my scribbles

Friday, July 28, 2006

through my Father's eyes

sometimes she catches me off guard.

sometimes i can't take my eyes off of her.

my grandma took these pics last friday night when jaeda stayed the night at her house for the first time. i gasped when i first saw them. she is beautiful. and i don't even care if she gets a big head for her ol' mom telling her that too much. i think a little girl of any age cannot be told enough!i've never heard of a girl having too much self esteem!

these still shots of my little living epistle took my breath away. and eric can laugh all he wants at how darn long it takes me to look--no examine--one picture, because i don't even care!!! i couldn't help but look at these frozen moments again and again and again and again...each time seeing a new--gorgeous and overlooked--way, that my girl is made like no other. each time savoring the treasure of a person that has been given to me to love.

despite the fact that today was a rough "listening day", despite the fact that she is bossy and messy and soooo four years old, there is nothing more beautiful to me than her big blue eyes...oh, and when she smiles!!! her many four year old faults don't even come into my head when i see her face.

if my love for j is supposed to be a picture of my Father's love for me than i can't help but wonder how many times He pours over my image in a day. if i could only see the way He loves me...the beauty that He sees every time He looks at me...maybe i could hold my head up higher and live a life of praise instead of walking through life with my head hanging--like my every move is an apology for being "me".

if i could only see me the way that He sees me. it would change everything...
maybe i could finally trust Him enough to fully love Him back...
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Friday, July 21, 2006

uncommon days

"there is no such thing as a common day. every day has something about it that no other day has. haven't you noticed?"
--Anne (with an e) Shirley-Blythe

this summer has been full of kid days, pool days and silly days. every morning i wake up with the feeling that Anything can show up today. and sure enough, once we've had breakfast, Anything usually knockes on the door. presenting himself in "un-birthday days" and "fingerpaint each other days" and "lemonade stand at the pool days" and even "rainy barbie days".

what a summer it's been! jaeda wakes up everyday and says, "what day is today, momma?"

good question for all of us to ask ourselves each morning.

what day is today?

do you know what today is? your choice. and tomorrow? the same. and the next...

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Wednesday, July 12, 2006

falling up




Falling up by shel silverstein

i tripped on my shoelace

and i fell up
up to the rooftops
up over the town
up past the treetops
up where the colors
blend into the sounds
but it got me so dizzy
when i looked around
that i got sick to my stomach
and i threw down

i found this silly poem by one of jaeda and my favorite authors and i laughed! it kinda reminded me of the sensation that i am feeling in life right now. falling up is an amazing thing to think about--all poetical in a world of prose. but scary and shocking if it really happened. i think i would probably get sick and "throw down" too:) but it reminds me of the things that i ask God for. a more God centered life, a Godly husband, strength, love...it all sounds so pretty and poetical...but when God actually starts to answer these prayers in His way (trials) instead of my way (poofs) it impedes upon my comfort zone and i just want it all to go away. and all that i long for is the "norm". . . the non-poetical, "prosy, norm.

in the midst of all my falling up--a
sober kind of happiness is settling over my soul. it is always in the midst of great loss and change that i find great gain. funny, that's what He's always promised ...

i have never felt more alive. i have never felt more comfortable in my own skin. i have never felt so small--yet so loved. there is a freedom i've discovered in this place of loss that has given me the overwhelming sense of being found. it's so contradictory, it's so opposite of everything i've ever known...it seems as foreign to me as if things just began to fall up instead of down.

If your first concern is to look after yourself, you'll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you'll find both yourself and me.
matt 10:39

i feel like he has slowly turned my world upside down, and in all the craziness and flailing around for something to hold onto i have for the first time clung to him and found myself.

amazing.

simply amazing.

Friday, July 07, 2006

friends

slowly learning how to
"love the friend more than the friendship"
.
although this phrase used to make me shrug my shoulders a bit-- it's now making more and more sense. as i struggle to love my friends without valueing their relationships more than God and i's--i keep coming back to this puzzling statment. i have found things to be so different in attempting to make this phrase true in my life. in the light of this advice, passive words and actions can be no more. if i truely love my friends more than i love their friendship there is so much honesty that i've been cheating them out of. so many nudges back in the direction of our Father that i've been choosing to forgo.

authenticity is a dangerous thing. dangerous or not, there is no one i would rather be authentic with than these friends in my small group that i have grown to love as brothers and sisters but... honest words seem to die on my tongue in the face of hurt feelings or chaotic reactions. i know this is how Jesus loved His friends--and i am supposed to aspire to be like Him--but i am not Him and it is so hard to know...just so hard to know how to love someone else with no thought of self. just so hard to jump into things in this fashion. so dangerous.

walking in the ever present danger of this calling to love others more than myself is an anxious place for me right now. i am walking there--only out of sheer obedience. but i have yet to grasp the trust peice in this process. kinda like "i'll do it because you said so but...i don't know what's going to happen..." as if the God of the universe doesn't already have it covered. . .

loving God and loving others--more than myself. guess that's what it all comes back to.

looks easy--lives hard.

Monday, July 03, 2006

what a beautiful mess i'm in



well it feels as if i've lost it all. just like He tells me to. when do i get to start the finding part of this process???

last weekend God has shook the ground that i am so accustom to walking on and created a beautiful mess of a life for me to live. a mess that takes friends, community and eric off the pedestal and leaves room only for Him. oh but He is a jealous God!!! oh but His lessons are not easy to learn! but oh how He must love to have me right where i am...grasping, clawing at something to hold onto--something to sustain me when everything has already given away under the weight of life.

when i stand back and look at the chaos He has created, it is amazing and breathtaking how everything fell right into place and i am so ignorantly self centered to think that there is something that i could have done to stop it. He knew what i would do and why i would do it. He knew that i needed to take a closer look at this particular ugly shortcoming of mine. He knew just the time to do it and prepared in each heart the way to make it happen for His glory.

in this beautiful mess of His there is rhyme and reason. there is a whole bunch of lives that all met at one tumultuious crossroads and there was one unforgettable crash that we all survived and sustained much damage--that only our Creator can fix.

pride goes before a fall. as roy says, 'you can't fill a glass that's already full.' i couldn't describe it any better than that. we were all pretty full. pretty happy. pretty okay without trusting God for our next step. we all thought that we had it under control. oh how He emptied us out that night. but oh the beauty in beholding how perfectly all the stories came together to be touched so differently by the same night.

He is amazing that He can create artistry in calamity. beauty in chaos. what an author! what a God! what a crossroads! what a life...

all that aside. what do i do now?