brokenness of me. All of this i...

I'm clinging to Your promise.   i won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you This can feel like walking on a beach of sharp rocks in thin sandals, every hard edge is felt underfoot.  A burden deeply rooted into who I think I am- the story I told myself to make it through.  A story full of exaggerated circumstances and victim armour I now find hard to discard.  Lies caught up in a reflex of survival, but that have no leg to stand on. The old life fortifications are being dismantled and I find there's a part of me that's fighting against it. Foolishly.  I've been duped by my own mind's eye.  What I always thought was the truth about myself was a pale shadow of the Wisdom of real, honest to goodness Truth. you'll learn to live freely and lightly About so much more than physical hunger, I am learning how to cope without reaching for a tangible, home-cooked, sugary something.  I'm learning to sit in my own discomfort, insecurit...

The heart of an eleven year old girl still beats in an adult.  Somewhere.  She's alone.  Lonely.  She feeds her to keep her quiet when her crying gets too loud.  Her heart is broken and she can't find her way to fix it again.  She thinks if she could just keep everyone around her happy, the pain will dull somewhat.  Truth is, she only loses more of herself when she edits her character and her opinion to keep life at an even keel for everyone else.  She is tired of holding up her world, while time marches on and the wound gets deeper.  Her heart is tender but she makes allowances for those whose ways are a little harder than hers.  She keeps quiet because it matters more how she appears than what comes from her heart and mind.  She loves even more to be helpful with a smart idea if the moment presents itself.  She'll replay the conversation over and over when she is the hero and does the same whe...