Ready to take know EXACTLY what you were created to do? Click here!

life{in}grace

live with more presence, passion, & purpose

faith

When the Truth Comes Out

“There is nothing to writing.   All you do is sit down to a typewriter and bleed.” Ernest Hemingway

someonesdarknessfacebook

I woke up at 3:15 on Saturday morning and crawled out of bed, fumbling around on the floor for my computer.  I knew I wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep so I made my way to the living room where I knelt down on the floor beside the sofa and prayed, “Please give me the courage to tell the truth. I need You.  Amen.”  And with only the angst in my stomach for fuel, I began to write about the hardest year of my life.

I kept getting stuck.  I kept wanting to skirt around the truth, wanting to say what needed to be said, but guarding the deepest hurt and shame like a fractured bone.  I wanted to tell the truth but so strong was the desire to protect myself.   I wrestled with it until I finally had the courage to write one true sentence.  Hemingway said, “Write hard and clear about what hurts.  All you have to do is write one true sentence.  Write the truest thing you know.” [Read more…] about When the Truth Comes Out

The Spirit of the Lord and the Magic of Being Loved

tolove

I got an email this weekend that brought me to my knees.

A woman whose life looks perfect to everyone around her but is burning to the ground as she watches in disbelief.  And it doesn’t look like help is coming.  It doesn’t appear to be one of the stories with a tidy, happy ending.  I read stories like hers in my inbox every week.  Sometimes, the story is mine.  This is where we are.  This is the truth about us all, at one time or another in our lives.  I’ve been there more times than I can count.

When our literal house burned to the ground, there was nothing anyone could do to stop it.  The firefighters came and worked in the freezing cold as hard as they could to no avail.  Sometimes things just burn.  But as I sat on the frozen ground and watched flames reach up toward the night sky, I noticed the blanket that my neighbor had wrapped around me, the warm cup of coffee someone brought, the arms of my family, that comforted me when even words were too painful.  For a few hours, no one even worried about the whats and the whys.  They just showed up and sat with us and brought us the comfort of not being alone. [Read more…] about The Spirit of the Lord and the Magic of Being Loved

The One Thing You Can Do

“We may ignore, but we can nowhere evade the presence of God. The world is crowded with Him. He walks everywhere incognito.”

hydrangea1

She comes into my office and I barely notice.

I sit at my desk too numb to even think, nearly hopeless, while my coffee goes cold.

I’m glued to the screen.  I scroll through the news feeds and it sickens me.  Suicide, genocide, homocide—death and darkness are everywhere.

The world seems to have been forsaken, even by God.

It’s paralyzing.  It’s impossible to watch and difficult to turn away.

I pray and grieve and and am jolted awake by her nudge, this cutie with tousled hair who wants to eat breakfast and to read chapter 10 of To Kill a Mockingbird.

She starts the sausage.  We empty the dishwasher.  I’m quiet and lost in images from my screen.

I make the coffee and lay out the beef for dinner.  I make the bed and fold the laundry and for a brief moment,  I really see her.  I remember that among this world of death and chaos and prejudice and evil, I hold precious things in my hands.

I can’t bring peace to the Middle East or to the Midwest or even to my own house most days.

But I can do the next thing that blesses the next person in front of me.

I can make the meal, read the chapter, fold the shirt, write the words.

The tasks are so small they’re almost embarrassing.

But all the tiny acts of life and kindness wage war on this present darkness.

I wake up from the numbness of the headlines  and look around me.

My neighbor is standing right here in the flesh with a need that I am equipped to meet.

So, I set the table and cut the hydrangeas and with every bite, she looks more and more like her Father.

The Father who loves us, who holds this all in His hands,  who ushers in His kingdom of peace with water, Word, bread, and wine—He is here.  He is our way to life.  He is our only Hope.

He hasn’t forsaken us.  He’s right in front of us—in our midst in the humblest of means.

But we miss Him, because He always comes  in on a donkey and we’re always looking for a stallion.

Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.

And blessed is he with eyes to see.

When a Father Loves His Daughters

In honor of Father’s Day and in honor of the little girl who changed my world, this is a repost from almost exactly a year ago, when I traveled to Nicaragua with Compassion to meet my little Diana.  If you’ve read this post already, scroll to the bottom and see what Diana  got for her 7th birthday!

Compassion trip to Nicaragua 2013

Diana is her name. She hasn’t left my mind much for the past few weeks. Her name means “divine.”

I met her on a little dirt road in the middle of nowhere and didn’t want to let her go.  She smiled a nervous smile and held tight to my neck.  We were both afraid to let go.

Compassion trip to Nicaragua 2013

I’ve known for a week that today would be the magical day.  I felt like I’ve been waiting for Christmas.  And love comes in the flesh in ways we can’t always understand.

