what it means to look like God (part 1)

in a world that tells me i am worth what i weigh, how do i live the God-image? and how do i teach my daughters to sing with soul?

i'm swelling with the life of another, growing round with pulse and kick and i've never felt more like a woman.

womb-an. the very word is life. and this living to breathe love into another drives me to the hospital for yet another ultrasound because doctor says he's measuring too small, this baby inside, and i cannot do anything about it. i want to save him and he's not even born yet, but already so fragile with his tendons and sinews all red and woven within me and "my stomach is all arms and legs" i joke to trent.

too small. so easy to feel like a failure as a mother when there is so little we can control. and this is what defines us, part of it, anyway: this needing to save. to make life and keep it alive. to create and keep re-creating, for birth is only the canal to a lifetime of releasing a child.

i'm lying on the bed and she's seeing him, my boy, through the screen and i count the tiles on the ceiling and read the posters that remind me not to do anything that could harm my baby and i hadn't realized how much i loved him until now.

and this too, being woman, this loving so hard it hurts because we were born to be God's heartbeat to the world. "i want you for your heart, not your mind," God whispered to me during university as i planned to become an english professor, and so now, i bleed.

"he's growing like a weed," she tells me with a smile and i feel his soles against my rib cage and i want to clap. "he's already four pounds at 32 weeks..." and i gasp with a prayer, the kind that keeps us women alive.

and the music plays loud the ride home, my eyes crying, and the song tells me that women are to "stand and sing to the broken heart-ed."

yes. in spite of all my career failures and disappointments and the ways i want to be something to the world, this, this is what i'm called to be.

womb-an. not just in giving life to the small of child, but in giving life to others, to those around me. in nurturing the neighbor and in being mercy to the hurting and in teaching my daughters to bleed life and to swell with the giving.

for women are the heartbeat of the world.





photo: my son, kasher, at 32 weeks

also sharing with one stop poetry...

on what it means to love

They’re folded into purple and black satin, and the flowers white and the mountains make a jagged rim around the edge of a turquoise pool.

I remember how Trent and his dad argued the definition of a mountain on our drive into Jasper and all I know is, they are beauty.

There’s no tiring of beauty, and it’s here, in this union of man and wife, the oldest, most sacred union made pure by white and ring and kiss sealing it all. And they braid purple and white cords together while the elk and the moose bow low in the bush and there’s a hush amongst us standing, the few witnesses on this isolated island reached only by bridge.

It’s a hush of people remembering: the vow. The cool slide of gold on finger, the pronouncing man and wife and the flower petals falling. Some now divorced wondering when did the petals fade? When, the gold become tarnished, the white stained? When did the guitarist stop playing and the bridge to the island break in two?

They’re signing their names and smiling into camera and it’s easy to believe in love when it’s packaged so perfect. But it’s in the fevered of brow, in the folds of skin and the marks stretching and the feet of crow, in the empty bank account, in the empty bread box, in the morning breath and the nighttime snoring, that love is.

Mountains.

Love.

Their definition lies in their beauty: in the rugged, jagged, ice-covered crevices and in the peaks that touch heaven.


Thanking, with Ann...

391. weekend wedding in Jasper
392. hike in mountains
393. cozy bed and breakfast
394. my little boy in a bow-tie
395. my husband and the way he couldn't stop kissing me that day
396. safe at home
397. new perennials and the way everything is blooming
398. nachos with homemade salsa
399. fuzzy blankets
400. a week of good night's sleep

Guest Post: Patty @ Finding Serendipity

her photos, her words, like pearls across page, and this is patty... from finding serendipity. and this, her post, 'miss daisy'.




i hustle out of the house,

about to embark on yet another day,

my vision obscured

by all of my to do's.






i reach the crest in the road

and the light is just so,

awakening my sense of living,

my sense of presence.



flowers have bloomed.



another season,

another year.







she doesn't live here anymore.

the propped up broom is gone,

and the grass is a little high.

i don't know if she's with family now,

or in a nursing home.

maybe she's just moved,

or moved on.







her flowers grow almost wild now,

as untended as they are.

they're still beautiful.

they force my sight to focus

to see what's there

right in front of me.

a message.

a gift.



live.






live with presence.





another season,

another year,

another lifetime,
breathed.



