The Story of Hope {poetry}

Tell me the story of hope

and dreams

and tomorrows

that start with the bright sunrise.

Tell me the story of hope

and love

and feeling together,

even when our hearts are so far apart.

Tell me the story of hope

and mercy 

and the courage

to face every day with a smile.

Tell me the story of hope

and the wait 

in between

with the ache of expectation.

Mostly just tell me of hope

and its reason,

and patience produces

something far beyond imagination.

Just keep telling me of hope

till it's as natural as breathing,

and let my heart hope,

Even when smothered underneath 

this constant sorrow

and this long winter

because hope knows spring comes.

Hope knows.

***

I hope all of you are doing well! There's a lot going on here. Lots of Christmas preparations (Can you believe Christmas is in only two weeks?!) and getting ready for some family to come. It feels busy, and I'm just trying to stay on top of the waves (hence the reason the blog was quiet for two weeks. Good grief, I never seem to be able to keep to good schedules/systems/habits). How's your Christmas celebrations coming? Are you finished with your shopping? I am, mostly. Thanks to Amazon. I have my whole bedroom, but somehow all my gifts end up on the end of my bed?? What's your favorite Christmas traditions? 

Soul-Filling Silence

Let's go find a lake

Somewhere they won't find us,

Somewhere the noise

Inside my head 

Quiets or goes away.

Let's just sit here for awhile

As I remember

What it is to...be,

And please remind me

Who I am without the moving --

The constant, restless moving

And the doing.

It's something

I always seem to forget.

Maybe if you remember,

Some of the voices in my head

Will learn to just be quiet.

I'll know what stillness is

Apart from this running away

Into the hills to finally breathe.

Can we be quiet by these waters

And fill our lungs with air,

Sitting shoulder to shoulder

In this place, this connection,

Free from despair?

I'll look at you and smile.

You'll just smile back.

We won't need words here

In this soul-filling silence

Because I know I'm safe with you.

I am always safe with you,

And you'll remind me

I'll be alright. 


+++

I tried entering a poetry contest. I didn't place, but it's alright because if my poetry can somehow slip into the cracks in my heart and maybe resound in one or two other people's lives, then I'm content. Where are your happy places? Where do you go to escape your brain and life? 

Perfection & Compassion

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

courage to change the things I can,

and wisdom to know the difference.

Oh dear heart, I see you and I feel your exhaustion. I feel the weight of a burden too heavy you've been carrying on your shoulders and how it keeps forcing you to your knees. You keep pushing and pushing and pushing. I know because I do the same, and it seems the only way I learn this lesson of grace and compassion is on my knees, stripped of the moorings I've used in my life, with a keen awareness of my inadequacy.

We keep chasing after a perfection we think is possible to achieve without God's grace and righteousness, but it is only an illusion, a hole in the floor we fall into time after time. This hole is a suffocating place to pull ourselves out of. In this desolation, we have no hope but to cast ourselves on God's mercy and compassion, as if surrender is a last resort when it should have always been our first hope.

Why is it so hard for some of us to learn compassion for ourselves? Maybe we're molded by expectations set too high by those older than us. Maybe our environment, circumstances, or a fear of failure and disappointment formed us. If we do all things well, then we won't have to rely on this thing-- this compassion, this grace -- that doesn't make sense, that has no justice in it.

Maybe we'll never know the cause of this cruelty toward self, but it's there deep inside of us, worked into our very core -- the idea we are somehow unworthy of compassion from others, and especially from ourselves to ourselves. Oh, we would bleed from our very cores for others to know compassion and grace. We would fight for others to know rest, to know how it is to lay aside their load of expectations, their drive to do better, always to do better. What have we done so unforgivable that others are deserving of this grace but we are not?

Why can't we grasp onto the compassion God has extended and extends to us? If we cannot learn to accept God's compassion, then we will never be able to accept compassion from others or our own selves. This cycle will repeat endlessly.

We are torn equally between mind and heart. Logic and feelings. We have both, so what is missing? We raise high standards, impossible standards and become frustrated when we can never reach them. We fight against every aspect of being human with all our strength. Our wheels spin until we're burned out, and how do you come back from being burned out? How do you learn compassion for self and remember God's voice isn't the same as the condemning voice constantly on inside of your head?

We latch onto truth and forfeit grace in exchange as if the two could not exist together. Randy Alcorn writes, "People thirst for the real Jesus. Nothing less can satisfy. Grace and truth are His fingerprints. We show people Jesus only when we show them grace and truth. Anything less than both is neither."

Anything less than both is neither. 

There is no hope in truth and subsequent condemnation (I have fallen short and sinned, and now I am separated from God). There is only hope in compassion (I have sinned, and I sin, but God knows my frame is only dust. He knows. He knows. Beyond this, 'He who believes in Him is not condemned' - John 3:18a. We are not condemned. In fact, Jesus is in Heaven now as our great intercessor. As we condemn ourselves again and again, He intercedes.).

