Sing Your Song

In the little yellow house, in the corner of the kitchen, in my peter pan blouse, my middle-school self unfolds a letter. Stage dad stands to the side, pretending to be downcast, holding back a proud smile.

Opening the crisp whiteness, I read an acceptance. An invitation. An opportunity to sing. I've auditioned for the Charlotte Children's Choir, and now I can don the plaid skirt and matching vest...Sit with the sopranos and make music and friends and memories.

I miss the simplicity of that time. Third row up, sit two seats over, black binder under chair with pieces ready to be practiced. Sit on seat's edge, stifle a giggle, and stand in unison with the rest of the choir. We know the music...every lilting note, every ebb and flow, every silent pause. This is safe and learned and practiced. It's easy to sing when the music is understood.

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Holding close a sweaty head to my chest, I hum a raw and unrehearsed tune. The blessing from the ancient Book rings through my head...a blessing that had been prayed over me each night by my parents.

May the Lord bless you and keep you...

The melody joins with the words, and I continue...

May the Lord make His face shine upon you...

I feel the rawness scratching my throat. The hot tears drip from my face and land on his baby head...

and be gracious onto you...

I can't sing anymore. There are no words. Just heart cries, which I know the Father hears. Yet, my little boy's sleepy voice cuts the silence: "Sing, Momma. Sing".

May the Lord lift up His countenance upon you...

Oh, son, do you hear what I'm saying? Do you know how much you are loved? His little voice stirs my heart again, as the tears flow freely: "Sing? Sing? Momma. Momma, Sing."

And give you peace...

The tune is simple and feels safe. It is uncomplicated and without frills. I begin again and finish, as my eyelids flutter closed and sleep is fought off. The little voice pipes up. How can he still be awake?

"Sing, Momma."

Here in this moment, I find healing. Through his unaware pleas to keep singing, I find an answer.

Why stop singing? Music comes in all varieties...So does life and its hurts and joys and journeys. Sing your song, whatever it may be, through whatever you may face, in spite of that which seems to hold you back.

Let others listen. Listen to others.

The song begins again, and little one sighs contentedly. I will sing, little boy, and you will, too.

Sing your song, whatever it may be.

Have Life...

Pounding pavements, breathing in and out. Crisp air cupping my knuckles, music mixing dreams and reality together.

Rounding the corner, barren trees stand at attention, paying homage to a resting place.

The stones are evenly spaced, row after row, life after life. Setting sun pours a final goodbye over the land.




This is not the end.

No, final chapters have not been penned.

Life did not cease with the chisel of a name.

We know He came, to be bloodied and beaten, torn to pieces, heart ripped apart by sin's sting...all for us. That we may have eternal life.

But did you know, Life can be lived before the stone appears?

And Life should be lived...

Fully.

Beautifully.

Humbly.


Such marvelous gifts await in heaven's home.

Such marvelous gifts await you here, too.

Do not miss the beauty of your life, or the life of others, as you round the corners. Don't hasten the clock as your day winds down.


The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. John 10:10

Don't Leave Him

In an old family flowered chair, draped in slip-cover white, I rock my baby boy to sleep as night settles in around us. His lavender-vanilla scent imprints on my heart, and I am so thankful.

A soft, lilting baby boy voice breaks the silence:

"Momma...
Momma....
Momma......."

"Yes, baby?"

"Where's Baby Sheesus? Where he go? Momma...Momma..."

Soft feet shuffle against my knees as he scrambles to the floor. With curiousity and wonderment, I follow his two-foot frame as he sidesteps down the stairs and runs into the dimly lit living room. He pauses by the tree with its white, tinkly lights and his rosebud mouth hangs slightly open in awe. Only seconds pass before he is searching for the Baby again. His little bottom pooches out as he kneels down, peering beneath the scratchy branches, searching for something that is missing...

"There is!! Momma! Baby Sheesus!"

"Yes, baby. That's Baby Jesus. Are you ready to go night-night now?"

Soft feet shuffle again across the slick hardwood floor, up the matted carpeted stairs, and into baby boy's room. He runs to his crib, waiting for me to lift him into its safe keeping for the night.

The plastic Baby Jesus is gripped tightly by his toddler fingers, and I pray over baby boy as I drape fuzzy blue blankets over his sweet self. John Deere tractors and Hess trucks line the siderails, and Baby Jesus has a place of honor between baby boy and the lines of toddler toys.

Baby Jesus. A plastic Fisher Price toy. A lesson in humility and love and wonderment.

My baby boy searched for the Baby Jesus, grabbed him tight, and kept him close. He wasn't content leaving him under the tree, all nice and neat and color-coordinated.