(thank you, friends, for your imperfect prose, and for voting for this little place, here...)

imperfect prose on thursdays: the unwanted girl

her bangs are crooked as though she took a dull scissor and cut and she looks young, with her wide-set eyes and freckled nose, 18 but she runs around with water guns and eats ice cream for lunch and watches cartoons.

"i was an oops child," she tells me, this girl at the shelter. i'm sitting and listening, volunteering at a place that women run to. the kitchen is wide-open yellow and "it feels like a mansion," she says, this girl who lived for years in foster care then with a father who could never find work.

"there's no such thing as an oops," i whisper, and she looks down and for a minute she seems old.

"i mean, i was unwanted," she says slowly, and i feel little. how could i force her to say that? me trying to band-aid the world better when it has cancer.

she wants to live on a farm even though the foster children placed her on a cow when she was three and it threw her, and i see the marks from that fall. she shows me her drawings, a binder full of dress-designs and insect-sketches, and it's all from her head and she hopes to go into design but she had to quit school when her father left her with her grandmother and she was evicted. "i'm homeless," she tells me, scooping ice cream into a bowl.

we go for a walk, the dog named oliver leading, and everywhere is sky. i'm wrapped in toque and scarf and she buries her hands in her pockets. she tells me she has no friends and then she runs after oliver and i watch her, a lonely slip of a shadow against a very big world, and i want to hold her and tell her it's all going to be okay and she's very much loved and she'll never have to be brave again.

we turn back, and she laughs into the dog's fur. he licks her freckled face, and he's done it for her. made her feel the special i never could.

*please, pray for this girl, who's very much real? and instead of commenting today, would you mind clicking here and voting for this imperfect place? (thank you, humbly, my dear friends...)




1. link up a post (old or new) 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 other's offerings, and encourage them!

imperfect prose Participants

1. Nancy @ Alleged Mind 2. Old Ollie 3. Beautiful Confession 4. happygirl 5. Capturing This Lifesong 6. Craig @ Deep into Love 7. Joybird 8. Bethany Ann 9. Susan (Goat) 10. Raining Silence 11. Abby...9 years ago: a tribute 12. Generosity Amidst Poverty 13. tinuviel 14. Kati 15. ELK 16. Rachel 17. lori 18. Anna @ path of treasure

19. Following Jesus 20. Cindy @ 12Tribes 21. amy danielle 22. Ramblings by Carol Nuckols 23. Melissa S 24. Ruth V 25. steven 26. jodi 27. David N. 28. I'm a Perfect Mess 29. Ima @ My Life is A Nutcase 30. Kath @ Listening Space 31. gautami tripathy 32. Tamara @ Living Palm 33. april 34. april 35. HopeUnbroken 36. kendal

37. Perfectionism @ Lisa notes... 38. Debbie Young 39. Courtney Walsh 40. reverie 41. Beauty in a Block of Granite 42. nic @ 60piggies 43. Linda 44. prodigal wait@ meadows speak 45. Amanda @ wandering 46. Bristol @ Diligent Leaves 47. Smooth Stones 48. HisFireFly 49. Kim @ From Doing to Being (Tinkers) 50. Christy@ The Margin Fading 51. Shaunie Friday @ Up the Sunbeam 52. Lindsey - From Good to Graced

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*prints of Girl By Window available here*

when God doesn't answer

i was an anxious child, scrunching my eyes when i prayed long lists of names so they might be saved and trying to picture him: this God. and i couldn't see him, (and maybe that's why i paint? my face alight like moses' when i turn from canvas?)

but then, in my second-hand pajamas in my sheets that smelled of clothes-line i could see nothing. and so, i pretended. made God into a man with a long white beard something like santa claus. because i couldn't pray to someone i couldn't see.

and now in my bed beside a man who smells of speed stick i utter words to a God i cannot see, and who seems to not be listening.