Yet, we believe so strongly in our pursuit of perfection that the pieces of scripture we let penetrate our mind show our pursuit to be right. The words condemn us because we are nowhere near where we are called to be. After all, perfect love casts out fear, and the very pursuit of perfection is driven by fear. 'Be perfect as your Father in Heaven is', and if we are not perfect or striving toward perfection with all our strength, then are we even trying?

We seem to forget how lopsided this arrangement of eternal life is in the first place. If we don't grasp a small inkling of how unimaginably absurd it is that we should have this gift, then we'll never know of God's heart. We'll never believe grace and compassion in all their wonderful colors.

Oh, if only we could take to heart the things we are shown of God's mercy, grace, and compassion. "For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted [persistent pain or distress, great suffering]; Nor has He hidden His face from him; but when he cried to Him, He heard." (Psalm 22: 24). God does not despise us, the poor and striving. He delivers the needy (Psalm 72: 12-14). We are the needy. Their blood is precious in His sight (Psalm 72:12-14). Our blood is precious in His sight. He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds (Psalm 147: 3, 10). He takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His mercy (psalm 147: 11).

What He doesn't take pleasure in is the legs of men. He has no pleasure in our own strength (Psalm 147: 3), and yet, we do use our own strength. We fight for perfection almost entirely with our own strength, and we forget we are human. God never forgets our frame of dust, but we do. We forget our goodness is nothing apart from Him (Psalm 16:2) and that it is God who arms us with strength and makes our way perfect (Psalm 18:32).

So what do we do? How can we rest on this grace and in this compassion? We must grasp hold of the fact God's perfection is enough. It is not simple or something we will learn in a day. Maybe it will take a lifetime. A lifetime of accepting humbling compassion and grace from others and from God and in time, letting ourselves rest. We will fail and fall short, but we must get up and try again. We need to remember to look past our rules, regulations, and goals to God's heart because there is an easier way than the one we've chosen.

Our God is the God who said: "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." (Matthew 11:28-30). Dear heart, let us run to Jesus with all our tiredness from trying so hard and heavy burdens of unrealistic expectations for ourselves and learn from Him. This is the only way to start.

***

This is something I've been struggling with a lot lately - compassion and perfection. Sometimes perfection has a way of sneaking into our thinking where we don't even realize how much we're influenced by it. I hope you felt love, compassion, and understanding as you read this. Do you struggle with perfectionism? What is something you do to offset that drive?  Happy Thanksgiving!

Maybe We'll Be Friends

Maybe we'll be friends

When we grow up

And fit inside another pair of shoes

And live another life,

Or maybe we'll only be neighbors

Who vaguely recall names

And the knowledge

We knew each other before.

We'll share similar scars

But only go skin deep.

We'll talk about the weather, 

Our cars

The jobs we keep. 

What about family?

No, we don't talk about our families.

They're the reason for our scars,

For our shallow, earthly conversations

With these people who share our lives.

Maybe we'll friends

When we grow up

And set out on our own

And cross a thousand deserts,

Only to return

To this familiar place

And make it our home.

Or maybe we could be lovers

Or friends who loved enough

To change the surface of our lives.

The thorns turn into roses.

The house needs new paint.

I think my wound started to bleed

As soon as you said hello. 

Maybe we'll be friends

When we both grow up,

Or maybe only friends right now

When something happened to align. 

Can we be friends for life?

I don't know half of what that means,

But it seems a lovely thing.

Maybe we'll be friends

When we both grow up

And fit inside another pair of shoes

And live another life. 

Two Years of Coddiwompling Along

I first started blogging in mid-2009. Like many of my other social media endeavors, I was pulled into it by a friend and had no idea what I was doing (still don't). Through the years I've gravitated from one blog to another. Sometimes it's hard to grow when you're stuck in the shadow of your younger self, and sometimes I just get the urge to set fire to everything and start over because I'm a perfectionist, and perfectionists want clean slates or you know, perfect ones. So I hopped from Where the Sun Shines to Scattered are the Writer's Thoughts to Trying to Fly to Coddiwomple with some months of absence in between.

I have had my ups and downs with blogging, but I'm not sad I started. It's not so much about this little corner of the world as it is the individuals I've come to know through joining this community. I mentioned in a post awhile back about one specific girl who influenced me most in my writing journey. Sadly, I lost contact with her, but her influence drastically changed my writing. Before I started following her blog and chatting with her, I had dabbled here and there in writing, but with her encouragement, I finished the first draft of my very first book. She even read some of my writing and overlooked my spelling and grammatical errors to see my potential #saintrightthere. If she hadn't given me that support, I'd probably have never written seriously and never reached the point where others could look at my writing seriously. There are no words to say to fully express my gratitude.

