on my paradoxical relationship with men

i adore men.

i really do.

my husband in particular.

but sometimes they drive me crazy.

to quote one of my favorite people, anne lamott, "part of me loves and respects men so desperately, and part of me thinks they are so embarrassingly incompetent at life and in love. you have to teach them the very basics of emotional literacy. you have to teach them how to be there for you, and part of me feels tender toward them and gentle, and part of me is so afraid of them, afraid of any more violation.”

he asked me to take care of him forever.

i was putting a cool cloth on his forehead, 10 years ago, and him retching a migraine into a bucket when he asked me this, and "of course, babes," i said, til death do us part.

it was so much easier to be sympathetic when we were dating.

now, he throws up and i ask him if he'll kindly clean it up, and could he please be quiet? "i'm trying to work."

why is compassion so easy when it comes to my boys, and so hard when it comes to the man who lets me stick my cold feet on him at night and makes me cheesy nachos and prays over me when i'm having a sad day?

he's been holding me extra tight lately. and me, him. we're holding onto each other like lifeboats... the world swirling around us, and this marriage, the eye of the storm.

and if i don't open my heart to him, if i don't absolutely adore and respect and feel for him what i want to represent to the world, nothing else matters.

this love-tower will crumble and our boys--all four of them, soon--will be trapped in the remains.

so i am learning, slowly, to renew my promise to take care of him, forever--to learn a tender kind of love which poets write of--and to do it with a sympathy that doesn't roll its eyes when he says he's tired (and i've been up all night nursing).

(linking with jen and laura)

we’re lovers and biters, we are (feature post from this week's link-up)

We have a biter.

My two year old, he of sky blues eyes, open-mouthed kisses and bright grins, is a biter. He bites his sister hard and my heart breaks open wide.

We don't bite. We don't hurt. We love each other.
We are gentle. We are kind. We love each other.
We listen with our ears. We help with our hands.

We. Love. Each. Other.

He's usually remorseful. Tender kisses, loving pats and baby-signed "I'm sorry"s aren't even a show. He means them, and her quick forgiveness makes my heart catch.

But he means the biting, too. Enough to draw tears and red welts.

*****

She's such a verbal processor. They scuffle over toys or paper or God-knows-what, and she prevails because she has words.

She smells weakness. If only he could argue his position satisfactorily...

When words are law, she'll always win.

(i'll always win)
(but words aren't law)

His bite is worse than his bark.
(he just wants to be heard)

We are gentle. We are kind.
We listen with our ears.

We Love Each Other.

suzannah paul lives the life bucolic at a summer camp with her young family and writes love letters to the broken, beautiful Church at so much shouting, so much laughter.

imperfect prose on thursdays: the hour of love

so we live here, but also, there, straddling earth and heaven, and dr. cicely saunders calls it "the hour of love." the eternal hour in which we skin our knees in prayer and fumble with forgiveness. all the while struggling to believe that we ourselves are loved.

and then things happen. good things.

like your husband cupping your face as though you're a flower. your son, holding your hand the whole way home from the grocery store. your aunt, calling you and telling you she wants to take the boys--the ones arriving on february 10th--every monday, all day long.

there's the smell of a supper you didn't have to make, the bouquet he gives you at the end of a day that seems to never end, and the package in the mail--the unexpected one, the one that makes you clap your hands in the careless happiness of a child.

and these moments straddle time and space, these sweet nectar moments that remind you there is a God, and God is good.

you find the strength to be the kind of person that fights each day for love, so that hatred cannot win. so that fear is forced to die, and no matter the hour, no matter the trial, you learn a peace that transcends.

knowing that you exist for more.


man is like a breath; his days are like a fleeting shadow. psalm 144:4


i cannot fully express how your notes on my last post have held us up as a family over the past few days... sometimes i just go back and read them, to remind myself of why we need to do this. i wish i could hug each one of you. please forgive my slow visiting of your blogs... we have been filling out countless forms for this process, but know we are so, so grateful for your prayers and your love. xoxo



**please note, due to getting these two boys, and Emily receiving a contract for a book due May 1, this will be the SECOND LAST 'imperfect prose on thursdays' meme until further notice. next week will be the final gathering (i do hope to resume at some point down the road... this community has become so dear to me.)**



1. link up a post (old or new) between wednesday and friday that you feel is 'broken' or 'imperfect' or somehow redemptive
2. put the 'imperfect prose' button at the bottom of your post, so others can find their way back here (see button code in right-hand column of my blog)
3. read at least one other person's linked-up prose, and give 'em praise!