for two weeks now, prayers of a weary woman trying to find sleep and it, a ghost. and one night, telling God, i don't want to take medication, but i'm going to have to, if i can't sleep on my own, and i know you can heal me so tonight, give me rest?--and that, the worst night of all.

knowing hormones and pregnancy and all this, a part, but believing God bigger, my mustard seed is dwindling

and yesterday i sat in my chair and cried, thinking of bedtime, and trent took my hand and we walked outside into a night that hummed of cicada-summer. we visited our garden, our triangular bed of soil and green and we smelled the tomato plants and pinked at the peonies.

then this man, he looked at this woman, and he said, "it's going to be okay. look at all that we've been given. breathe in this beautiful day. we cannot know the future. we can only know the now. and it is good."

i think i saw God in that moment.

i know i heard him.

(sharing this humble piece with One Stop Poetry)

PS. friends... just wanted to let you know about a great conference next month for those impacted by eating disorders and body image issues. i'm speaking at it, and can tell you it will be a great time of learning and inspiration for professionals and community members alike. this year's theme is "A Family Affair" so we'll be getting into all those fun family dynamics, and learning how to love well in the process of treatment and recovery. it's at the Glen Eyrie Castle in Colorado Springs June 15-18. click here to see a slideshow from last year, see this year's schedule, and to register.

the way an artist views the world

"he doesn't like going for walks with me anymore," she laughs, friend with the blue socks poking from vintage shoes, "because i always talk about the light, how i can never quite capture it."

we're walking in the sand-hills and the light is just right on this saturday in may and our boys, one week apart, are wagon-riding the back-roads of a woods garbled with berry and branch. we've come by ferry to this place by the river, the hills of sand dotted by dirt bikes and tents and it's 10 minutes from our house but it feels close to heaven.

we talk of color, of the way pink lifts blue off canvas, makes the sky alight with bright that sounds like birds and our 18-month-boys laugh at the bumps on the trail and our husbands talk of book and game, and we, of art and the way it fills in our gaps.

she's wearing pink pearls she's had since she was five, and it's time for chocolate brownies and watermelon and sons running in sand with bare toes that blend flesh with the hill...

and there's no hurry, nowhere to be except for here in this giant box of sand with the river running through it and our lips are stained brown.

"would you like Lief to call you aunty? or friendy?" she asks on the ferry-ride home, the boat that's a historic landmark which crosses the athabasca from spring to fall, the boat trent's grandfather once operated. "aunty," i tell her, because we are related in ways deeper than blood.

and i want our sons to know this. the way their mothers notice things like light and color, and the way they are our pink, making the blue lift so that the whole world dawns bright with sky.



thanking, with her:

371. artist-friends
372. my womb-child's healthy heartbeat
373. rows of seeds peering green faces up
374. the smell of tomato plants
375. the feel of dirt on skin
376. an agent who sticks, who promises, who prays
377. a husband who holds me as i struggle to sleep
378. sunlight in the morning
379. homemade bread with peanut butter and honey
380. a commissioned painting

imperfect prose on thursdays: life is eternal

i step into boots and then, the night, and it is a full-moon tonight, grandma said and i look for it but the man in the moon must have had his curtains drawn, in a sky that seems God's face for all of its vastness

i stand still while children everywhere sleep, i stand in a night thick with frog songs and whipper-will, the lowing of cows and sometimes, the world is so quiet it gives ears to the sounds of the holy

the trees seem as if holding their breath, for we are all witness to the moment the moon makes its presence known like a woman in a white gown

and these are the moments that tell me, the universe is the pulsing heart of a maker, and life is eternal



1. link up a post (old or new) 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)
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imperfect prose Participants

1. eloranicole 2. Craig @ Deep into Scripture 3. brian miller 4. Nancy @ Alleged Mind 5. Old Ollie 6. My New Marriage 7. Sheila Moore 8. HopeUnbroken 9. tinuviel 10. Laura, NH, USA 11. Suffer on purpose @ Lisa notes 12. Erika Dawson: the Faith to Say No 13. Joybird 14. Kati 15. lori 16. Gerry/Strummed Words 17. gloria 18. A New Kind of Cloth @ path of treasure 19. Shaunie Friday @ Up the Sunbeam