How often do we leave our faith, our Jesus, under the tree? How many times do we go through the calendar year, full of self, only to bring Jesus out for a few weeks to look so serene during the Christmas season?

Do you hold Him close each day? Do you take him to work with you...on errands...at the bank...coffee shop...school...

Do you keep Him as your focus, in front of your career...goals...yes, even spouse and family and children...

He came not to be left under a tree or in a church pew.

He came to BE....

the Life-Giver

the Wound-Healer

the Father to the fatherless

the Companion to the lonely

the Love to the unloved

the Savior to the sinful

Where is Jesus? Conveniently boxed away until next season?

Don't leave Him under the tree...

He hasn't left you, nor will He ever leave you. It is we who make the choice to go the journey alone.
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Hours later, I crept up the stairs and held my breath as I walked into baby's room. Where would Baby Jesus be? Perhaps I had dreamed this precious happening; perhaps this was just a circumstantial event. Leaning over the crib, I saw my miracle with The Miracle.







And I pray it always stays that way.

For My New Year: A Time of Thanks

There’s only one address anyone lives at and it’s always a duplex: Joy and pain always co-habit every season of life.

Accept them both and keep company with the joy while the pain does its necessary renovations. ~ Ann Voskamp


Weary and broken I met the New Year. As each day drew closer to the turning of the time, I felt myself sinking deeper into self.

Lonely.

Fearful.

Worried.

Reality.

This time last year I lived in a white house with black shutters and three wicker rocking chairs on a just-big-enough front porch. I saw the New Year arrive by myself, as I was the only one who could stay awake, but I wasn't alone. The man I gave my heart to was right beside me, lightly snoring. I felt a breath of relief as 2011 entered: I believed in hope and all things new. I welcomed the blessing of change and a year of possibilities.

I didn't know the change would be this.

My life as I knew it forever changed this year. Every aspect of it has taken a new course, without regard to any of my objections or tears or tantrums.

A different city.

New job.

New school adventure.

Broken marriage.

What was to be an adventure together is now a painful process alone. To be told you are not the one envisioned with him when you are graying and the children have grown and left and all you have is each other is a rejection to the most hollow places of your hidden fears. To be told it is over, without any doubt, and it's been over for several years, makes you question every word and gesture and moment of it all. You see wedding pictures, your cherished bridal portrait, the letter "S" embroidered on every pillow and decorative accents, all reminders of what was and may never be again. Sudddenly, facebook status updates, Christmas cards, blogs...everything holding a mirror to you showing you what you have no more. The one person who said they would love you and cherish you and be on your side has now willingly left you.

I've been told to slow down. I've been told not to continue with school. I've been told to just rest on the weekends. If I do any of these things, I won't be able to get back off the floor. I will be in a heaped mess of raw wounds. I can't fully take in all that is happening, and it is only God's grace that I can't. In little snippets of movie reels, scenes flash before my eyes.

A funny story that only he would get.

Suctioning baby's snotty nose at 3 am...together.

Rounding a corner during my first 5k to see him and my little boy cheering me on.

Standing at the altar in front of my youth pastor, feeling secure in the fact that this was the first and last and always and forever till death we do part.

Bringing baby home to the white house with the black shutters, neighbors eagerly waiting for a new playmate.

As these moments are relived, I feel like I could scream and laugh and violently cry all at the same time. Scalding tears well and throat constricts...I quickly brush them away because I'm in the grocery store or at my work desk or in the car at a red light. I bury them in the dark places, where they fester until I am able to properly mourn.

And how, how does one mourn this? How do you grieve the loss of someone who is still living? How do you keep yourself from feeling unloveable or less than beautiful or needed?

Perhaps that is the worst...not being missed. Not feeling needed. Not being seen for the good and lovely rather than the torn and tattered.

And so, you go through the motions. And sometimes, the motions bring tears. Other times, the motions bring hilarious laughter at the absurdity of it all.

You daily choose...

Joy.

Hope.

Forgiveness.

Life.

Grace.

In all seasons. In all hurts. In all glorious and hellish times, you get to choose. As Ann Voskamp shared in her blog.....keep company with the joy while the pain does its necessary renovations.


I certainly am not perfect in this situation. I was not a blue-ribbon wife or mother. But one thing is certain, I believed in my family, and I believed in my marriage.

And so, I will choose to live. I will choose to give thanks, even though at times I want nothing more than to grumble and whine and ask why and pummel my fists into the wall.

Thank you, for Grace. Thank you for mercy. Thank you for my precious boy-child who gives me unexpected kisses and sticky arms tight around my neck. Thank you for this season, for it has shown me another aspect of the Father I may never have known. Thank you for rock-like family, sturdy in faith and will. Thank you for golden friends that have given up time with their own families to be mine. Thank you for weekly papers in philosophy class that kept me focused and forced me to think of something other than failing. Thank you for well-worn running shoes that have taken me up and down hills, making me stronger physically and emotionally. Thank you for a career that I am proud of and gives me passion to make changes.

