Find a Voice...

All creatures of our God and King
Lift up your voice and with us sing,
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Thou burning sun with golden beam,
Thou silver moon with softer gleam!
O praise him! O praise Him!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

Thou rushing wind that art so strong
Ye clouds that sail in Heaven along,
O praise Him! Alleluia!
Thou rising moon, in praise rejoice,
Ye lights of evening, find a voice!
O praise Him! O praise Him!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

...

Creation... Carriers of beauty... Bearers of the image of majesty... Go ahead...

Speak.

Tell the story that we have forgotten.

Speak.

Remind us of the Hands, the brushstrokes of Eternity that gave you your shape, your color, your light. Trace the image of Eternity in the eyes of those drowning in the stale weight of now.

Awaken in weary hearts the love of beauty and the hope for truth. Remind us that we live in a place still infused with the magic spark of heaven. A place shaped by the Everlasting God. A place that bears the beauty of His heart.

As we gaze up at last in childlike wonder, come right along and fulfill your purpose.

Measure the days. Indicate the changing of the moments.

Remind our hearts that we did not just happen, that we were knit together by skilled Hands. That the very Breath of eternity quickens who we are. That we are our Father's children. And that Him in us never fades.

Remind us that we were made... Made by the same God who made you.

In all your breathtaking beauty, speak.

And tell us to look up. To turn our eyes heavenward and remember that our Father is never absent from even the smallest moment. The He lives. That we live.

And that though you and all the heavens should grow old like a garment and though He should change you like a cloak, He stands forever and His years will have no end.

Listen.

The heavens are speaking. Hearts of men, hear the wisdom of the ages.

Hear them as they whisper: He is God Forever. God before we began. God long to outlive our simple light. He is the Everlasting One. He is the Eternal Beauty, Unfading.

Men of earth, incline your ears, life up the eyes of your hearts.

And Ye lights of evening, find a voice. Oh praise Him!

Psalm 102:25-27

Alleluia!

To The Place Where I Am Known...

Take me to the place where I am known.
I want to go where I am no mystery.
I want to be free of all that is false,
And be clothed instead with simplicity.

Take me to the place where I am known,
Where the patches fall and the makeup runs.
I want to be where I cannot impress.
I want to feel whole when completely undone.

Take me to the place where I am known
Where there is no fear, no urge to hide.
It is the place I most look like Him,
Where both our arms are open wide.

Take me to the place where I am known
And there may I be ever found.
The only place where I belong
Is the place where only He's renowned.

Take me to the place where I am known.
One thing I ask; just this I seek.
Take me to the place where I am known,
And a knower of Him is all I must be.

Time to Be...

Sitting by the window and soaking up the Sunday sun, it's a beautiful moment to be.

Perhaps I am the only one who is still whisked away into foreign lands by the simple turning of a page. Perhaps I am the only one who can find fulfillment in something so simple as a pen and a few blank sheets of paper. Perhaps I am the only one who feels quite entirely beautiful in a pair of pajamas, with bare feet, curled up on the floor.

But I doubt it.

I think that we have all been there and I think we all know the secret: that sweet simplicity tends to bring out the best version of ourselves.

When all the hustle stops and there's a break from all the running; when there's a moment of quiet, a moment to rest and be still; I find myself so much closer to the person I want to be.

Now, to be clear, I'm not talking about the person I want to be in the sense of the woman I see through ambition's eyes. I'm referring to the person I want to be in the sense that who I am when I am still is the person I enjoy being.

When I am allowed to be still and my heart finds some calm, I find myself more like... well, myself. When there is no competition to face and no expectations to meet, I can suddenly find myself laying on the carpet in my room, legs flat against the wall staring up at the ceiling until my feet are hopelessly asleep. Or I can find myself concocting some odd creation in the kitchen with the very glamorous foundation of an Eggo waffle. Or sneaking out in the yard in the middle of the night to sit on the concrete and stare up at the sky.

And somehow, in these silly, simple, sweet little moments that will never be spoken of as any defining greatness in my existence, I find my soul set free. When there is time just to be, and I'm able to shake off some of the monotony that rests like a fine dust on this thing they call adulthood, the oddest thing happens...

Today I celebrate how, in some of the smallest and most unimpressive moments I know, I find myself at the most satisfied with my existence.

So cheers to Sunday afternoon and midnight breakfasts and finding shapes in the stucco on the ceiling. Cheers to pajamas and loose hair and bare feet.

Here's to a moment to stop all the doing and instead to that most beautiful blessing: time to be.

LeChaim.

Why worry?

Driving home today was a moment of perfection.

Little one was in the passenger seat, hiding windswept under her coat and looking quite a lot like Cousin It.

We both had our big sunglasses on that make us look like glamorous starlets incognito out among the people (or like overgrown grasshoppers, depending on which opinion you consult).

The windows were down and brown curls were blowing everywhere.

Golden sunlight and fresh driving-over-the-water wind was streaming in.

The sky and the water were all aglow with the deep honey rays of the just dying day.

It was one of those moments that forms the seams in the fabric of my heart. Those recurring sweet dreams that knit together all the other pieces like a golden thread that frames even the unbearable in beauty.

And as we drove, Carrie Underwood sang a song that has caught my wondering lately. "Temporary Home." Used to describe alternately a foster home, a halfway house and finally all of life as we know it. "Windows and rooms, that I'm passing through."

It's interesting. It's sweet and soothing. There's peace in remembering that this is not all there is. That there is some other destination; a reality behind the longing that whispers in our souls.

And as we drove, we rode in silence and I smiled gently as I turned the wheel, changing lanes to continue our perfect journey unhindered by slow movers.