20. Rebecca 21. Rambling Heather 22. Lauri 23. Kath @ Listening Sapce 24. becky 25. Michelle DeRusha 26. steven 27. Cindy @ 12Tribes 28. elizabeth@just following Jesus 29. emmalynn 30. Bristol @ Diligent Leaves 31. David N. 32. Road Experiences . . . 33. Melissa Brotherton 34. Rachel 35. reverie 36. Battle Cry @ Dawnings 37. Southern Gal 38. Romantic Nonsense

39. happygirl 40. Bev 41. Mrs. M. 42. budhaaah 43. Sarah 44. Debbie Young 45. Natasha 46. Laura 47. kendal 48. Trish 49. Rach@squigglyrainbow 50. Another Rach@squigglyrainbow 51. shannon 52. Daffodils in the Forest 53. Sandra Heska King 54. Ima @ My Life is A Nutcase 55. I Live in an Antbed

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What it means to be a woman

whenever dad was in the room she'd change in the closet, and i remember peeking through the door at her white back, waist slender wondering why she didn't want him to see her, feeling a shame too raw for any nine-year-old and thinking, so this is what it means to be a woman?

and everything in me wanted to cry

for how mum, in all of her beauty, couldn't see herself.

(for more, please join me today at A Deeper Story. thank you, friends.)

what really happened in mexico

there was sun and sand and surf and there was poverty and wealth and there was me, curled into a womb of weeping prayer in a hidden place behind the restaurant where he'd told me. we'd made a big mistake. we'd spent $9,500 on a time-share we could never use.

we'd told everyone we'd never get suckered in. and we hadn't... until we did. until the final moments when they told us it could be world-wide, and the vacations, in log cabins instead of resorts, and we thought, this, a perfect way to help our boys see the world, only we didn't read the fine print. and the champagne bottle popped and they told us keep it hushed, for no one else had gotten the deal we had, and they up-scaled our room and we felt pretty good, until the fine print.

the print trent read and kept secret until the restaurant where he told me we'd been mislead. the deal we'd signed up for, required we pay for all-inclusive every time. and we had already decided we could never do all-inclusive again. we didn't want to raise our sons in such affluence, and all i could do was stare at a limp piece of lettuce on my plate.

they were famous for making it hard to cancel deals and so i ran, i ran behind the restaurant, a patch of grass and i curled into tears and God begging save us, for it had all been a mistake.

a gardener slipped passed this white-washed girl from canada and then it came. his voice. and he said, "i will restore everything to you. but you must make me a promise. you must dedicate that money to me. use it for my glory."

anything, Lord, and wiping face ran to a husband folded over hands over knees and i told him quiet in a prison-feeling-room and we folded over each other in prayer.

and it's been two months, and papers filed, and contract cancelled and trent on phone to mexico and them saying yes, they'd return the money but keep the amount for the room we'd up-scaled to, the room they'd given as a gift for the deal, and that was going to cost thousands, and then, visa stepped in. warned us it could take three to four months and still then, maybe they'd lose.

this weekend, trent told me. "it's back," he said, hoarse. "the money. every single penny. back in our bank account."

one week after visa took over.

and it is all amen in he who whispers, and we're tucking that money into an account called "blessings fund" and the rule, trent says, is if you feel like giving, then give. "it's for the above and beyond gifts," he says.

it is returned, and yet, it's his. as all money is. and we are humbled, these misfits who messed up in mexico and met God in the process.


with ann, now:

361. money returned and a God who whispers true
362. the clinging hand of a husband who believes
363. publishers' meetings this coming week
364. a mother in law who takes care of me
365. the curl of new green on trees
366. a garden planted
367. a neighbor giving strawberry plants
368. finding church
369. saturday afternoon spent with women at the shelter
370. sunday afternoon spent with family at home

Guest Post: Amy Sullivan

amy sullivan knows how to tell a story. she also knows how to love God, hard, and she blends the two with a magic of word and beauty. read on, friends...

