I just want you to know now that I am not afraid. I hear of the bombings and the disease and the guns and the mess and your sincere “Be safe” whispered to me as I ramble on about dirty children and full-funding. And I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but I won’t be safe. I hear myself say that and I’ve yet to flinch and it surprises me, I know I’m not that brave. The only explanation I can settle on is that this is what I was made for. I’ve known for a long time that I wasn’t made for a comfortable life and I’ve always wanted so much deeper that what this world can give me. I’m never satisfied with the white picket fence theology so widely accepted. Safe has never really been a long term goal of mine.
And I know how hard this will be for you to understand and you will wonder how I could “risk it all” for a place I’ve never known. But the thing is I do know it, as sure as my heart is beating right now, I know it. And I have no fear about following my heart in this direction. You know, I don’t sit here and wonder about my next breath, and maybe I should, but without wondering and fearing, love, it came. Life was not meant to be lived on a ventilator for fear my lungs would give-way. God built me with this passion and by His grace, He’s letting me live it out and you can bet that if I had to give up all my comfort: reading books in my favorite chair and fancy dates and a warm bed, my little safe ventilator bubble. If I had to give it all up to be in that passion for but a moment, I wouldn’t think twice.
C.S. Lewis says, “If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.” And, friends, until I am in that world I am going to take each of these breaths and urgently love all that I can. And I’m going to go to Africa. And if my bus gets bombed, I’m going to love that man with my last breath because I don’t know how to live any differently anymore.
A beautiful woman, Jane Austen, who speaks my heart sometimes, once said, "I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature”. – I am going to love them. And if it takes all of me: figuratively, emotionally, literally. Ok.
It is well with my soul.
And to you, I will love you too, with every bit of me that flies across that ocean I will love you. But, I will always love Jesus more. And when He says “go”, I will move. And if that means losing you, I won’t be sorry. Being alive is grand, and with every moment of breath I will love you, but I will recklessly follow Him if it ruins me. And if He is what ruins me, what a beautiful ruin I will be.
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
Monday, November 24, 2014
Numbers
Thirty Two. Seven. One hundred and ahem.
Numbers. Not definitions.
Walking through surround by racks and sizes telling me I must reach past to the hidden places to find where I fit. Not quite a plus but somewhere between, awkwardly falling amongst frumpy and skin tight. Feeling betrayed by something as much of me as something can be. Not my shape, we don’t make that size, maybe something looser. Maybe something different. Maybe try somewhere else. Like the “in” isn’t interested to carry what I could carry on my exterior to define what people see before they speak with me.
They are numbers.
Numbers on pieces of metal you are pushed onto before you can stand. To the times in front of your gym class learning about being “in” shape but maybe our shapes are different and I was taught in kindergarten that round pegs don’t fit in square holes - so, oh educated professional standing in front of me, tell me did you miss that lesson - that you are trying to push me in one now. To the scrub wearers shaking their head and calculating numbers in their minds while they exclaim that you don’t look like your number, but that’s what I've been trying to say.
I’m not a number.
Kiosk standers lining you up telling you all the things you aren’t enough at. All the things you’re too much at. Take our pill. Fix your hair. Give your hand. Lend your ear. Like my body is the local buffet for you to pick and choose what you like and what you want to reorder to make it better. This is not a binder, my pages can’t be ripped out and rearranged like you please. I am bound. Bound with leather and marked and let me tell you now, in order to not disappoint, that I don’t have an index or page numbers for you to flick around because as I said before this is an all-or-nothing deal.
You can’t choose my numbers. You can’t make me numbers.
I am beautiful and, yes, full and sometimes empty from the way you make me feel by telling me I’m not enough to play this part or run this race or be in time with the things that are right in your eyes, but let me say that maybe you aren’t looking through the right set of glasses because I may be a round peg and something you call “full”, but maybe I’m not defined by the way my fed belly hangs over the fabric I push my thighs into. And maybe I’m more then the way parts of me jiggle when I run to his embrace. And maybe I can wear more than a yard of fabric and still be seen as desirable and maybe I don’t have to be hidden behind a crowd and maybe I shouldn’t have to shop in the shadows and maybe I am more than you have assumed. And maybe I’m more in different ways. For I am not defined by numbers. What matters to me is not the size in my jeans but the size of my heart, and not the feel of spandex holding me in but the feel of my soul letting go of prejudice and opening up and being vulnerable and loving people without sucking in the parts of me that are as much of me as anything could be. And maybe I like the way my hair falls wrong and divine body was designed.
