Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport

Garnet

We were running, running, running.  My lungs expired, my legs convulsed, and all my wants were through.

The siren air sang garnet around me.The billows of my white dress capered as I bathed in the passage. It seemed as if I was teeming into a thousand pirouettes, but I was still. I was still. And the wind was not.

Before Time Eternal

I’m in a thinking, reckoning place. The Trinity turns nothing into something. We were nothing; now, we are Something.

Anyways, I was about to get all “blog-tone-y,” but why? Here it is. Straight.

I have laid in the lowest cleft of the rock with nothing but a single, tiny thread attaching me to this physical world. There was nothing more under the sun to merit my staying alive. There still is not.

I have also danced atop the veriest precipice upon which the mire of this world appears unfathomable and I unreachable. Here, the prevailing wind galvanized me infinite.

And I have wept on the slopes of the in-between, hearing whispers of eternity.

I submit that these swings on the pendulum of time are just manifestations of the Fall that, however tangible, are specifically irrelevant, because what actually matters is the rock discussed in the aforementioned illustrations.

During an odd 3 day bout in which I barely slept, ate, drank, or interacted with other humans,-what those in the psychiatric field might call “neurosis,” but was really just the Holy Spirit-I saw many birds. One, out of a few that struck me in particular, sat, during a storm, unshakable upon this giant cross-interwoven-with-some-sort-of-heavenly-host-statue behind a church.. (I think God has to be a little cliché in order to make his point abundantly clear, sometimes).

Am Yisrael Chai.. a Hebrew phrase denoting the unconquerable spirit of the nation of Israel, God’s people.. if you believe in Christ as your savior, that’s you and me, too.

I know it feels like there are waves crashing over you…as soon as you stand from the thrashing of one, another befalls you. I know. But, understand my earnesty in saying: it is okay. It has been okay. It will be okay. It is okay. Don't give up, dear heart.

I pray, tonight, today, tomorrow, forever, that you would never break the softest gaze that ever befell you. Before time eternal, the eyes of the rock have been set on your heart. 

I can breathe

As I witness my own iniquity, I fall on my knees. ‘Impossible.’ I wonder how Magnanimity could even choose me to be his bride. The notion itself, conceived in utter mercy, says nothing about the quality of my being and everything about the essence of his. He is I AM, and he chose me. I rise and stagger backwards, then lie on my back, my lungs desperately gasping this new air. I was suffocated, extinguished before ever being alight, by the mire of my soul. “I can breathe; I can breathe! Rejoice, I say, I can breathe.” Scandalous, ravishing, I raise my hands to the risen King.

“Splendor and majesty are before him, strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.” His sanctuary will cover all the earth. Every knee shall bow and tongue confess. Abba, Abba, Lord and King.

Out of the Wicker Basket

Two angels carried me. I couldn’t help but leave the child’s pose in which I hid to peek out of the wicker basket in which I was being carried. When we arrived at the edge of the country into which I was being transferred, all I could comprehend was pure, white light. I knew nothing about what would surround me when I finally stood, except that it was good.

Pall Mall Blue 100's

It was before nine o’clock in the morning on the back porch of the house. The fall sun had abandoned the Newnan man. On the table lay a folded newspaper, the word ‘prefix’ standing out in six tiny boxes. A half-gone box of Pall Mall Blue 100’s told of thinking and speaking-each sewn within the anesthetic comfort of habit.

A blue haze tinted the timeless scene of lake and trees that sang before me. A somber song, the leaves of the mighty evergreens bellowed at the coming Night. More truth confronted by trees than by men. The crippling shadow of beauty.

I was struck by three Blue Jays, peculiar in their mirth. Refusing to let the funerary cadence stand, they went on gathering their food.

19

I am staying at my mom's house in Yorktown. I love it here: lots of green, lots of animals, lots of quiet. Any place by the water is a winner to me.

Russian Tea cookies made with my momma

What does it mean to fully give myself to something?

What is full life? What is living water? What is to bless? What is being a sold-out, laid-down lover of Jesus?

"No one forgets the truth; they just get better at lying." -Richard Yates

Put your elbows on the table, I will listen long as I am able

I was going to write a post about how one year ago, today, I was laying in the ICU after surgery to remove invasive carcinoma from my pancreas. How it changed me blah blah blah. But, then I reminded myself that cancer is not my story. Depression is not my story. Divorced parents is not my story. My story is a love story, the best one there ever was. It was a patient love as Jesus waited at the altar for me. He still waits ever time I run away because I am scared and silly and human. But he has never left.

For the past two days, I have been listening to “Born” by Over the Rhine on repeat. In the car, in the shower. Laying in my bed, mostly, since I didn’t have work. I have never hit play on a song so many times over and over and over. (You can ask Jess Gump) I don’t know, it’s heavy, but rich. It’s slow and sad-ISH. But it is not sad to me. It is real.