We left Michigan in the middle of the night during a whiteout.

My ten-year-old self didn’t know exactly why we were moving again, but those big, fat flakes seemed symbolic. The view of our destination blocked by a solid sheet of white, and the view of our past already covered.

We packed quickly for this move, and somehow, my Christmas gifts were mistakenly given to Goodwill. In all of the rushing, the wrong box found itself in the wrong place, and that translated into newly opened Christmas gifts being donated to a “less fortunate” child.

Good-bye Pocket Simon and stocking trinkets and Purple Pie Man.

I sat in the back of my uncle’s car and tried to will my tears away.

My face pressed against the window and searched for a sign: a mile marker, a tree, a blinking light in the distance, anything that indicated we were on the right path and this was a good move and this would be the last move. I longed for flashing neon. Instead, I observed a wall of snow.

But sometimes that’s how God leads us, through whiteout conditions, longing for things lost, and praying new destinations turn out better than we believe.

Twenty-five years later, as I walk around in my self-created whiteout, questions swirl, and I still search for signs: Is my life headed in the right direction? Am I screwing up my kids? When will we make a dent in those bills?

And because sometimes I long for trumpet blowing angels to loudly proclaim answers to my endless questions, I miss the signs of assurance God gives me daily.

Loud, belly laughs from my two-year-old. Silly calls from old friends. The perfect breeze that floats through my evenings, and a forgotten ten dollar bill when I’m certain I will be paying for gas in change.



(Photo credit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/richevenhouse/3126119059/sizes/m/in/pool-52908183@N00/)

imperfect prose on thursdays: for those who feel invisible

it was a moment so small, like the seed of an orange, and the sun was bright like that, like an orange and the world peeling thick around us and all i wanted was to take him for a bike ride.

and i'd buckled him in with sippy cup and cookie and we'd rolled out of driveway making the sound of gravel when the loud noise came, a bell-ringing-school that shattered child-equilibrium, and the small moment suddenly became so big it swallowed him up in tears.

and i swallowed back mine as we turned back and there was no more bike ride, there was no more wind in hair or sun on face and how i'd wanted just wanted to ride.

no one saw us. it was just him and i, tear-stained mama and baby sitting on the deck staring at the wheels of a bike. and i could choose to hug him close or feel sorry for me, and it was a moment so small it should have been insignificant but for both of us, it mattered, and so, i knew, how i acted, mattered.

so i pulled him into me and we held each other, and another victory had been won. another one of those wins that only divine eyes see. the kind that parents reap daily, the cathedrals built by names no one will ever know, the detail inscribed, like the bird on a rafter of a dome, that only God is tall enough to notice.

in heaven these small moments are the big ones. and all of us who feel invisible, our names are inscribed in bold, because without those cathedrals--without all of those seemingly insignificant details--no one would ever see God.




1. link up a post (old or new) 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 other's offerings, and encourage them!

imperfect prose Participants

1. I Like Being in 4th Grade 2. eloranicole 3. brian miller 4. Old Ollie 5. tinuviel 6. Laska the Love Kitty 7. Rachel 8. Joybird 9. condemned (wo)man, walking 10. Kati 11. Belinda 12. David N. 13. Melissa S 14. Elaine 15. I Live in an Antbed 16. Karmen M. Bruised Little Builder 17. melanie 18. ammee 19. Tornadoes and death @ Lisa notes 20. Ruthiey 21. jane@flightplatformliving 22. God isn't Answering?

