Few burdens are heavy when we lift together

We all have the ones we turn to when the skies get rough and we need a safe haven in the storm. Call them your friends, your tribe, your family...I even have a friend who calls them her sluts (which I love and is in no way indicative of their moral compass). I call them my people.


One of my favorite bloggers, Sarah Bessey, calls them her Somewheres. They are the people she turns to for the things that can't be kept in and can't, or don't need to be shared with everyone. I encourage you to go read her post in it's entirety here. It is raw and poignant and beautifully transparent. Nothing I can say about it will do it any sort of justice so please go read it...if you want to read the rest of her posts while you're at it, I promise that you won't be disappointed.


Her words were exactly what I needed to hear today and it got me thinking about my own Somewheres. My girls. My people. The ones I hold dear to my heart and am very certain that I would not make it without. My words are failing to convey the deep and holy place they hold in my heart. Once again, it was music that said it more perfectly than I ever could. For the last month or so there has been a couple of lines in an old Point of Grace song that have been playing over and over again in my head.

If you weep, I will weep with you. If you sing for joy the rest of us, will lift our voices too.

A few days ago I found myself with a house full of people and a desperate need to escape for a minute to clear my head. Every few moments another one of my girls appeared to check on me until there were 4 of us sitting on the floor of my not-so-huge bathroom. As we talked and cried and laughed, I looked around at their sweet faces and felt gratitude overflow my heart. They all left the party to sit on my (less than clean) bathroom floor just so I wouldn't be sitting there alone. How could I ask for anything more than that?

But no matter what you feel inside there's no need to pretend...

Whatever one of us is going through, the rest rally around to celebrate or encourage or just sit in the silence. There is no room for judgment or guilt or shame when we are together. We wouldn't dare mar the beauty of the haven we've built with something ugly. It is a safe place for each of us to come and share our burdens, concerns, joy & many, many cocktails. No matter what, day or night, full make-up, or with mud masks on, my people will meet me wherever I am.

Even when that place is a dirty bathroom floor.

I'm still looking up

When I look into your eyes

It's like watching the night sky

Or a beautiful sunrise

Well there's so much they hold

And just like them old stars

I see that you've come so far

To be right where you are

How old is your soul?

I won't give up on us

Even if the skies get rough

I'm giving you all my love

I'm still looking up

And when you're needing your space

To do some navigating

I'll be here patiently waiting

To see what you find

'Cause even the stars they burn

Some even fall to the earth

We've got a lot to learn

God knows we're worth it

No, I won't give up

I don't wanna be someone who walks away so easily

I'm here to stay and make the difference that I can make

Our differences they do a lot to teach us how to use the tools and gifts

We got yeah, we got a lot at stake

And in the end,

You're still my friend at least we didn't tend

For us to work we didn't break, we didn't burn

We had to learn, how to bend without the world caving in

I had to learn what I got, and what I'm not

And who I am

I won't give up on us

Even if the skies get rough

I'm giving you all my love

I'm still looking up

I won't give up on us

God knows I'm tough, he knows 

We got a lot to learn

God knows we're worth it

I won't give up on us

Even if the skies get rough

I'm giving you all my love

I'm still looking up...

One Word 365

For each new morning with its light,

For rest and shelter of the night,

For health and food, for love and friends

For everything Thy goodness sends.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Rather than setting resolutions for the new year, each January I select a word to focus on during the coming months.  For the past month I have been all set with a word, knowing exactly what I want, just waiting for January 1st to roll around.  In order to spare you a lot of boring back and forth, I will skip to the end where I shelved my original word and decided to go with the word that continued to present itself to me.

Gratitude.

Because I am the super nerd that I am, I went over to Merriam Webster to see what they had to say about my word.  They define gratitude as "the state of being grateful".  It immediately became clear why this word was swirling around in my head.  I am not ungrateful for the blessings in my life, but I do not live in a state of gratitude.  I feel strongly convicted that there is room in my core for change.  The following quote by JFK sums up exactly how I am feeling.

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.

I don't want to just say thank you for the things in my life.  I want to change my perspective so that I wake each morning grateful for a good nights sleep instead of groaning that I don't want to get up.  I want to be grateful for the legs that carry me down the stairs in my warm, cozy house instead of grumbling that the coffee maker is ALL THE WAY DOWN STAIRS.  Don't get me wrong, I don't want to turn into Mary Poppins, but I have an abundance of blessings that I need to start acknowledging.  

Do you have any words that you will be focusing on this year?  Please leave them in the comment and hop on over to http://oneword365.com/ to find other members of your tribe!

A Lifetime of Bows

My daughter was very very sick when she was born.  She had to be transferred to Children's Healthcare and spent a total of six weeks in the NICU before we were able to bring her home.  This was from the post the night that I came home from the hospital without her.  She was still on a paralytic so we could not touch her, nor had she opened her eyes or wiggled or moved at all.  She was on 95% oxygen supplement and they were hours away from putting her on ECMO, which is essentially life support for infants.

"My soul trusts in You; and in the shadow of Your wings I will make my refuge, until these calamities have passed by."  Psalm 57:1

He is good ALL the time and we are resting in His love and peace tonight.