We walked to her house, hand in hand, and met the rest of her family.   Despite the prayers and the imagining what it would be like,  I couldn’t have known what was just beyond those pieced together curtains.  I ducked low and nearly  fell trying to climb down into the what they call the kitchen.
Compassion trip to Nicaragua 2013

Claudia, Diana’s big sister, was bathing the 2 year old in a wash tub.  The little mama dried Mary Cruz off just like a pro, careful to wipe her little eyes and wrap her up tight.

Compassion trip to Nicaragua 2013

We sat on her cardboard bed and made fast friends over Hello Kitty and hair bows and hand games.  Time stood still for me today.  Those two hours will feed me for years to come.

Compassion trip to Nicaragua 2013

 Little sissy sat shy behind us and finally decided that maybe the hair bows were worth the risk to meet the crazy woman with the yellow hair.  There’s something about Southern women and babies that you just can’t come between.  I may not speak Spanish but I’m fluent in hair accessories and they are love in any language.

Compassion trip to Nicaragua 2013

We spent an hour getting to know each other—playing legos and  baby dolls, braiding hair, and painting nails.  Southern girls, in training, I tell you!

Compassion trip to Nicaragua 2013

Diana’s father Roberto peeped around the corner from the back side of the house, where he had been working.

He had kind eyes and spoke gentle when he talked of his family.

Compassion trip to Nicaragua 2013

From the moment I met him, I adored him.  She is the first child I’ve met with a father in the house.  And her father loves her.  That does something permanent to a little girl’s heart. He works everyday, collecting and selling recycled trash, doing his best to support his wife and three daughters.  He pilfers through junk and waste and brings it back to their home to clean it up and see what can be salvaged.  I told him that I was so proud of him— for taking such good care of his family, for loving them enough to go to work for them everyday, for walking his daughters to school, and for saying yes when Compassion offered to enroll his daughters in the program. I thanked him for not giving up and for having the courage to stay.

And that’s when the dams broke.

I could barely talk.  My eyes are full of tears as I write about him now because I want to hug him again and tell him he’s brave for standing up for his family in a culture where most men would have left.  I told him that I grew up in a house without my dad and that I hoped he knew what a gift he was giving his girls. Diana looked up at me with love in her eyes, not sure why I was crying, but wanting to comfort somehow.  I wasn’t the one bringing the gifts that mattered today.  His grace always turns things upside down.

Compassion trip to Nicaragua 2013

 

I just knew that I would visit her and want to bring her home with me.  But what I learned today is that she is home.  She lives in ramshackle lean-to with no indoor plumbing and cardboard for a bed.  But she is home.  She is surrounded by parents who love her and who are giving all they have, day in, day out, against all odds.  Their little shanty isn’t water proof and they hope that someday they will be able to do some repairs so that the girls don’t get wet when it rains.   They have hopes and dreams, that it won’t always be like this.  They want a better life for their girls but they are a family and we were so blessed by their commitment to each other.

Compassion trip to Nicaragua 2013

 My little amiga, Diana.  

I can’t wait to see what grows from the fertile ground of a Father’s love, planted firmly in her heart.

Compassion trip to Nicaragua 2013

I’ve often wondered whether it really makes a difference.  What can $38 do for a child a half a world away?  It won’t even fill up my gas tank.

Today, I know the answer.

A few hours after my heart was wrenched from my chest at Diana’s home, I spent the afternoon with her at the Compassion Center.

I haven’t been at a place more full of joy in a long time.

I saw her as she sat and listened to the story of the woman at the well.

I saw her eat a bowlful of nourishing rice and chicken.

I visited her class and did the hokey pokey with her in Spanish.

I boogied with her at a traditional dance festival.  (Don’t worry, mamacita’s still got moves and they may well be even better in Nicaragua!)

I read her file and saw the picture of her when she graduated from kindergarten.

I looked at her medical papers and saw the free care she received when she was sick.

I saw a list of things she’s been given so far, such as school supplies, birthday gifts, and a school uniform.

I saw that $38 a month changes everything in Diana’s life.

$38 has built a bridge from a man-made lake in Bean Station to a dusty road in Managua.

$38 has broken my heart a hundred ways to Sunday.

But this day will shine  a like a beacon in my memory—the day the Father brought His daughters together, to show them both how much He loves them.

I thought I was bringing the gifts today.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

**************************

There are many of Diana’s  friends who need sponsors. I would be so honored to work and pray alongside you at Center NI-186, Arms of Love. Let’s sponsor as many as we can.  I love you all and I promise you that what may seem like your way of caring for a child in need is really Christ’s way of caring for you. He’s always works crazy like that.

