point of view

 Sometimes I forget that you are so small your mind is so busy, your emotions are so big the saga of backoe and weedeedeeders and pocsles that weaves through your concerns is a part of my every day. Pow in da Waa is not too intelligible to most but when we're playing the Getty's Power in the Blood and you are yell-singing about the "wun-wuckin pow" it's pretty special to you and to me.  I forget to remind you that Jesus is our Shepherd, and I worry about all this transition But you're loved you love  (us, and your squishy baby sister who alternates beaming at you and looking terrified about what you might do next) please keep telling us what's on your heart Jesus wants to know too.

Our Father, In these strange and uncertain times we see you, and we see that you are a God of both holy anger and of tender mercy. We thought we were in control, working to make our businesses profitable and fill our leisure hours with activities that felt fulfilling. We are reminded, as we erase appointments and sign up for Zoom accounts, that man plans his way but you establish our steps. We are reminded that there is much we don’t know, didn’t anticipate, and is in your hands and not ours. You hear the discussion, oh Lord, about what the right measures to take are. Only a few of us need to decide the steps that will be enforced. Please help these few to be wise in the face of a million unknowns, and please help us to fear you and honor the magistrates (whether we agree with their orders or not.) Help us to love our neighbor. To think of the elderly and those who live alone, to text or write or call or video chat, to share our toilet paper, to spend some money at the s...

I want a table that says Tell me your story I want to make meals You're not self-conscious to eat To cook for restricted, or slow, or messy eaters And a baby to cheer your view. Food is a gift! So is a good coffee Let us make you a treat or scrounge something quick. We want to give blessing we've also received We want you to to know: You're cared for You're heard We're glad you are here. Image source

This is a poem says things that many other parents have said before me. I am writing it anyway because it is new and mysterious and wonderful to me.  You think my hair is meant to help you pull in close. Your wet baby kisses extend my energy, my perseverance, far beyond the limits I thought I had. There's a look when you know you have all my attention I can't put a name to it but oh, how I hope you don't outgrow it anytime soon. Please, my Father, help me to look more like you. Please, my Father, help me to trust you like he does; expressing, unhindered by any thought that You might not want to hear, content, to know that You delight in me too.

turn off turn onto the gravel roads to wander to reach for a spray of the wildflowers, not as a taking of the fruit of another's possessions but as a recognizing welcoming the delight of sun, wind, sky mountain and plain to gather the glories in highlight their riotous worship. Yes, we see we join with the ringing, repeating song of praise! image source

Finding my voice again feels a little presumptuous What do I have to say? Only the unfinished Perhaps I'm no longer grieving, No longer longing as before Perhaps I don't dare to speak for fear the good will vaporize More likely I'm less alone these days There are two and the Lord who hear my heart these days I have become wife I have become mother Perhaps I don't dare to speak for fear of hurting those who long for these titles Perhaps I've heard some try to teach the how As if they knew it all I don't goodness, I don't. But I am learning new things I suppose we all are.

"Hormones." Kind of an ugly word to explain the flood of emotions, don't you think? So many different things to hold in my heart this twenty-eighth birthday. So many things have changed so quickly in the space between my twenty-sixth and twenty-eighth birthday - I hadn't even met the man who woke me singing "Happy Birthday" so I would hurry to open the gift he would use to make my morning coffee for me, while our child kicked his or her greeting inside me. My twenty-seventh birthday was just after our honeymoon. The newlywed stage is beautiful, but for all its thrills and despairs, treasured new things and bumbling adjustments, I don't wish to be back in that stage. How thankful I am for all we've learned, the trust we've built, the skills acquired for cheering each other on. How much more we have to learn. Each of us hold our everyday sorrows, together with the immense and humbling realizations of how much good we've been given. ...

Although I could write many things about my beautiful biological sister,  this is about one of my little sisters in the family of Christ.   My sister is strong. The others, when they start to act tough and they vow they'll never care about anything again you know they just can't handle it anymore. The others, they're so angry because this isn't right, this isn't the way it's supposed to be that they give up hope of learning what it IS supposed to be like. Somehow, my sister's not like that. Me, I haven't had a quarter of her hardship written into my story I, at her age, wasn't anywhere near so resilient. My sister still dreams. She is strong enough to love the way the winter branches kiss the sky She is strong enough to want to care for the more vulnerable She is strong enough to love the people who make life so difficult for her She is so strong, she still knows how to cry. My sister is a very special person....

This is a rather belated New Year's post, but I've been thinking about it for a while so I thought I would still go ahead and post it. For 2016 I chose to think on the word "Faithfulness", to try to keep in front of me how the Lord has been faithful to me and what I have in front of me to be faithful with. As I look back on my thoughts from last January I am humbled by the abundant grace and kindness the Lord has shown to me. To be honest, I entered 2016 with a predominant feeling of dread. How, I wondered, was I to soldier on through the limitations and difficulties of the life God has given me? I wasn't finding much to anticipate with any sense of joy, but I knew that the Lord would lead me and give me enough to survive whatever He had in store. And He was faithful. Faithful in the midst of a crazy work schedule + class + regular pain from a year-long dental issue that ended in oral surgery = more exhaustion than I've ever had to walk through, f...

like the moment during takeoff just before your ears pop the pressure of the quiet gets to me stillness is a song but silence is a tense hum waiting perhaps it's a struggle to catch up, to get ahead of the tick of the clock so that there's time to hear the music to pause, to observe the symphony between the lines to create the music that's already around there are riches in the drumming rain the pulsating surf the teeming streets riches waiting to be spoken but first, someone needs to pause and listen