Without blogging, I also wouldn't have found GoTeenWriters, the second most important writing influence. I wouldn't have done a three-month writing mentorship which brought my writing up another level with its fine polishing. I wouldn't have found a fellow writer who was willing to read the second draft of my most important book so far and sweep me away with encouragement (and maybe I'm brave enough now to let others into my worlds). I wouldn't ever have known that my makeshift poetry wasn't just the stuff you write and hide in the bottom of some drawer. And I wouldn't have met a kindred spirit.

And that makes me glad.

Thank you to all who have read my blog, left comments, and loved my words. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you to Vanessa for being the first one to find my little corner and for sticking around the longest <3

A Post from Long Ago...

So I said I was going to post my first ever blog post, and I would have, but it's...it's beyond unepic. Essentially I talk about a jukebox I had installed at the bottom of my blog, and I thought it was the most awesomest thing ever. I pretty much used that first blog as an online diary under an alias (and I gave all my siblings 'code names' because my parents were careful about privacy. Ieuan, Sunaro, Brusselsprouts, etc. [I bet you can't guess which one was my sister]). It's great, in a very, very painful way. And I was faithful, more faithful than I am now, but oh, if only content was that easy to create :P. I finally settled on a post from my first blog (7 years back, not the whole 9) that had a little more substance. I hope you enjoy!

*Comes dashing in*
Imagine that! I haven't posted a post for a whole two days, unbelievable. Of course, I blame it on my book, ahem, a couple books to be specific.

Have you ever set about to type up some of your really old story stuff onto the computer? I mean the really old stuff. The days before you used line paper, punctuation, spaces etc. And when you look at the page you get this feeling of being real lost, and your eyes wander so that you keep on losing your place and sometimes you don't even know whose talking or what you meant when you typed this strange word. If you haven't then, *sigh* you don't know what I'm going through.

I'm typing up all my writing collection onto the computer for safe keeping. I am a pretty fast typer, when the pages are lined and understandable. Unfortunately, this isn't the case. So I usually spend a whole bunch of time typing up stuff on the computer, and by the time I'm finished my eyes are blurry and I feel like going absolutely crazy. So, I've been only getting a page of story in a day, plus a page of Beyond the Border that I wrote the previous day.

How is Beyond the Border coming? I'm losing some of my steam. Writing two pages (around 500 words) a day is starting to burn me out. I've reached the 57,000 mark and I'm puttering along. Today I left my character literally hanging, and she won't stop hanging for at least another 1,000 words (we hope more). The poor girl, what misery she has to go through for my sake. At least she has to be glad that I slightly changed her ending so it wouldn't make me cry. But this Damask Ofar guy is going to prove some trouble in the end. Oh yeah, and I'm contemplating about switching one of the numerous notgoodformuch guys into a girl so she (meaning Bethclaire for all those who are in confusion) isn't so alone in the world. I think I have the perfect character too.

Don't ask me about my story idea, it isn't coming along very good. Of course, I'm still recovering from my cold and I shared it with my brother so I was spending my days playing computer games with him (after I finished my writing of course) after all it was his Spring break. *Sniff, sniff* Only two more days till he goes back to school...and we have to put up with him going on about his classes (he's taking English, Spanish and Chemistry...or was it Biology?).

Oh back to the book. Twilight still won't let me into her world. So I decided I could only handle one complicated girl at once, so I put her on hold till Bethclaire's stories first draft is written out and then I may be able to have some brilliant idea about her.

I've also come to the conclusion that Beyond the Border can be a really good book with a lot of work.

Oh joy! *Looks at the clock and sees it is way past her bedtime*. Don't think I've surrendered to the late hours of a normal teen. This week has just been a little late. But I will get in bed earlier next week because my brother will (he has a bad habit of distracting me when I'm just about ready to go to bed). Besides I wanted to go to bed early today but we watched "Sense and Sensibility" The 2009 version.

Goodnight all! I hope you have a great weekend.

(Who is this person? Why does she seem so dramatic and energetic? Oh...but this person also put 'optimist' on her 'about me' page. So...yeah...)

Top Posts 

(These aren't the ones that appear on the sidebar BECAUSE my mom confessed she had saved my blog on those two music posts...so...)

I'll Take You to the Mountains

The Safest Place to Land

Music (January 2018 Edition)

Personal Favorites

(These are just a couple of the ones that are especially close to my heart. It was hard to choose. I'm proud of a lot I've posted on this blog, and that's something nice to be reminded of) 

Dear Anxious Heart

To Love Well 1 & 2

My Loss of Words

Random Questions

(I asked for random questions, and you delivered. Well, mostly my Twitter pals delivered)

1. Where is your favorite place to buy shoes?

Amazon! So...I know that's not an exciting answer, but I usually buy Keen hiking boots and live in them until they fall apart. And my feet still hate me. 

2. What's your current favorite song?

Definitely 'Between You and Me' by Brandon Flowers. That song <3. I've been playing it on repeat, and I hardly ever do that. 

3.If you could travel anywhere, where would you go?