23. Abby...M.I.A. 24. Laura, NH, USA 25. Joanna @ sosbrandneweyes.tumblr.com 26. Terrelle Pryor 27. Anna 28. amy danielle 29. Bristol @ Diligent Leaves 30. Lauri 31. happygirl 32. Still Not Getting It Right! 33. Louise 34. gloria 35. kendal 36. with a full moon in my eyes 37. Jenny @ achosenchild 38. Allison @ Alli 'n Son 39. christine 40. Bethany Ann 41. Southern Gal 42. Ima @ My Life is A Nutcase 43. Changing Lanes 44. Capturing This Lifesong

45. emmalynn 46. shannon @ herspaciousplace 47. budhaaah 48. Janis@Open My Ears Lord 49. HopeUnbroken 50. patty 51. Rambling Heather 52. april on dreams deferred 53. Erin @ their time 54. reverie 55. Symphony Creator 56. Debbie Young 57. recuerda mi corazon 58. Sheila Moore 59. Sarah 60. april 61. Tamara @ Living Palm 62. Linda 63. Shaunie Friday @ Up the Sunbeam 64. Kim @ From Doing to Being 65. Sandra Heska King

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on days when i have nothing

there are days when i have nothing to write. today is one.

perhaps i could tell you about yesterday. how we went geocaching. how we scourged the earth with a GPS for treasure tucked in tupperware, how we rode bikes and said hello to couples in tweed jackets holding hands in the graveyard, how we ate arrow-roots and swung on swings.

or i could tell you about last night, about the way my stomach moved in the bath-water, my unborn son pushing feet against my flesh, how i thought about all of the ways i couldn't control a single thing about his life, and how peaceful that made me feel.

and then maybe i could tell you about today, how it uncurled like a slow caterpillar, how aiden and i ate peaches and strawberries on the deck picnic style, how my friend and her daughter sat in my backyard and drank iced tea, how i interviewed two men who make music to a world gone tsunami, how i cried when aiden cried and how we both had a nap. and how evening-come, we walked the town round and i picked pussy willows and we watered my flowers and trent and aiden rolled on the grass.

i could. tell you this. there is no spiritual lesson, only me and a day and God filling in the cracks of it all, and isn't this all there ever is to say? the way God holds us together, when we have nothing?




(shared with One Stop Poetry, even though it's not a poem...)

how to know you married your soulmate

when you sleep head to toe because the sound of his breathing keeps you awake, and he hugs your feet and hushes you quiet when still you cannot sleep; when you wake him to ask him to pray for dreams bad and he mumbles to the heavens begging God for wife for peace

when he builds you a rock garden with rocks he's dug and he fills in the cracks with the softest kind of soil and he takes you to the greenhouse that sells pansies and aster and daisies and tells you, happy mother's day, even though he doesn't like flowers

when he folds your laundry and bathes your son and cooks you homemade fries and fish even though you don't deserve for the way you cry and carry on simply for the bulge in your belly and the hormones and the tired

when he asks you to marry him with every kiss and til death do us part when he holds you to his side, the side God pulled the rib from, and you feel your skin wrapping round the world for somehow, waking up to each other keeps everything bad from becoming unbearable

it's the soul finding mate eight years after trellis-wedding, the kind of cleaving that makes you believe in a wrinkled kind of love, the kind of love that rocks long on front porch when all of the babies and the work and the late nights cease, the kind that never stops breathing life into the other

this is how you know.



with ann, thanking:

351. for a man i can trust
352. for visit with mum and dad, and movies with mum, and dad's birthday and walking dutch town with them
353. for son's handmade card and husband's homemade breakfast greeting mother's-day dawn
354. for the sound of robins
355. for cook-outs in our backyard
356. for calves skipping field
357. for games with friends
358. for clean houses and feet up and good books
359. for the smell of flowers in a greenhouse
360. for everything that makes life a celebration

Guest Post: JoAnn @ Ostriches Look Funny

it is hard to believe in good when children suffer. when little ones hurt, i have more questions than answers. but here, joann helps me, in a world of tear-stained cheeks, to trust that one day, everything will be okay, and that God does exist even when evil seems to be winning.



For a long time, I've been haunted by children.

The unwanted, tragically neglected or starved.

I carry them in the pocket next to my heart, and they escape and ask me for help when the night falls and I'm alone and quiet.

