Blanks.

Hi. I need to write. I need to carve out time to write and to express and to put words down in blank white space. I need to continue pounding out the story of a huge life change pushing 10 months ago. I need to write about sitting under a thick fog for a lot of months. I need to write about my lovely house and how it's changing. I need to write about Hope Spoken. I need to write about how I had the wherewithal to order orange and lemon cupcakes for a special event coming up. I need to write. If you happen to read this, will you pray for me? I want to write so badly. I need Jesus to help me prioritize and organize. I am climbing back out of my cloudy place, and I have joy and hope and excitement. But I need putting back together. I need clarity for the next step.

Why are you hiding?

Anytime I'm working on something, and I realize I haven't heard Lylah for several minutes, I instinctively go looking. If it's quiet for long, she's up to something.

This scenario played out today, and I went walking around the house looking for her. I found her on Gray's bed with a lollipop in her mouth. I know she heard me calling her, but when I walked in she was sitting on the bed with her back to me. I could just barely see her peeking out of the corner of her eye.

"What are you doing, baby?" 

Silence.

"Lylah..."

Silence. I picked her up.

"What are you doing?"

She looked down.

"Are you hiding?"

She looked up at me, and her teensy two-year-old face crumbled and her voice cracked, "Yeah."

"Why, baby? Why are you hiding?"

I asked her a couple more times until she just blurted out, "I need you!"

Oh, my. Seriously? Here I am trying to get my kid to admit breaking the rules and sneaking a lollipop, and this. 

So many times. Ashamed and alone. I hide quietly, secretly looking out of the corner of my eye for a rescue. The fault is my own, but I'm waiting to be scooped up. There is nothing else to say now, except, "I need you!"

"Then they cried out to the Lord in their troubles; He saved them out of their distresses."

-Psalm 107:19

Two sets of besties.

I promise she loved him, and she still does.

18 months apart.

Five years later, another pair.

2 years apart.

The boundary lines, part I.

I was squeezed into the hotel bathroom. It was June, and I was hot. Between the iron and my swollen, eight-months-pregnant body, I was hot. Two of my outside-of-utero children were sleeping on the other side of the wall. The other was on a balcony with her daddy, watching the meeting that was causing my heart to race in the hot bathroom. I prayed, desperate to quiet the beating lest it wake the tiny nappers. Or explode across the white tile.

The dress on the board was mint with little triangular cutouts across the neckline, part of the slim rotation of items that still fit. I'd already ironed each of the kids outfits. Pressed and hanging neatly, waiting for ordination night. I never iron anything. Ever. But I needed something to do. Anything to do.

Landon texted me the counts. Another vote. Did the men and women writing on those slips of paper understand the power their pens held? Drops of ink in lines pointing to the next thing.

I've said this to so many people, but my brain could not -- still cannot -- articulate its station in that moment and so many since. It's like the eery sound of white noise, -- it's nothing, but you find yourself straining to hear something recognizable, faint as it may be. I've been straining so hard to hear.

Landon texted again.

"He got it."

I wish I could transcribe the exact conversation we had. Or the ones I had with others that day. But they're gone. Lost in the white noise.

I do remember finally climbing into the shower, and all the sweat and hot water ran with the tears. I wept. I wept happy. I wept sad. I wept terrified. I wept unsure. I wept grateful. I wept disbelief.

So long coming, but so quickly here.

Now what?

"Lord, You are my portion and my cup of blessing; You hold my future. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance." 

-Psalm 16:5-6

Living, breathing.

Trippy is when I can't explain or dissect or succinctly subscribe to my life what I just read in the word, and yet I still stir. Scripture bypasses my fuzzy mind and burrows into my soul, resonating past all the broken, malfunctioning parts of me, singing in harmony with the Jesus that lives inside.

Weekly ride.

It occurs to me that I've carved tire tracks in this road for six years. Back and forth and back and forth. I can step onto the stoop a woman crazed with hurry, an ever-deepening frown line creased between my mama's brown eyes. But as I turn left out of the neighborhood and my heart slows to calm, I feel tears prick my eyes. I have to keep hands on the wheel as one then two then three then four have arrived in the seats behind. No matter if they're laughing or crying or singing (especially singing), my soul soars on this road. Jesus meets me here as I drive on my way to seek Him, to take my children to seek Him. Seven minutes to catch my breath.

Feeling the urgency.

I most often hear from the Holy Spirit in the morning. I hate to get out of bed, but once I do, morning is my most favorite time. If we could go back to sleep at 2 p.m., that would be ideal for me. I'm worthless in the afternoon.

But I digress. This morning, with crisp February air stinging and steamy coffee warming, I felt a fresh wave of urgency. I feel this wave often, but it comes on stronger and stronger all the time.

My children are growing. Their hearts and minds are changing minute-by-minute. They ask questions and have experiences that take me by surprise. Is it really already time for this?

Folks. It's already time.

My kids need scripture. I need scripture to give my kids! Life.is.happening. Life requires scripture.

Jesus, give me wisdom and insight to speak just the right scripture at just the right moment to my children. Mold their hearts through Your word. Mold mine. We all need You so badly. Our lives depend on it.

Untitled.

I'm a terrible crafter. I'm the kind of person you think would be a crafter. But when it comes down to it, I have interest in only the sporadic craft, and it better take 30 minutes from set up to clean up.

This truth disappoints me, but I'm slowly learning the kind of project at which I can excel with minimal frustration. 

Even so, I'm also starting to think putting my hand to something again and again over a longer period of time may be worth it in some cases. The trouble is twofold: 1) how to know when and 2) having the discipline to trudge on when the gratification is less than instant. I pretty much suck at follow through.

Before me lies, right now, a very obvious turning point. The beginning of the after and end of the before. There are two cords of great importance -- my life's work, to be sure -- waiting to be braided together into what will be my future. They lay long and straight up ahead, beckoning. My move. 

I have been frozen. The project is too large. I suck at crafting anything worthwhile, anything that takes every day. I have not been successful at this. To be suddenly aware that my daily choices will carve this outcome whether I like it or not has me heading for the hills.

I am frozen, but... Icicles melt a drip at a time. There is a slow thaw.

Drop by drop a puddle is forming in which I can see my wavy, rippled reflection.

Failed crafter, life carver.