Somewhere with a castle! Or the Swiss Alps because I do so love mountains. 

4. If you could star as a character in a book or remake of a movie, which character would you be?

Hmm. Maybe Muggles from The Gamage Cup. She'd always says funny things that actually make complete sense. 

5. Favorite food?

Anything cooked over the campfire on a camping trip. It can be so simple, but it tastes soooooo good. And you never seem to be too full when you're eating out beneath the stars. 

6. Favorite artform (applied?) Favorite artform (to consume)?

Probably writing, with playing instruments a close second. And I love listening to music. Somedays it's my only lifeline <3

7. Favorite genre of books?

Speculative fiction! (Or Christian non-fiction)

8. Thoughts on space?

I love space, although my knowledge of it does not equal my love of it. For some reason, other than the fact I have too many hobbies, I've never studied much astronomy, but I do love the night sky. Besides being in the mountains, nothing else fills me with such peace as lying outdoors at night and gazing into the sky and just looking at the moon.  

9. Favorite time of day?

Evenings/night! Especially in the Summer time when taking moonlit walks is easier. The high-elevation desert has cooled some. The world is stilled and so silent. Sometimes there's an owl hanging out in the neighbor's trees. The coyotes passing through. If I'm outdoors during that time, then all the trying and rushing inside my head pauses. I never want to go back inside.

10. What are your mornings like?

Not as peaceful as I'd like. For a great portion of my life, I used my nights as the time to get most of my creative work done, so subsequently, mornings became tough. I'm slowly working on setting my days to have more reasonable perimeters. If it's a good morning, I'll get up, take the dog on a walk, read my Bible/devotions, eat breakfast, and do some daily work at my Grandma's before heading to my job. 

11. Things that annoy you?

As the youngest, I didn't exactly get the luxury of being annoyed so there are very things that do annoy me. However, people who say they'll do things and don't do them get to me, and people who won't initiate. I'm trying to learn patience because humans are humans, but...ugh.

12. If you could talk to someone, living or dead, who would it be? 

Maybe Joni Eareckson Tada. She's been a lady I've admired since I was in my preteens, and I've read so many books by her/about her, including the devotion I'm reading through right now. She has been given so much wisdom through her suffering, and she has let God use her in so many ways. I think just spending time with her would be refreshing and edifying.


+++

What are some of your answers to these questions? When did you start blogging? Have you stuck on one blog through the years? What's your favorite part of this community? Thank you! <3

In Crushing Blows

Hope comes in crushing blows

And smiles that never last.

Life likes to prove it so

With love that never lasts.

People say they will

And make promises 

They won't even try to keep,

And we'll just let them go.

They're human --

What else do you expect?

If I could put a band aid on every broken hope--
But no, we haven't time or space

To travel down that road.

It's just enough to know

That hope hurts

Much like despair.

Sometimes I wonder what's the point

Of one and not the other.

Hope is something
I cannot bear.

It bursts at every seam

Like sorrow

And cannot be pinned down,

Contained with perfect words.

What is one 

Without the other?

Sorrow and hope. 

For every light burned out

And every dream pulled down,

One holds the other's hand.

We mourn as much 

For hope as for the thing that dies,

And all our sorrows double.

Hope comes in crushing blows

And laughter on the summits,

Somewhere just out of reach.

Hope walks hand in hand 

With love that never lasts

And promises left out to dry

And aching battles repeated

Till something else gives up and dies,

Unable to capture hope

Within these flaw-filled hands.

Hope postponed creates despair,

But hope fulfilled

Pulls the band aids off my heart

And multiplies my joy. 

+++

Again, not the post I was planning for this week, but life happened, and I'm trying to give myself breathing room when things don't work out and time doesn't behave.

Do any of you write poetry/prose? I'd love to see it if you're up for sharing!

The Letter in the Tree

You must have watched me climb that tree at least a thousand times. You must have watched from some hiding place beyond the garden wall, and in retrospect, it should make me die of embarrassment and self-consciousness -- the idea you watched me the first few times when I climbed it as if I was climbing a cliff's side and those sturdy branches were like rocks that might shift and let me fall. And you heard me sing as I climbed it with ease to sit upon my branch and gaze out at the world and the sunsets and the snowfalls and the first rain of autumn. You watched me climb it methodically as my shoulders shook from the tears I couldn't smother underneath the surface. And you had seen those tears.

But your words, the letter -- I felt as though you were as familiar to me as the tree or the tree was as familiar to you as it is to me. You must have climbed it once to tuck the letter where I would find it, but did you climb it more? Was your branch the same as mine? I wouldn't mind if it is. Just don't forget it's my tree.

How'd you know I'd show up before the wind blew the paper and the words away? Or the rain came and made your words swim? Did you wait to see me coming before you scaled over the wall and left me the gift of your letter? The imprint of your kindness into the corner of my lonely world? Why'd you leave it for me?