I was born to laugh, I learned to laugh through my tears
I was born to love, I'm gonna learn to love without fear
Pour me a glass of wine, Talk deep into the night, Who knows what we'll find
Intuition, deja vu, The Holy Ghost haunting you
Whatever you got, I don`t mind
Put your elbows on the table, I will listen long as I am able, There`s nowhere I`d rather be
Secret fears, the supernatural, Thank God for this new laughter
Thank God the joke's on me
We've seen the landfill rainbow,We`ve seen the junkyard of love
Baby it's no place for you and me
I was born to laugh, I learned to laugh through my tears
I was born to love, I'm gonna learn to love without fear

One of the first scriptures that pierced my heart after starting to crawl with Jesus was John 13. Humility. Jesus washing the diciples’ feet. I picture lots of things when I listen to this song for six minutes and fourteen seconds. And, even though it is "secular," I mostly picture how Jesus loves me. He always talks deep in the night with his elbows on the table.

In the song, you can’t really distinguish the of in between junkyard and love. So for a while, I thought it said junkyard love. And that is exactly what our love is. Yes, Jesus is the Glory of Glories. But he walks around the junkyard with me all the time. Because I am there. And he is with me. And that is life. This world is a junkyard. It is filled with Death and garbage that steals our tears but because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ, I can laugh through my tears. Really, joyously laugh. I can love. And he’s teaching me to love without fear.

He is just that intimate. To wander around a moonlit junkyard with each and every one of us. To wash every single one of our feet. That’s what he did on the cross.

This reverie of love that he’s given me these past few days listening to "Born" on repeat has been the sweetest of gifts as I begin fasting tomorrow for Chesapeake Young Life’s trip to Lake Champion and Oscar Smith High School’s first official time at camp! Crazy, crazy. I sat with my one of my very best friends Anna(lisa) Yong in front of my house. We prayed. (I love praying with her, and praying in general J). We prayed big and bold and lovely things. That we would surrender every part of who we are and what we want to I AM. To Yahweh. To Abba. To our Savior. To our Best Friend. 

Two years ago, Anna and I became friends and sisters and continued on this wonderful race together at Lake Champrion. We got serious about what is means to give it all up. So tonight as we prayed and talked about how far. He’s taken us both since those canoes in Glen Spey. Though cancer and heart break and fear and depression.  Through joy and laughter and victories and love. From the bottom of the pits to the tops of the peaks, I started crying. I never in a million years think I would be getting to lead girls from Oscar Smith at Lake Champion. The place where I first got serious about running hard after people. To get to sit next to them as they hear the Gospel for the first time. To see them go from death to life. My dear friend reminded a few of us that it is not our concern who ends up at Young Life camp and what happens in their hearts there; it is all God. But man are we blessed to get on those big charter buses at 12:30 am and ride along. I started crying in the car; these girls get a chance to experience the most beautiful love that their Jesus has given to them. It doesn’t matter that their dad has been in jail their whole life or they barely have enough money to eat or whatever else they think is their story but is not. Because this coming week at camp, they get a glimpse at what their real story has been about their whole lives. They get to know the junkyard love, and to that I say, amen.

"Naked As We Came"

I walked into the Carr family kitchen. A special Sheville with women in many different stages of life gathered to break bread and share life. We sat and reflected on the past year as Iron Wine played at the perfect volume for background music to be playing. Like a movie, the sauntering of Sam Beam’s voice matched my very exhausted state. Spiritually, emotionally, physically. When asked about anything, my response, “it’s, well, really, hard, honestly.”

We moved to the very same patio on which I sat talking about the man I had only just begun to fall in love with 3 years ago. As others spoke, I couldn’t help but drift in and out of a bitter-sweet nostalgia. Walking with the Lord has brought me to my knees time and again, especially since last June.  This year has taken many tears from me. But, as we sat, and talked, and were honest with each other about our failures and fears and victories and joys, I was reminded, again, of the man with whom my hope rests.

In another post, I will delve deeper into what I’m about to touch upon. But, my exhausted state, tonight, was merely a physical symptom of my spiritual state. I’ve recently been diagnosed with depression. As I’ve been going to the pits-deep, scary, impossible pits- I am utterly compelled by one idea: hope. Nothing in this world will ever, ever be enough. Will ever, ever bring me life. Maybe some futile, pseudo-life. But not what my soul knows and longs for. I believe that, while depression may well be a physical manifestation, it is just that: a manifestation of my soul desperately yearning for another world. The trials of this year have changed me. Cancer, failure, depression. They have cracked open the dome of my protected little world, and flushed heaven in with no restraint. Amidst all these labeled prescriptions, one name has supplanted the rest. It is the name of my abiding Identity, the master Prescriber. I know what hope is and I have been called to ring in the king as we await his return. Oh what a glorious day that will be. I have called thee Abba, Father. I have stayed my heart on thee.

"He made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me a polished arrow; in his quiver he hid me away." [Isaiah 49:2]

What I am listening to:

"High and Dry" -Radiohead

"Green Arrow" -Yo La Tengo

"And It Stoned Me" -Van Morrison

Also, watch this video and revel in the grandeur of my papa!