Thank you...

Thank you...

Thank you...

For more thanks, read here

Thankful For Fleas

Excerpt from The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom:

Life in Ravensbruck took place on two separate levels, mutually impossible. One, the observable, external life, grew every day more horrible. The other, the life we lived with God, grew daily better, truth upon truth, glory upon glory. Sometimes I would slip the Bible from its little (sack) with hands that shook, so mysterious had it become to me. It was new; it had just been written. I marveled sometimes that the ink was dry...I had read a thousand times the story of Jesus' arrest--how soldiers had slapped Him, laughed at Him, flogged Him. Now such happenings had faces and voices. The move to permanent quarters came the second week in October. We were marched, ten abreast, along the wide cinder avenue...Several times the column halted while numbers were read out--names were never used at Ravensbruck. At last Betsie's and mine were called...We stepped out of line with a dozen or so others and stared at the long gray front of Barracks 28. "Fleas!" I cried. "Betsie, the place is swarming with them!" We scrambled across the intervening platforms, heads low to avoid another bump, dropped down to the aisle and hedged our way to a patch of light. "Here! And here another one!" I wailed. 'Betsie, how can we live in such a place!' "Show us. Show us how." It was said so matter of factly it took me a second to realize she was praying. More and more the distinction between prayer and the rest of life seemed to be vanishing for Betsie. "Corrie!" she said excitedly. "He's given us the answer! Before we asked, as He always does! In the Bible this morning. Where was it? Read that part again!" I glanced down the long dim aisle to make sure no guard was in sight, then drew the Bible from its pouch. "It was in First Thessalonians," I said. We were on our third complete reading of the New Testament since leaving Scheveningen. In the feeble light I turned the pages. "Here it is: Comfort the frightened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all..." It seemed written expressly to Ravensbruck. "Go on," said Betsie. "That wasn't all." "Oh yes:...Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus." "That's it, Corrie! That's His answer. Give thanks in all circumstances! That's what we can do. We can start right now to thank God for every single thing about this new barracks!" I stared at her; then around me at the dark, foul-aired room. "Such as?" I said. "Such as being assigned here together." I bit my lip. "Oh yes, Lord Jesus!" "Such as what you're holding in your hands." I looked down at the Bible. "Yes! Thank You, dear Lord, that there was no inspection when we entered here! Thank You for all these women, here in this room, who will meet You in these pages." "Yes," said Betsie, "Thank You for the very crowding here. Since we're packed so close, that many more will hear!" She looked at me expectantly. "Corrie!" she prodded. "Oh, all right. Thank You for the jammed, crammed, stuffed, packed suffocating crowds." "Thank You," Betsie went on serenely, "for the fleas and for--" The fleas! This was too much. "Betsie, there's no way even God can make me grateful for a flea." "Give thanks in all circumstances", she quoted. "It doesn't say, 'in pleasant circumstances.' Fleas are part of this place where God has put us." And so we stood between tiers of bunks and gave thanks for fleas. But this time I was sure Betsie was wrong......


I watched this movie as a little girl and read the book till the pages were falling out. I promised myself that I would name my little girl, Corrie, after the brave woman who hid young and old in her house with her family during the hellish era of the Holocaust. These heroes ended up being captured and walked through unearthly terror. Her sister, Betsie, later told Corrie that she understood why the fleas were such a blessing. The guards refused to step foot in the barracks as long as the fleas were rampant; this allowed the Word to be shared with the women, spreading light in an evil place. Corrie was set free, just before the women she was with were taken to the gas chambers. Her father and Betsie died in the camps. I encourage you to read this story. I promise you will be changed.

Years have passed since the tattered pages have been held in my hands. I still see the scene from the movie, playing over and over like a broken movie reel. So many situations, I have felt the bites of fleas. I have felt the crawling of annoyances and hurts, trying to turn my attention away from the Father and instead to a hopeless situation.

In this New Year, I want to be thankful for my fleas. I can't see the whole picture, nor can I predict what good will come from any of this.

But one thing is certain: God's goodness far outweighs the best of my best. In fact, there is no comparison; God wants more than just good for you. He wants the BEST for you.

God's best is not measured in the number of zeros in your paycheck. It is not measured by your annual job evaluations. It is not measured by the absence of suffering or pain.

No, we live in a broken and hurting world, but His faithfulness is never void. The fleas may abound, but we must give thanks in all circumstances.

Will you join me this year in cushioning our lives with thanksgiving? What fleas are you thankful for?




Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 5:18