Were my thoughts really so loud as I swung my legs back and forth below my branch? Did you just watch me in those shared moments? How many hours were we together when I was unaware of you? Why didn't you ever let me know you were there?

We must have sat in companionable silence a hundred times or more, and you never once spoke, but maybe I knew you were there all along because I never felt alone out on my branch in my tree. I went in loneliness, in the times I couldn't breathe, and then...and then I was alright.

Why did you wait so long?

***

When I first started blogging many years ago, it was mostly just because and mostly random and every which way. I'd start blogs on a whim, too. One of the blogs I started was called 'The Lockbox'. It housed a story I started. A story in second-person. Up till then I hadn't really shared my writing (for so many good reasons), but I did, and The Lockbox story ended up being one of the first pieces of writing I was...happy with. I felt there was something beautiful in it (it's debatable whether or not that was actually true). It's also my first grammatically half-correct piece of writing. Second-person story writing is...yeah...an undertaking, but back then I didn't realize it. 

Nowadays with poetry, I do a lot of second-person writing, and there's a mystery to it I've grown to like. Anyway, this past week I did some free writing to escape the editing monster and all its dark henchmen, and I came up with this (though, it's been an idea floating around in my mind for awhile. I've wanted to write a children's story or something to highlight a friendship through letters since that's something I've experienced). Have you guys ever tried to write anything in second-person? What do you think of it? 

Lastly, I did find out how I could access my old blogs. So I have a lot of lovely, totally not embarrassing, blog posts to share on my blogiversary post. Before this post comes into existence, do you have questions you'd like me to answer if I do a question and answer thing? 

Favorite movies? Favorite books? Most inspiring individuals? Favorite food? Favorite album of all-time? First CD I ever got? Favorite childhood memory? Things that annoy me the most? What it's like to be the youngest (or did you guys even know that about me?)? I really don't know so, please, help. Shower me with questions in the comments!

I'm Back & Other Important Stuff

*Photo Credit: My friend S. J.*

Yep, I'm back! There's still a lot things I have to figure out about time management, where social media fits into things, how to be less affected by certain aspects of it, etc, but that's life. How have all of you been? What was the highlight of your Summer? Thanks so much to those of you who left sweet comments on my last post. It's so nice to know you were missed <3 

As I get back into the swing of things, I'd like some input into what I post here. What kind-of posts do you enjoy the most of mine? Any suggestions on how to restructure things? I have some ideas I'd like to write about that are close to my heart, and I do so hope I fight to have the time to develop them. I hate doing things halfheartedly, and I know this last Summer, my corner was neglected. I was here but just barely. My favorite part of social media as a whole is connecting with you guys so I would like to do better answering comments and reading your blogs, but also I'd like to feel I'm producing genuine and worthwhile content. I really appreciate you sticking around as I (try to) figure this whole thing out.

Looking ahead, I'm debating whether to do a blog birthday post (even though it's a month late). Maybe I can dig up the very, very first blogpost I ever typed up (from my first blog when I was...12?), highlight my most popular posts (which aren't necessarily the ones in my sidebar...because of reasons *ahem*) and/or the posts I personally think should've have been more popular (funny how that seems to work). Anybody interested in that?  What else would you find interesting? A question and answer? (No vlogs, though. Nope, nope, not gonna happen. My commitment doesn't stretch that far...yet...).

 

Please comment below with all your lovely suggestions and life stuff! 

Please? 

I'm Taking a Social Media Break!

Hey guys, this is just a quick note to say I won't be around for the next two months. It's been a rough Summer,  and I desperately need this break for my mental health. I need time to refresh and refocus.

I appreciate all of you who have read my blog and commented, and I hope you'll stick around till the first or second week of October (which means I'll miss my blog's Birthday again. Oh well) when I'll be back!

Take care! <3

Unexpected Admission to Guilt

Please go ahead and fix me,

If you think I'm fixable.

(Tall demand for human hands)

I just know I can't fix myself.

I can't sew these holes back up.

Can't find the soil

To fill the ditch.

Isn't it time yet?

Don't you think I've been broken long enough?

(Oh yes, you know I'm broken.

You're close and study all my flaws).

I don't think I can hide these scars,

These newest medals of my falls.

The secret will get out.*

*Surprise I'm only human

(Unexpected admission to guilt).

I breathe and bleed the same as you,

Just as shattered into two.

(But still, you might be better

So I'll check for sure

-Can you fix this brokenness?)

I'm not where I'm supposed to be.

I should be farther.

I should be perfect,

(Because everyone else is,

Because that's where perfection is)

Not just where eyes can see

But everywhere.

(And this glue doesn't work.

It doesn't do me any good.

Neither do the nails, the screws,

Everything I use)

Do you think I'm fixable?

(Or worth fixing,

Worth the time it takes

To put me back together)

Then go ahead and fix me.

Put hand and foot together. 

(I am so desperate to feel

I don't care how other hands believe

I should be put together)

Here I am more broken.

Perfection

-Tall demand for human hands. 