Today, I thank You for A home that was always open How many birthdays I heard the story of my birth again, how she became a mom for the first time, how she saw her own face when she looked at mine The pushing, prying, once in a while tears because she wanted to know how I was doing Pizza and ice cream in the freezer and the knowledge that we could invite first and inform her second For the big dreams and enthusiasm for our futures That she prays for us. For the tea, always tea The orchids in the window, pansies in the garden peace that was always at Oma's place Always the listening and the special treatment like she was so honored that you were there. The recurrent gathering again, how she is a magnet in the drawing together of our family All the hearts that have been under that roof The foster kids who still send a note every now and then For the niece who is mine in a small way For those who let me hold their babies and rejoice with them For all the kids who...

wild rose in the churchyard watermelon, salty sandy sunscreen engine oil dandelion-rid soil dark roast coffee and open-window green grass clippings imagesource

Good Friday is my favorite holiday although sometimes I'd rather pass over the darkness quickly look to the Sunday sunrise but you've got to sit in the horror of it a little while make your home beneath the Cross and you'll see how He was torn the slow suffocation the life-blood that seeps away, congealed and continual how His loved ones must have prayed for death to hurry what agony to see Him suffer, exposed and shamed, for hours on end but they didn't even know the half of it all hell's darkest powers many eternity's worth of torture, concentrated into this slim span of time creation strains under the weight of this confusion something is terribly, terribly wrong the sun knows it, and dares not look on the horrible sight the earth shudders violently in fear the agonizing shriek rings out Forsaken and yet, He has asked for the bitter wine and vinegar He is willing to drink down the dregs of His Father's wrath The crumbs of His br...

I didn't categorize this as poetry because it's too long, and if it was a poem I would try to have some sort of understandable progression of thought instead of popping along from one thing to another.  In short, I don't really know what this is :) Today the sun warms the chilled February birdsong, yesterday the fog drifted sleepily I'm having trouble keeping up with this steady passing of time life continually slipping on past the days a blurring of the calendar,  trying for more sleep, more food, to remember my weakness but it would be much handier to be invincible, to have enough time to plan and dream and learn the nights are too short but my dreams are flashbacks moments and faces I've treasured and sometimes forgotten it's a strange place to be. Oh Love, that will not let me go, I rest my weary soul in Thee Odd, bumping into that loneliness whenever I turn but I have so so many to love so many to cry for and this ...

...yup I am that type.  I like that our family has random traditions like having an appetizer/finger food dinner while we open gifts, I like that my home church keeps the Dutch tradition of singing "Glory to God" after the annual Christmas program (we don't sing it in Dutch though, we're good Canadians that way) ...I have my own silly tradition of putting up a "tree" that consists of a couple fake branches in a vase and always has to be topped with a bow, rather than a star...  I guess it's the remembering part that I like about traditions.  I had a hard time remembering what I did last year for New Year's, but when we keep up our little traditions they bring back memories for me.  The tradition of choosing a word for the year helps me to remember in a different way. I guess it's a moment of looking back and looking for some particular way the Lord has led me and is teaching me.  Click on the "one word" label at the bottom of this post ...

This year I missed Canadian Thanksgiving but celebrated American thanksgiving with friends today.  I don't know if that means I'm acclimatizing or what.  Actually, I was just told by one of my Canadian cousins that I'm developing an accent =) This was a bit of perspective that helped me today.   As I give thanks for God's admonitions that are for my good  because He loves me, I thought it would be a good idea to reflect on some of the things I have had to be thankful for recently. 3898.  "The Old Rugged Cross" and the unique way singing harmony allows you to simultaneously listen and agree. 3902.  Bubbles over the street 3938.  Apologies 3952.  Roommate laughter 3968.  Instagram squeals from the niece 3975.  Waking to the sound of rain 3979.  Irrepressible birdsong 4076.  Another free trial version of Photoshop 4086.  Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow 4095.  Stocking pigs and a...

stark velvet chill bits of icy illumination surround the contented moon ahead of me the horizon blushes faintly rainbowing the blue-black quiet the light is certainly coming, but the anticipation drags on there's a ray of promise, I think it builds a swell of glow the sky-blind is lifted and like a holy unveiling, a sacred disrobing, the brilliance overtakes us after the shy of it did you expect it to be this warm, this blinding?

it's a strange state we're in that's for sure you can't be strong unless you know you're weak won't feel held til you've tasted the lonely ache must be broken down if you want to be made whole can't be blinded by brightness without being encompassed by the dark you can't love without hurting, fearing, bleeding, weeping oh friend, push on for the prize

Technically speaking my birthday has just ended.  I suppose I should be in bed but it's that time of night and of course I'm waxing eloquent and ignoring my need for beauty rest... I just wanted to nail down a few things that stand out from my year of being 24.  (Because I know when I am finished being 25 I'll get nostalgic and go looking for birthday blog posts .) I've had dark years.  Years that were marked by what one of my professors/coworkers calls the "dark night of the soul."  I don't know that I would say that 24 was dark.  But I think I have been learning how to grieve this year.  More than ever before I have seen my own weakness, my own limitations, my own fallenness and the lack and brokenness of the world around me.  And in many little ways I've been forced to give up the notion that I can do  enough to reverse these things.  Oh, what precious grace that has driven me to cry out to the Lord more than I ever have before!  I...

holy fire, overwhelm the whens when I hate everything that hurts when I adore my ease and comfort when I couldn't care less when everything seems tantamount except Yahweh holy fire, insert the untils until I love You fully until topsy-turvy is set right side up until I take another step in the right direction until the Day dawns holy fire, please bring the finallys finally You will come again finally my rebelliousness will be silenced finally the darkness will leave no trace finally our eyes will be opened holy fire that's burning away til God and man stand face to face image source