And then we almost crashed.

...

"Almost" here is a very subjective phrase. As I slanted into the lane to my right, the car in the lane beyond seemed just a little too close. A second glance found him (a middle aged man with brown hair and a startled but not unkind face) in the middle of the lane into which I was slowly moving. An easy turn of the wheel in the other direction moved us safely away with hardly a jolt. We never came closer than four or five feet.

Still, it was an interruption to the serenity; to our smooth, sunlit passage home.

And yet, contrary to all other such "almosts," my heart didn't skip a beat. And, at that precise moment, as we glided back into our lane and Carrie continued to sing, I heard God whisper something so simple and more distinctly than I've heard Him in a long time...

"Why worry?"

I don't know that I can even contain in words what it did for my heart to hear those words in my Father's voice. It was as though the entire situation were hand painted by the Lord; just a scene for Him to speak so clearly exactly what I needed to know. I am overcome with gratitude.

One thing I know of my God: He is mighty to save. His eye is yet on the sparrow and I know He watches me. He guards me and is far greater than any trial or fear I've ever known. If the worst I can imagine were to come to be, the cross has already conquered it.

And though the world shattered around me... Though every thing of beauty and strength that has ever brought me comfort were to melt before my eyes... If everything really did fade to black...

Yet the Lord would be seated on the throne. And yet the end of days would find me on another sunlit passage home; full speed into the arms of He who has loved me ever.

"This is my temporary home, it's not where I belong.
Windows and rooms that I'm passing through.
This is just a stop on the way to where I'm going;
And I'm not afraid because I know
This is my temporary home."

Love Himself is our eternal end. Why should we fear?

And if forever finds me with Him, why worry about the simple signposts that lead me there?

Sunglasses on. Radio playing sweet songs. Windows down and wind blowing. Let the sunlight pour in. Let the miles fly by. Let's melt into the highways and the golden rays that warm our souls.

Let's fly fearless.

After all, why worry?

I'd rather hurt...

As of late, me and the other ladies in my office have been singing (and swooning over!) "I Need You Now" by Lady Antebellum. It captures the aching and the longing women are so susceptible to in romance. There's something truly hot about it.

Aside from the fact that I just love the song, there's one particular line that has captured my attention lately. At one point the music cuts out and the lovers sing to each other:

"I'd rather hurt than feel nothing at all."

It's an interesting assertion. Definitely counter-intuitive. But there's something about it that rings true.

In his book Behind the Glittering Mask, the former president of Southeastern, Dr. Mark Rutland (one of my personal heroes!), takes on the seven deadly sins in the format of a debate between Michael and Lucifer. As they take on the subject of sloth, the content of Michael's rebuttal is enlightening.

He asserts that the reason that the apathy and even refusal to be moved to fervor that are characteristic of the slothful are counted such a sin is because they are so contrary to the nature of God. He describes God as pure being of ardent passion. When He is delighted all of heaven tremors from the sheer weight of His divine joy. When His wrath is unleashed the mountains melt like wax. He is the antonym of apathy; there is nothing about Him that lends to disengagement. He is Love. He cannot but care. Mere mortals cannot conceive of the absolute passion that is the heart of God. (Paraphrasing here.)

So perhaps the reason that we are so aghast by a person who blithely refuses to engage in the proper manner... a person impervious to passion, unyielding to wonder... is that a refusal to stand in awe, a refusal to care, a refusal to act when action is justly called for are so contradictory to the nature of God: passion in action. The Love that leads to the cross; it's who He is. And sloth is a contradiction.

So perhaps there's something of the image of God in us that speaks through a line like: "I'd rather hurt than feel nothing at all." Or perhaps one like: "It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." Perhaps there's something closer to the heart of God in preferring pain over apathy. Perhaps it's one of the ways that we look like Him.

I'm beginning to understand something like cutting oneself because it's the only thing that provides an escape from perpetual numbness as perhaps a perversion of this aspect of God's image in us.

We are made in the image of a God of passion and action. And there's something truer to who we are in His image about embracing the aching than refusing to feel.

God weeps. He rages. He loves. He redeems. But He never sits enthroned in apathy refusing to be moved by the love or scorn of His beloved.

There is something nigh unholy about the beloved, being made in His image, in exact opposition, refusing to engage, sinking into a state of unnatural anesthetized emotional coma.

To bring it down to earth: there are many painful situations that have arisen in my life lately. And a part of me wants to escape to a hammock in Mexico. And I am not altogether decided against that inner whisper... But calling me back from the salty breeze that promises peace in the back of my mind is one silly lyric: "I'd rather hurt than feel nothing at all."

Though it seems an easy escape from the pain I cannot check out. I cannot cease to care. God in me is moved. God in me cares. And I cannot pretend to freeze impenetrable to the world around me. In the end, it's better to hurt than to cease to feel. I am, after all, my Father's daughter.

It's just Monopoly money...

"Replace fear of the coming winter with faith in the living God. After all, it's just monopoly money. It all goes back in the box."
- Max Lucado

He moved my soul to seek Him...

"I sought the Lord and afterward I knew
He moved my soul to seek Him, seeking me;
It was not that I found, O Savior true,
No, I was found, was found of Thee.

Thou didst reach forth Thy hand and mine enfold;
I walked and sank not on the storm-vexed sea;
'twas not so much that I on Thee took hold
as Thou, dear Lord, on me.

I find, I walk, I love, but oh, the whole
of love is but my answer, Lord, to Thee;
For Thou wert long beforehand with my soul,
Always, always Thou lovedst me."
- Anonymous hymn