+++

I've been thinking a lot about the lies we end up believing (even when the voice of logic tries to poorly [if you're anything like me] counteract them). So many of the voices inside of our heads have just a bit of truth to what they say, just enough to make us stumble over them. Sometimes logic tells us that the pit we've fallen into is all our fault or that we're overreacting to circumstances or reading into other people's actions or lack of actions. It's our fault, and we should fix it. 

I'm trying to learn to fight those thoughts, to recognize that our minds are battlefields (and so often, they are our primary battlefields). We belittle the thoughts and emotions as if they're just a result of a 'funky' mood, when they are the evidence of a battle erupting. It's so important that we tackle the unhealthy thoughts entering our mind before they make their home there. We have too much at stake to we give up our ground to them. It's the easiest battle to lose, and it's the most important to win.

My posting may be a bit irregular because another of my brothers is visiting, and it is enough to work, sleep, and peoplize. 

Safest Place to Land

Maybe you're the safest place to land,

And maybe that's alright.

(Oh, but underneath

The fear shakes my firm belief)

Who are you, really?

- Just another disappointment,

Just another piece of floor

Pulled out from underneath my feet. 

(I hope, I hope it isn't true

-That hope hasn't deceived me

Like it has before)

It's hard for me to trust,

To lay myself right open, 

But I don't want any

Conditional love masked as something

That will actually last.

But you seem like a safe place to land,

The safest place I've seen in days.

Your lights are on,

Welcoming beacons for a weary traveler,

And my heart is weary

And worn. 

I'd like to put down my bag,

And please, don't be impatient

If I linger at your door.

I'm testing all the boards

Just to see if something creaks.

You deserve the benefit of the doubt,

But be patient with my heart.

They've walked across it 

A few times for good measure. 

It's never been that strong,

And now it isn't even. 

And I'm learning about forgiving

And healing and forgetting,

And you were there 

When I sent out a desperate flare.

So, maybe, do you think-

(Don't be afraid to say no.

I'll take the truth

Better than all these bitter lies.

I'm tired of these bitter lies)

-You could be my place to land?

I didn't give you preparation

Or lay some good foundation

For a smooth, predicted landing, 

But that doesn't even matter

Because I see you from way up high

As I plunge down in burning flames,

And you are here with all your lights turned on,

And maybe you're the safest place to land. 

Stolen Joy

There. I've done it once again.

Let get beneath my skin.

And you steal away my joy.

I've let you in

To steal away my joy.

I've let you 

Come too close and touch me

Where I'm broken most.

It ached

-This broken piece of me,

Only shattered more by a touch

That will never linger.

And now you know.

You have to know

Where lies my greatest flaw,

And so you sneak right in

To steal and destroy

My hope and my joy.

Hope and joy.

Why did I let you take them?

Why did I let you

Have this power over me?

No, you won't steal anymore

Than what I've let you steal.

You won't take away our memory.

Your face won't replace

The one I know and love.

You've changed,

But that doesn't mean she has

-- That girl,

The one inside my memory.

She wouldn't take my joy,

And so I take it back.

And I won't let you

Ever sneak beneath my skin.

I have room for a memory,

But there's no room for you.

Runaway

I think...

I think I'd like to runaway

And be a runaway

As long as it's with you.

Otherwise I wouldn't even

Last a single day.

Let's just leave our lives

And forget

About this aching pain.
Let's toss out all our troubles

And find some odd adventure

In forests and on mountain peaks.

I think...

I think it'd be enough-

You and me and God

And our conversations

And our own creations.

I don't think 

Anything could make me come right back

To what my life was like before.

I don't think 

I could bear this loneliness again

Or never seeing that face of yours

Or hearing what you have to say

To make the darkness lighten every day.

I think...

I think I'd stay a runaway

Because if I could just

Pack my bags and go,

I might outrun 

My loneliness and

My disappointment

And find some place

That's quiet to stay

Until my mind is silent.

I think...

I think it'd only work

If you were there with me. 

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Hey guys, I didn't intend on taking a two week break from blogging, but my brother and his family came to visit (which meant I met my nephew for the very first time!! He's just the sweetest little guy <3), and everything fell by the wayside. I have some other types of posts in the works, but for now, as I catch back up, I thought I'd post more poetry. 

I hope all of you are doing well! What's been happening in your lives?  

Perspective

You were so broken,

And I wanted to fix you,

To piece back together

The parts that have left you, 

To set your heart back to beating

The steady rhythm that I know,

But how could I fix you

When I'm as broken myself?

I don't know what it is to be whole,

But I've always imagined you were.

It must be my fault, then,

That I now see this new fracture .

I set you too high,

And now you have too far to fall.

No, you've already fallen

And shattered high flying theories of life

- my high flying theories of life,

But now that I know you are broken,

Will you let my hands touch your scars?

Will you let me close enough

-Close enough to put two pieces back together?