Thank you in advance, for bringing love in the flesh.  You remind me so much of Him.

 

685x85-Nicaragua-LOVE

Compassion Bloggers Nicaragua 2013 - Project 186 - Day 2

My other posts from the trip…….

A Good Place to Start, Nicaragua Day 1

When a Father Loves His Daughters, Nicaragua Day 2

Open My Eyes, Nicaragua Day 3

Obediente, Nicaragua Day 4

I’ve Got You, Nicaragua Day 5

Home

And a video of my favorite memories……

The girls and I have been writing letters back and forth to Diana this year.  With Compassion International, you can write your letters and upload your photos all online, so it’s never been easier to speak life into the heart of a child.   We sent her a birthday card with some birthday money and this is the note and picture that we received in return.  Talk about tears that wouldn’t stop…..

Diana and her family thank you so much for the birthday gift.  The Compassion center was able to buy her a mattress and a host of food items that their family needed.  She is so glad you are her sponsor.  

diana

I pray you know today how much you are loved by your Father.  I spent about 30 minutes on this podcast hoping to remind you!

We Mother On

farm10

My oldest mother gave birth to me eons ago.  She lived in a luscious garden by day and surely twirled under leafy moonlit palms by night.

She was the most beautiful creature in all the world, the consummate woman—made for glorious communion, devoted and adored.

She gave herself freely in love and affection.  Her name was Eve, the mother of all the living.

But like us all, her story bleeds.  She was wrecked by heartache.   Her paradise was laid waste.  So she hid and felt ashamed, she doubted His love and provision.

Her story is the story of us all—the fall that wrecked us and shut us out of Eden.

I see myself in her.  I am my mother’s daughter.   We both cling to the world’s only hope and her story sustains me.

She mothers on.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

n1443095177_30165473_4297

My flesh and blood mother gave birth to me in the January cold and bundled me up on a  Friday night for my first homecoming.

The handsome man in the fedora was no where to be found.  That is, until he brought the honky tonk band home from the bar to finish out their set in the kitchen at 3am.  Because surely homecomings need music.

(I’ll tell you the whole story someday but it may well be the best birth story in all the land.)

(Think Doyle Hargrave’s band in Slingblade)

This woman carried me through hell and back. She gave me the gift of life.  She worked all the jobs.  She sacrificed everything a woman can.   She NEVER complained.  She loved me,  she believed in me, she never, ever stopped giving, she worked harder than anyone I’ve ever known.  She laid her life down with quiet courage so that I might someday stand tall and find my voice.  This is how I learned to be a woman.  This is how I learned what it means to empty yourself.  She was first light for me.   She has made my every homecoming possible.

She is my momma.  And her love plays a melody in my heart.

She mothers on.

 * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

spring7

 

My spirit and blood mother  gave birth to me on a Sunday morning, in the clear cool waters of Baptism.  Her name is called Church— the arc of safety, where Christ our Father has placed us and befits us with everything we need.

He left her with His manifesto and she faithfully labors on to give birth to God’s children;  to teach of His love and to serve His blessed body and blood for  life and forgiveness.  She is weary from the war, bruised and battle-worn.  But, she knows what’s at stake so she soldiers on, bending and stooping to hold on to us at all cost.

Mother Church will bear us to heaven, where we will finally know what price Love has paid to get us home.

Until then, she mothers on.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

We labor and love and sacrifice—as our mothers have so faithfully done before us—for the sake of seeing the miracle of grace born and nurtured in another human heart.

Mother on, dear sisters.

You are the beautiful life-givers, body and soul.

Fairer Than Day

 I breathe deeply, and certainty enters into me like light, like a piece of science, and curious music seems to hum inside my fingers.
Is there a single person on whom I can press belief?  No sir.  All I can do is say, Here’s how it went. Here’s what I saw. I’ve been there and am going back. Make of it what you will. ~Leif Enger, Peace Like A River.

farm

You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.  You probably wouldn’t even have believed me had you been there.  But sometimes, the combination of weather and circumstance and near perfect humanity will leave you feeling like you’ve witnessed a miracle.  And I needed one in the worst way.

farm10

Not because of anything insurmountable but mostly because I’m like you—a regular old unbeliever.

farm4

I doubt, I whine.  My faith fades like it’s been washed in bleach.

farm7

I’m always teetering, falling, flailing.  Losing my grip.

farm6

But, then grace overwhelms.

Mercy rains down.

Beauty breaks in.

The sun pours out its extravagant light on every last thing.

farm11

We are stewards of a string of magnificent moments in a land that is fairer than day.

And we’re not even home yet.

farm2

I believe.  Lord, help my unbelief.