I've asked God why He allows it. I've cried and asked Him questions about fertility and world population, about murder and abuse. I thought of all the tragic stories ever told. I thought of generations lost. I thought of darkness.

One night God answered me, His words, The Word, whispered to me, in the dark.

He promised to come back. He promised to return and fix the world, and avenge the blood of the martyrs, to bring justice to the suffering. He will arrive with scars on his body, fire in his eyes, and a big, big sword.

He is coming back, and the starvation, the disease, the abuse will be stopped.

"Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end."-Revelations 22:12-13

It's always dark when you think God is dead, and I put him in the grave when babies are in dumpsters. I think I must save them, since no one else seems to be doing it. But, I was never meant or made to save the world. I'm just a messenger, a hope, a light, a shining star.


Here's my secret: I want to adopt. The homeless, unloved children keep me up at night. I've cried over them for a long time, but the doors haven't opened...yet.

The things that God calls us to are often crazy and backwards. I'm about to have my third boy in a few weeks. I have two children under the age of four. I have a marriage to attend to. I sometimes forget to defrost meat for dinner. I am not good about folding laundry. I'm the opposite of Supermom.

If you've ever felt comforted by God in the middle of a comfortless sorrow, you know how strangely peaceful you become even though your external circumstances haven't changed. You realize it isn't up to you, and you fly on freedom and trust in a Father who loves.

I put my haunting into Christ's lap and He turned the nightmare into a dream. My husband and I are still in the discussion arena of adoption, and we both would like to. I would like to adopt...yesterday. I tend to freak out about the lost time, the lost children, etc.

But now I watch things fall into place; attitudes adjust, and hearts soften. It's not on my timeline, which revolves around NOW and THIS INSTANT, but I know if I don't get the opportunity to adopt a child there's Someone who will be there to wipe their tears away...someday...soon.

He's coming back, and I'm 100% positive that child abuse angers him more than it angers me. He'll take care of it.

In the meantime? I'll trust, obey, and dream about children.













slowly making my way through your imperfect prose.... how you bless me. xo

imperfect prose on thursdays: on British shoes and falling stars

Her name was Yvonne. Yvonne Patricia Anderson.

She wore skirts and cardigans; he liked the way the material swished against her nylons as she walked carefully to her desk every morning.

He'd sit glasses pinched to farm-boy face trying to study Calculus, unable to stop staring at her shoes. The way they rested polite, discreet, British. Just like her accent.

“She had a peaches and cream complexion,” Dad says.

“He kept trying to talk to me,” says Mum. “I found him annoying.”

Dad smiles, blushes around wire rims. Mum reaches shaky, squeezes his hand.

Their first date was to the Whipple Tree Restaurant on March 17, 1976. Dad had saved up enough coupons to take her there. It was the finest place to dine on campus, and he proudly pulled out her chair and stared into her shy eyes while the other students wore green and sang Irish drinking songs.

Then, summer and biking hours on gravel roads to meet each other. Neither of their parents approving. Their first kiss, beneath a falling star.

They were married in a corn field and then, Africa and four babies and Dad teaching farm to the blind and Mum staring down at her British shoes now soiled and homeschooling and skim milk powder and second-hand clothes and bringing toys home from the dump because we were poor and Dad in ministry and moving, always moving, then Mum's mother, dead in bathtub and Mum getting cancer and now,

he tucks afghan tight around her legs and kneels to put on her shoes, ones that remind him of Calculus class and she touches his balding head with her hand and turns to me.

"A falling star," Mum says, smiling. "That's when we first kissed."



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*prints of 'Matrimony' available here*

learning to listen

can you hear him?















in the quiet








he beds himself in the bud, peeling green




in the call of the geese sewing v-necks across pale wool of sky





in the frogs croaking symphony from the pond in the woods



in the farmer's hand fingering soft the seed, praying it into soil

in the footstep of child



holy holy holy ... kneeling with you today, as heaven unfolds in garden and skin and all the earth rejoice



(sharing with one stop poetry)

begging patience this week as i am slow in visiting blogs, with assignments and family visiting, but looking forward to catching up with you all...