I am not a number. I am a person.
A person who can’t be written out in binary – you’ll need a dictionary to define me.
Numbers. Not definitions.
Walking through surround by racks and sizes telling me I must reach past to the hidden places to find where I fit. Not quite a plus but somewhere between, awkwardly falling amongst frumpy and skin tight. Feeling betrayed by something as much of me as something can be. Not my shape, we don’t make that size, maybe something looser. Maybe something different. Maybe try somewhere else. Like the “in” isn’t interested to carry what I could carry on my exterior to define what people see before they speak with me.
They are numbers.
Numbers on pieces of metal you are pushed onto before you can stand. To the times in front of your gym class learning about being “in” shape but maybe our shapes are different and I was taught in kindergarten that round pegs don’t fit in square holes - so, oh educated professional standing in front of me, tell me did you miss that lesson - that you are trying to push me in one now. To the scrub wearers shaking their head and calculating numbers in their minds while they exclaim that you don’t look like your number, but that’s what I've been trying to say.
I’m not a number.
Kiosk standers lining you up telling you all the things you aren’t enough at. All the things you’re too much at. Take our pill. Fix your hair. Give your hand. Lend your ear. Like my body is the local buffet for you to pick and choose what you like and what you want to reorder to make it better. This is not a binder, my pages can’t be ripped out and rearranged like you please. I am bound. Bound with leather and marked and let me tell you now, in order to not disappoint, that I don’t have an index or page numbers for you to flick around because as I said before this is an all-or-nothing deal.
You can’t choose my numbers. You can’t make me numbers.
I am beautiful and, yes, full and sometimes empty from the way you make me feel by telling me I’m not enough to play this part or run this race or be in time with the things that are right in your eyes, but let me say that maybe you aren’t looking through the right set of glasses because I may be a round peg and something you call “full”, but maybe I’m not defined by the way my fed belly hangs over the fabric I push my thighs into. And maybe I’m more then the way parts of me jiggle when I run to his embrace. And maybe I can wear more than a yard of fabric and still be seen as desirable and maybe I don’t have to be hidden behind a crowd and maybe I shouldn’t have to shop in the shadows and maybe I am more than you have assumed. And maybe I’m more in different ways. For I am not defined by numbers. What matters to me is not the size in my jeans but the size of my heart, and not the feel of spandex holding me in but the feel of my soul letting go of prejudice and opening up and being vulnerable and loving people without sucking in the parts of me that are as much of me as anything could be. And maybe I like the way my hair falls wrong and divine body was designed.
I am not a number. I am a person.
A person who can’t be written out in binary – you’ll need a dictionary to define me.
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Morning Song
In the morning when I rise
and it feels the sun just barely set
my body clinging to my pillows
my mind screaming, "no, not yet".
Give me strength to face the faces
the long hours, the cold rain,
let Your heart be on my tongue
let my feet follow Your way.
and it feels the sun just barely set
my body clinging to my pillows
my mind screaming, "no, not yet".
Give me strength to face the faces
the long hours, the cold rain,
let Your heart be on my tongue
let my feet follow Your way.
Thursday, November 13, 2014
He is taken by you
He is taken by you.
The sleep left in your eyes when you wake up.
The way your socks are half on and your blankets are knotted up and how you never make your bed.
The way you dance in the mornings and lose yourself sometimes in the music.
He adores that.
When you look up at the clock and your grab your shoes and race out the door with the wrong set of keys.
When you forget about breakfast and shamelessly stop at the bagel shop (maybe even doughnuts today).
The smiles you offer strangers at stoplights.
He can't get enough.
The melodies you drum out on your steering wheel with your shoes in the passenger seat, He knows how you love driving barefoot.
How sometimes you prefer tacos from that truck to anything you could make.
How you curl up with that same book even though you brought home three new ones yesterday.
He loves the mismatched socks
and the empty bottles of sunkist .
He loves the heels you keep buying with no intention of wearing.
He loves that you brave the cold to see the stars.
How you write Him love letters,
How sometimes you don't have the energy to write them, so you just pray them.