Mister Linky's Magical Widgets -- Auto-Linky widget will appear right here!
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'sailboat' painting and prints by e.wierenga; available here

in which i beg you to pray for us

these days we're weak all around. we hug each other more than usual and cry a lot, and look at our children as though they have just discovered gold. they're so beautiful, and we don't want this to end. these days of sanctuary.

soon there will be double the number of snow boots in our entrance and double the beds and double the runny noses and we grip each other, strung out on compassion. because we know what the right thing to do is, and it's just so hard.

but it wasn't hard, when she called. when she called, we knew. we had no choice but to help, for "i can't be a mother anymore," she wept, this mother of the boys who stayed here at christmas. and you know them, joey, and jin, and they will be coming to live with us soon, and we don't know when they'll be going home.

four boys under the age of four, and i only have two arms, trent away at school all day.

we fed the deer today, trent's dad knowing every antler, tenderly tracing tracks in the snow and he's set a camera up to take their portraits. sometimes he sits out there for hours, studying the deer, the way they interact, and he's built them a corral to keep the moose away.

we fed them and there was peace in the woods. in the sun and the sky and my boy stepping carefully in the snow. and he left footprints, bigger than i've ever seen him leave and i know i need to follow. for he'll lead me straight to the love i'm looking for: the love that will transcend any physical weakness.

and he watched us feed the deer and he'll watch us feed these boys and together we'll form a cross: trent, aiden, kasher and i. each of us a limb, a board, nailed to the other. and we'll bridge a gap between joey and jin and God.

we're hugging each other more than usual, these days of sanctuary. and maybe it will all be easier than we imagine.


anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins. james 4:17

(pray? please? this is so, so hard... this working out of our salvation.)

(linking with jen, laura, michelle, and ann)

i am from ... (feature post from this week's imperfect link-up)

I am from a little church blooming and growing in size, a blessed bunch God has bought in.

I am from scared knees knocking to stand up and sing, so I stood on Him and joined the team, worship is more than Sunday Morning it’s a life.

I am from joining the Youth team on Sunday evenings and helping in details, watching daughter grow as a youth song leader.

I am from a broken cage, like a bird I flew, away from fear to find joy was always near.

I am from would you like to serve on council, crying cause why would anyone pick me, but God said He did and I believed Him and now I speak for many.

I am from a critical heart poured out like oil, submitting and finding the grace is all over, seeing the beauty and wonder of it all, now I keep track of blessings.

I am from a smile of encouragement when I doubt, only a turn of my head and my husband is right there drumming for the heart of God.

I am from "we all need to be honored" God loves us enough to trade His Son for the flocks we each live with, so that’s why we submit one to another, and give honor where honor is due.


(Each year changes us …. How has 2011 changed me so that the who I am now is created by the where I am from. Starla (of Poet's Prose). )


thank you, beautiful starla, for this stirring piece... may you all experience beauty, this weekend. love, e.

imperfect prose on thursdays: the streets full of hungry people

it seems as though winter is making up for lost time, lady frost seated in our windows, and i remember him. the man with the plastic beads around his neck, and i wonder if he is warm tonight.

his sign was crammed with black ink. it asked for spare change, but then it went on for paragraphs saying “God blessing you,” over and over, slanting sideways in squished-up letters and he sat below his sign, wearing a beaded necklace, no older than me.

i walked past and i smiled. i see you, i see you, i thought, i just don’t believe in giving money and i would raise you from the sidewalk if i could, like peter and john, for i serve the same God but for some reason i can’t do the same miracles.

and i entered the farmer’s market, just yards from where he sat, produce piled high and tubs of honey and the world full of food, and the streets full of hungry people.

(over at A Deeper Story today friends... follow me there? and pray for this man, won't you?)



1. link up a post (old or new) between wednesday and friday that you feel is 'broken' or 'imperfect' or somehow redemptive
2. put the 'imperfect prose' button at the bottom of your post, so others can find their way back here (see button code in right-hand column of my blog)
3. read at least one other person's linked-up prose, and give 'em praise!

Mister Linky's Magical Widgets -- Auto-Linky widget will appear right here!
This preview will disappear when the widget is displayed on your site.
For best results, use HTML mode to edit this section of the post.

*"the fugitive" by emily wierenga (see my etsy shop for more paintings and prints)

when your toddler teaches you how to pray

sunday morning and it's eggos and syrup and snow outside.

we don't often eat breakfast together. trent normally wolfs down peanut butter and bikes off to school, me shoving lunch at him and spooning pablum and making porridge and trying to brew some coffee while handing out vitamins. and quiet time has become something of an inner thing. a church i go to on the inside.

but today is sunday and it's quiet time all around us. we're sitting in the sabbath, here at our breakfast table. and it's a liturgy of sticky fingers and chatter.

we've long prayed over the food but suddenly, it's not enough. aiden puts down his eggo and folds his syrup hands and says, "i more pray."

so we stop and we close our eyes and he waits and we prompt, "thank you God for this food, amen." him repeating, but again, "i more pray" he says, and we smile across the table. "thank you God for this family" and it continues this way until we've run out of words and then he folds his hands tighter. "i more God."

and i'm tempted to lie prostrate upon a prayer rug like they do in eastern countries, for the holiness of my son's heart.

this, what it is, then, to pray without ceasing. when sentences end, to keep bowing, to keep waiting, to keep hoping, for more.


(linking with jen, laura, michelle, and ann)