My hands don't know how to be gentle,

But I'll learn.

I won't use the same touch

As I cruelly use on myself.

I'll even approach on tiptoes

To keep from frightening your soul. 

I see you reach out your hand

As I slip into your land.

"Come close. Don't be afraid."

I lift up my eyes at your voice 

And wonder and stare and smile.

"You are broken - let me fix you."

I stand where I am 

-Your words are my words,

Only said in reverse.

You see my brokenness,

And I see your fractures.

I don't know how to fix you,

But I hope you will fix me,

Or maybe we'll learn

-Learn to fix one another

Or maybe we'll learn

To live broken together. 

Screenshots of May

Let me hide away in these pages

Because it is safe within these pages.

They can't hurt me within these pages.

So what if love can't find me here?

Love isn't some cure for hurt.

It multiplies the aftershock of angry words,

Of careless words thrown at a misunderstood heart.

Should have said it then.

Should have said it to your face.

Should have said it

Before you were in too deep.

You could have left me on the beach. 

What have we lost because we would not sacrifice ourselves? 

Your emotions are fuel for the fire,

And I've been fighting my own desire. 

I gave you a piece of my broken,

But I should have waited.

It wasn't ever what you wanted. 

Love lives long enough

For you to forget

About a life

Where you survived

Without her. 

May was filled with a couple day adventures. Horse riding in the foothills. Tandem biking by the Columbia river. And a whole lot of the outdoors and green things and planting the beautiful seedlings I started in my green house and picking my first bunch of radishes. And I started maybe realizing my garden can look beautiful even if I see the weeds that need to be pulled. And finding my peace out there again. Now I need to find my peace from day to day.

Mostly my energy was sucked up with relationships and work. I did bake two pies. Tried my hand at a strawberry-rhubarb which I made for a friend's Birthday, and I remembered how much I do love baking. And once again I remembered I can mostly do anything I put my mind to in the kitchen. Now if I only felt that way about all things life.

I'm sorry for not getting around to visit all your blogs, but I'm trying to pull myself in and start fresh. And it's definitely a challenge. I hope you all had a lovely May and your June is looking bright!

To Love Well (Part Two)

(Read part one here)

I feel there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people. - Vincent Van Gogh

     If we are artists, what kind of artists are we? If we are Christ-lovers, what should we be known for? What do you want to be known for? If we believe our lives consist of more than what we create, do we dare to live that belief wholeheartedly? Do we dare to learn how to love well, even if that means the sacrificing of ourselves or our own comfort?

     It is when the lives of others are messiest that they desperately need us to walk beside them in silence for that stretch of broken road. It'd be easier for us to stand just beyond the splatter screen unaware of the darkness inside they battle with just like us. Somewhere safe where we don't have to know of the wars they rage against their own brokenness, and this brokenness -oh, we know it so painfully well. This brokenness looks a lot like us.

     And that hurts because we're repulsed by our own crippled limbs. We'd like to think we have it together or are somehow better, but we grow weary, too, and become too tired to fight, too discouraged to hope. We get torn down, and then we are most vulnerable to temptations, to those pesky little thorns which dig into our sides out of others’ view. And the weariness cripples our ability to fight. We succumb and hide our shame because we should know better, and we do, but we’re so tired. We're so broken. It hurts to see the same brokenness in another. How are we even capable of love, let alone some kind of artistic love?

      Although we are broken, we are far from useless. Somehow, with all our flaws, God can use us in unimaginable ways. He has this knack of making broken things beautiful, artistic even.

     For example, in a portion of Joni Eareckson Tada’s autobiography, The God I Love, she relates the events following an accident that left her a quadriplegic at 17-years-old. Joni spent many lonely hours in the hospital questioning God as she tried to wrap her mind around this new way of life.

     One night after visiting hours, a friend she never considered particularly ‘close’ to snuck in and spent the night with her. For those hours, she was able to forget where she was and what was happening. She was a normal teenager having a slumber party with her friend.

     In the grand scheme of things, the action might have seemed so small, but it wasn’t. Later when Joni was asked where the turning point was after her accident, she always pointed to that night and said it was the best thing a person could do for a paralyzed girl.

     I read that story, and I stopped. Could I be a friend like that? Could I be brave enough to be that close to someone’s hurt? Joni didn’t write that her friend tried to fix her sadness or tell her it was going to be all right. Joni wrote that her friend just laid beside her and sang, "Man of Sorrows".

      In the same situation, I would make so many excuses. Rules. I can’t break the rules. Maybe she doesn’t really want company. I even make excuses for my selfishness because of my unwillingness to drastically break routine. Or just because of fear. Fear of being that intimate with someone else.

     This depth of relationship isn't something that is just nice. God gave us friends specifically for these dark hours. In 1 Timothy 2:1 (NKJV), Paul writes: "Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men."

     Intercession - that is such a strong word. It means we’re pleading for someone else. We're asking on behalf of someone else's soul, and those are the prayers all of us desperately need not just in the hardest places of life but every day.