He loves your last thoughts,
and the smile you fall asleep with.
And on those days when your pillows are salty and you crawl into bed before dinner.
He loves that too.
He loves being your comforter and ears to listen.
He loves to watch you sleep, and send you dreams of peace and grace and wildflower fields.
He loves to think about you and the things about you He would never change,
And just in case you forget, He wouldn't change a thing.
He loves that He made you and all the little quarks, and weird passions, and sleep in your eyes.
He is taken by you.
His breath.
His heart.
His life.
all for you.
The sleep left in your eyes when you wake up.
The way your socks are half on and your blankets are knotted up and how you never make your bed.
The way you dance in the mornings and lose yourself sometimes in the music.
He adores that.
When you look up at the clock and your grab your shoes and race out the door with the wrong set of keys.
When you forget about breakfast and shamelessly stop at the bagel shop (maybe even doughnuts today).
The smiles you offer strangers at stoplights.
He can't get enough.
The melodies you drum out on your steering wheel with your shoes in the passenger seat, He knows how you love driving barefoot.
How sometimes you prefer tacos from that truck to anything you could make.
How you curl up with that same book even though you brought home three new ones yesterday.
He loves the mismatched socks
and the empty bottles of sunkist .
He loves the heels you keep buying with no intention of wearing.
He loves that you brave the cold to see the stars.
How you write Him love letters,
How sometimes you don't have the energy to write them, so you just pray them.
He loves your last thoughts,
and the smile you fall asleep with.
And on those days when your pillows are salty and you crawl into bed before dinner.
He loves that too.
He loves being your comforter and ears to listen.
He loves to watch you sleep, and send you dreams of peace and grace and wildflower fields.
He loves to think about you and the things about you He would never change,
And just in case you forget, He wouldn't change a thing.
He loves that He made you and all the little quarks, and weird passions, and sleep in your eyes.
He is taken by you.
His breath.
His heart.
His life.
all for you.
Today
Today I gave myself permission to cry.
I think you broke my heart a little. Don't worry though, I don't blame you.
You see, you don't know a whole lot about me - which is probably good now. But let me show you a little...
You see, I've had my heart broken quite a few times. I fall hard, so hard. I have this sometimes curse - mostly blessing where I see the best in people, I see potential with clearer eyes than I see messes. So I let my walls down and am vulnerable and get doors slammed in my face and forgotten phone calls and apathetic excuses. And let me tell you, you have so much potential. You're sweet and funny and genuine and hold all the doors and walk just close enough and you smile like nothing else matters. And I totally fell for it. And I promise this isn't all about you because even if you told me otherwise I choose to believe that night as genuine.
You see, I'm just so used to expectations. Coffee means a kiss and dinner has higher stakes, like some twisted trade exchange that you didn't seem to know the rules to, and I liked that.
You see, I'm tired of letting people break me. And I swore to my walls that I would not prematurely let them down again in a battlefield - I'm not sure how much more this heart can take.
So this morning when I realized I'd done it again... I let myself cry.
It didn't heal me any more than you broke me. But I felt it.
And sometimes when you're broken you just need to remember how to feel.
I think you broke my heart a little. Don't worry though, I don't blame you.
You see, you don't know a whole lot about me - which is probably good now. But let me show you a little...
You see, I've had my heart broken quite a few times. I fall hard, so hard. I have this sometimes curse - mostly blessing where I see the best in people, I see potential with clearer eyes than I see messes. So I let my walls down and am vulnerable and get doors slammed in my face and forgotten phone calls and apathetic excuses. And let me tell you, you have so much potential. You're sweet and funny and genuine and hold all the doors and walk just close enough and you smile like nothing else matters. And I totally fell for it. And I promise this isn't all about you because even if you told me otherwise I choose to believe that night as genuine.
You see, I'm just so used to expectations. Coffee means a kiss and dinner has higher stakes, like some twisted trade exchange that you didn't seem to know the rules to, and I liked that.
You see, I'm tired of letting people break me. And I swore to my walls that I would not prematurely let them down again in a battlefield - I'm not sure how much more this heart can take.
So this morning when I realized I'd done it again... I let myself cry.
It didn't heal me any more than you broke me. But I felt it.
And sometimes when you're broken you just need to remember how to feel.
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