i would like to know

since when is playing it safe a Christian value?

His commands are NOT burdensome!

John 16:33 “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have trouble. But take heart—I have overcome the world!”

Jesus is reigning in victory and I can take part in that any time I choose. The Bible is brimming with the promises of God—all I have to do is claim them. Colossians 2:10 tells me I have been given the fullness of Christ! I only have to live out what I have already been given. Nothing is out of reach. But I still have to reach! Why do I whine about being tired and burdened when I am only a knocking, seeking, or asking away from LIFE TO THE FULL? “His commands are not burdensome”! (1 John 5:3). It’s only overwhelming when I try to do it all in my own strength.

It’s always been a comfort to me to think that my weakness actually invites God’s strength. Where I am swarming with questions, flaws, and losses, Christ is pleased to lend the fullness of Himself. He is all too willing to satisfy: “Open wide your mouth and I will fill it” (Psalm 81:10). I want to know, what do I not have simply because I have not asked? What does God want me to know of Him that I simply have not claimed yet? I don’t want to miss anything He wants to give me.

painting...

waiting

Driving back from our cup of coffee, i asked Amy what she was waiting for. We agreed patience has been the running theme of our lives. Mostly because i am very bad at it. What am i waiting for? When i got home i made a list. But when i think about it i am nearly always waiting for something, no matter how insignificant.

My hair to dry.
My coffee to drip.
Autumn to come.
The noise to end.
My film to develop.
An honest word.

i think WAITING is like a kind of dam: it is a stop and stay that creates depth. Waiting inspires what you already have to deepen and strengthen. Without waiting, our lives would be stretched thin to brittleness, without it, there would be no time to reflect, to repent, to change our minds. Our lives would be pure speed with no breaths in between, we would stampede through existence so fast that we would forget our last experience the moment we collided with the next one.

Maybe waiting allows all these things to SETTLE. Our busy lives beg a little time to be interpreted. What may seem like a denial or a boundary, may instead be a reservoir: a holding place for all that we have come through so far, to be sorted and sifted. Waiting gives us room to collect the deep. It gives us time to grow.

testing 1 2 3 !

so i have created this blog mostly and primarily because typing is a whole lot neater than my handwriting. i intend to use this space to think out loud a little and share things i like, but just for the record this will not be an "online journal" because 1) i hate it when people spill their guts online for the world to see and 2) because i hate that phrase. :)

sabrina

SABRINA WARD HARRISON is one of my heroes. She is the one who taught me "trust the mess". She lives in California and publishes her journals, designs long skirts, and hosts art workshops for women. This is what she says about her work:

"I use my "mistakes" - I follow where they may take me. I like to use what I find - what is left over, unused. My art supplies are remnants, faded and forgotten letters, table clothes, felt, wallpaper, drawer lining, photographs, paper doll cut-outs, maps, fabric, vinyl records, and sheets of music once played and heard - now left quiet. I am patching and piecing a life hooked together, yet partially obscured, with masking tape, ribbon, thread, varnish, and paper clips."

Oh For Simpler Days

i am writing like crazy lately. Probably because i have more time on my hands, May Sarton calls the business "thickets of undigested experience". i am trying to take time to untangle.

OH FOR SIMPLER DAYS

tonight i am a constellation:
spewed as from a dream

into remnants that clatter and skid
across the night,

like rhymes stuttered out across the nursery floor
in sweet, wide tantrum…

these lights so ravenous and stretching
“how can all these parts of me be one?”

children below, idling in their lullabies,
count and connect the dots.

are we gaining or losing?

i recently found out a little friend of mine was sent to the hospital for complications from an eating disorder. She is 13 years old. i think we are very hard on ourselves.

i have not weighed
myself in months.

if people must be measured,
can we not do it in colors?
or convictions? or blushings?

numbers are for rented doorframes,
panicked metronomes, and epitaphs.

they are for crowded calendar boxes,
ransoms too much, seconds too late,
and black tallies on the wrists of jews.

numbers are for least and loss.

but let us be counted
by a more generous scale.