     You know the first scene in It’s a Wonderful Life? It’s the one where the prayers of almost everyone in town are being sent up to Heaven on behalf of George Bailey. It may be just a fictional story, but I can’t think of a better picture of intercession than that.

     If we never open ourselves up to that kind of relationship to begin with, how will anyone ever know the sadness behind the offhanded, "If you could pray for me, that’d be great." Prayers are the very lifeline a person needs. There will be days when each of us will desperately need people to go before the throne of God, into the Holiest of Holies, on our behalf. That is nothing to be ashamed of.

     Some days we will be the ones whose hearts plead for someone to come and just sit beside us. Someone who won't tell us the things we already know deep down or try to say we shouldn't feel these things. Some days all we will need is for someone not to be afraid of our desperation, of our human brokenness. Other days we will be the ones interceding on someone else’s behalf. Or maybe we'll be the answer.

     And this is the artistic love. It isn't perfect, but it is trying. It's doing the things we find hardest. Being brave enough to expose our own brokenness in order to share in someone else's vulnerability. It's giving our time. It's fighting tooth and nails for someone else's very soul. And it's praying. It's stepping back from being right, taking credit, pulling the attention to ourselves in order to be a channel, albeit a leaky one, of God's perfect love. This is what makes a masterpiece. 

To Love Well (Part One)

"I feel there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people." - Vincent Van Gogh

     A lot of us here are artists of some sort. An even greater portion are introverts, and the art we do takes a lot of our time and energy. With art, there is no definite arrival. There is always something else we can do, and let's be honest, we get swallowed in our passions, stuck in our creations. Who are we kidding? The act of creating and the creations appeal to us more than the outer world. 

     

     But what if we viewed our art as something more than the books we write, the visions we create, the music we make? What if we viewed our life as the art and those things we create as the means to better prepare for the tasks God gives us outside our hobbit holes? The tasks we are given in life are important, but what is the second greatest commandment given to Israel? 

     

      “You shall love your neighbor as yourself...” -Leviticus 19:18b (NKJV)

     Maybe Vincent Van Gogh was onto something. We are artists with pen and paper, with words and music and color, and that is noble and God-given, but what if our greatest artistic work is the love we learn to give others? 

     Love is the hardest thing to do. 

     “Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.” - 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8 (NKJV).

     In the KJV, they use the word ‘beareth’ which in Greek is a term stemming from a verb for the term ‘roof’. So instead of the image of someone carrying around a huge burden on their back, ‘love bears all things’ should create an image in our minds of us being a roof, a shelter over others. 

     It seems impossible, doesn’t it? How do we love another, especially in times of grief and deepest hurt when this strangely artistic but broken love is needed most? 

     You know that book in the bible where God lets Satan take away a bunch of stuff from a guy and then there’s a lot of chapters of talking and you feel a bit confused at the end? Oh yeah, Job. Towards the beginning of the book, after everything has been taken away from Job, his friends show up. 

     “So they sat down with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief was very great” - Job 2:13 (NKJV)

     Think about that. They sat with Job in silence for seven days and seven nights. Honestly it would probably have been better for him if they had kept silent because when they started talking, they were going to fix his situation by fixing him. They said a multitude of words that meant nothing because they could not see the whole picture. Then there was Job's wife that told him to curse God so he could just end his misery. This story is a good lesson, not just in trusting God’s character in all situations, but also what love doesn't do when someone is hurting. 

   

      So the whole 'you've done something to deserve this' isn't the right way to go about this artistic love? What is the right way then?

     I can't think of any Jesus lover who doesn't want to one day lead another individual to Him. We want to be a small part of saving someone else's soul, and so when we know someone who isn't a Christian, we imagine going into battle for that person's soul. 

     But what about our brothers and sisters, our best friends? That intense caring for souls can't stop as soon as someone comes to Christ. We wanted to save a soul from utter destruction, but then we continue on our merry way with maybe a nudge deep down that something may not be well, you know, if people are anything like ourselves. What about the bruises and the crippling? Do we care then? There's more to be done for a soul than just simply pointing it towards the path of salvation. 

     I know, when all is said and done, we can't be someone's salvation or make someone else's decisions for them. But if there is a chance for us to fight for them, for their souls, just till they catch their breath, just till they find their footing again, are we willing to do that? Are we willing to swallow them up with a Love not our own and give of ourselves? God can use us as a way to show someone His love, as a crutch to help someone go along their path for a little longer. 

     

     That's something we have to remember - sure, we want to fix the ones we love, and that's good and all, but we can't sew them up with feeble human hands. If we can't, there's no reason for us to be here, right? Hold up, they don't expect us to fix them and God certainly doesn't. 

     Sometimes it is enough to simply sit beside them in silence. To sit beside them in their darkness and become intimate with their brokenness, but do we dare?

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This is my 100th post! And somehow I'm still here.