Sweet Jesus, I ask that you put your healing touch on our baby girl.  You are the Ultimate Physician and there is no doctor on this earth who can heal her the way that you can.  Touch her with your hands and let her feel nothing but love pouring over her.  We are placing her life in your hands, Lord.

As I was writing the above post, this song came on by David Crowder:

Lord I'm tired, so tired from walking

And Lord I'm so alone

And Lord the dark is creeping in

Creeping up to swallow me

I think I'll stop, rest here awhile

And this is all that I can say right now

And this is all that I can give

And this is all that I can say right now

And this is all that I can give, it's my everything

The song goes on for a couple more verses, but you get the gist.  I published the post and walked into her room, locking the door behind me.  I laid down in the middle of her floor and sobbed into the blanket that I had made for her because I didn't think she was ever going to get to use it.  I literally cried so hard that I broke the blood vessels under my eyes.  (Bear in mind also, that I had abdominal surgery two days prior and still had stitches in my belly).  I finally got up after a couple of hours because it was time to pump milk again.  The next day I went to the NICU and sat there, looking at her tiny little body, put a pink bow in her hair and prayed that it would not be the only bow I ever got to put in her hair.  Please, please, please Lord, give me a lifetime of bows with her.  Those words.  Those exact words.

This morning we were standing in the bathroom brushing our hair together and she asked me to braid hers.  In typical rushed mommy fashion, I was about to say no, that we were running late, and this song came on  my ipod.  I stared into my daughters perfectly healthy, beautiful face and heard This is what you prayed for...stop and savor it.  And I did.  I braided her hair and kissed her sweet freckled cheeks and we went to school five minutes later, incredibly aware of just how different life could be right now.

Thank You, Lord, for showing me a glimpse of Your glory this morning.  Thank you for reminding me to savor these moments with my daughter that are passing with alarming speed.  More than anything though, thank You, thank You for giving me a lifetime of bows...

I could not ask for more

You all know the song.  I could not ask for more, blah, blah, blah.  I have always, always hated that song.  Everyone in my age bracket was using it for a wedding song and were all dreamy and in love.  I (ever the cynic), rolled my eyes and kept right on wishing for more, hoping for more, dreaming of more.  In fact the more I tried to convince myself that I had everything I could possibly ask for, the more my heart protested that there were SO many things that I was missing.

I set out on a journey.  I found a boy who was a dear friend and who had been chasing me pretty much since he met me.  I looked at him and thought, "no one will ever love me as much as he does.  After all, he's been chasing me for YEARS even though I have given him no indication that I wanted to date him."  In fact, I went to my senior prom with said boy and I am fairly certain that the video is floating around somewhere in which I said that I wouldn't marry him if he was the last man on earth.  So, what did I do?

I married him.  And I bought a house.  And I had a baby.  Because that's what you do.  And this thing over here that I had stuck a pin in?  It decided it didn't want to be pinned anymore.  

Fast forward through a lot of years and a lot of crap and a lot of back story that is in no way shape or form interesting...because I'm nothing if not succinct.  HA!

Today I was humming along to this tune in my head and all of a sudden I realized that it was THAT song.  The one I hated.  And all of a sudden.

I got it.

I packed a lunch and kissed goodbye to a beautiful woman that I am falling for in a ridiculous way.  I put on a new skirt and new shirt that I bought this weekend (guilt free).  I left my white picket fence house and went to work at my completely stable job.  I had a very surreal conversation with my ex-husband about his impending engagement with his new girlfriend.  I talked about diamonds and honeymoons and if my child was going to be a flower girl.  And I felt nothing but thrilled for him to find someone who made him happy.  I picked up my amazing kid from daycare who calls me mother and is pretty much the best thing on the planet.

I literally have every single thing that I could possibly have ever dreamed of, along with some things that are everything I didn't know I wanted. And finally, I understand what all those silly girls were talking about all those years ago.

I have all I've waited for and I could not ask for more.

I Am Not Worthy

Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance.

The five stages of grief.  I move through them, circling, rewinding, progressing, repeating the first four steps so many times I lose count.  I feel as though I have moved on to acceptance.  I let my guard down a fraction of an inch to exhale, but grief is a sneaky bitch.  She reaches out an iron fist to squeeze my heart once again.  There are times that I can see the blow coming and can shield myself from the brunt of it.  But she has caught me in a moment of vulnerability and I am blind sided by the force with which it struck me.  My breath catches in my lungs, frozen in place, while tears well up in my eyes.  I don't even realize that they are streaming down my face until the collar of my shirt is soaked with them.  I feel a hand reach out to grasp mine and that is my undoing.  The breath that has been frozen releases in a sob as I bury my face in her neck.  Time stands still.  I feel nothing but the waves of grief washing over me.  As the pain subsides and the clock begins to move again, I am acutely aware of a voice whispering in my ear. I love you.  I am here.  Always.  I love you.  No matter what happens, I will always be here.  I love you.  I am here. I love you. I am here. I love you.  Her arms are around me and she is gently rocking my broken body back and forth, stroking my hair, soothing my soul. The abundant love that is so freely shared humbles me.  

Here tonight in this space I feel the love that passes all understanding.  I feel the grace of God in human form.  An angel that has stood in the divide and covered the gap. 

I am reminded again that the pain of what I have lost cannot begin to compare with the magnitude of what I have gained.  

I am not worthy. 

I am not worthy.