Connecting the Pieces

These days are about making connections, putting together the pieces of my life. I twist them and turn them, finding the ways that they fit together best. It's like a puzzle without a single answer, where the pieces are always changing shape and needing to be moved again.

I wish I was a Benedictine, sometimes, with my routine set and most of my days looking roughly the same. I'm a creature of predictability, thriving when I know I have a schedule I can rely on. I want a steady rhythm to my days, and instead I have a wandering flow.

But there's a rhythm here, too. Not, maybe, of the traditional kind, though there are still enough hours in every day for work, for my soul, for my family, and for rest. And if the days aren't rhythmed, the weeks often are. The same tasks are done, just not always in the same places.

I find myself doing a lot more listening, these days, to God and to myself. When I listen, I know what comes next, what to do with these few minutes here and those over there. I know what is important when, and everything eventually gets done without any piece starving.

I know what it's like to starve, to feel hungry for 10 minutes alone because I've pushed myself to work through all the open space in my days. It's insistent and snappish, this hunger, and it doesn't go away for ignoring it or telling it to wait a couple of years. So I take time, here and there, as soul and spirit call, and find my work and family better for it.

Nothing feels completed these days, not most of the time. Laundry is done in fits and spurts, often over several days. Work is finished piecemeal, and even prayer serves the desperate interruptions of waking kiddos. But life is not about finding answers and maybe we are never really done, anyway.

Etching

I went away and came back with words written on my arm. They're in me now, in my skin, the skin that is me, and that's how I want it. I need them close, need to see them every day, so that I can live them and breathe them until they're more a part of me than my skin.

She saw them almost as soon as she saw me. "I want you to talk about the words on your arm," she said, and so I did. Happily. (And yes, she can have some of her own someday, with my blessing.)

I told her where the words came from, how Dame Julian loved God so much that she went to live alone so she could talk to Him all the time, and how she wanted to share God with other people, too, and so she wrote. Some of what she wrote, one small part, began to etch itself on my heart the first time I read it. "All shall be well . . . "

Then I told her how T.S. Eliot borrowed the Dame's words and added to their beauty, if that's even possible. And still they called to me.

And then my season of worry, of anxiety and learning how children make me vulnerable and fighting to come to terms with that. This season of knowing, eventually, that I have so much and that I cannot live on the edge it all hangs on. And these words, they remind me . . . remind me to return to myself, to my family and the kids, that I don't need to be afraid and so I can stay here, find gratefulness, and remember my calm.

I wanted them before my eyes, wanted them closer to me than I could get with writing them on paper or putting them in my phone, and so I had them inked under my skin. Already they help me breathe, help me remember and reorient in a way that nothing else has.

She doesn't understand, not yet, but she keeps asking for the story. I tell it, like I tell her the story on my icon and read her Bible stories, because I know understanding will grow as she does. And maybe, with these words etched on my arm and etching themselves on my heart, she will grow up breathing them like she breathes air.

Musings on Liturgy: Seeking Him

Call: Who is it that you seek?

Response: We seek the Lord our God.

Call: Do you seek Him with all your heart?

Response: Amen. Lord, have mercy.

Call: Do you seek Him with all your soul?

Response: Amen. Lord, have mercy.

Call: Do you seek Him with all your mind?

Response: Amen. Lord, have mercy.

Call: Do you seek Him with all your strength?

Response: Amen. Christ, have mercy. 

I first came to this part of the liturgy with responses very similar to the ones I had at the last part: Do I believe this? Can I really speak these words with any sort of honesty? Is my heart so focused on one thing that He is all I seek?

Then, I noticed the response. "Amen," means (loosely translated) "Let it be." Not in the Beatles sense, though sometimes I like to think of it that way when I'm praying about things I need to let go of. No, it means "Let it be," in the sense of, "May this be true. May reality match the words I've just spoken." And in that sense, I can pray these words all day long.

But that's just the first part. The second, "Lord, have mercy . . . Christ, have mercy," is the ages-old kyrie. Mercy, mercy, we all need mercy. Every minute of every day, we only live because mercy falls from heaven. It's no different when the acts that need mercy are all of the times, each day, when I seek something other than Him with some part of my being. 

And so the caller asks questions that very few people, if anyone, can truly say "Yes," to. But we can all say, "May that be true of me, and may the Lord have mercy on me when it is not." 

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There's an image that often comes to mind when I speak these words. There's a door (and in case you have a vivid imagination like I do, it's to a cave that looks something like Obi Wan's from Star Wars), and I'm standing outside of it. I start the liturgy in God's name, announcing, even if only to myself, my intentions to enter that place and find Jesus. Then I speak the "One Thing" words, which are my way of knocking, of announcing my presence to those who guard the door. 

When someone answers the door, they welcome me into a sparse stone vestibule and begin to question. "Who do you seek?" they ask, and I tell them. The questions, while I suppose they would weed out those who had truly come to the wrong place, are more like serious reminders of where I am and what I am doing there. "Are you here," they ask, "because you seek God, or are you looking for shelter from the rain?" Both might be valid reasons to come in, but they will each require different things from me as I journey on. 

In some ways, I suppose they are a screening process. Am I a pilgrim, looking for the Risen One, a Seeker not sure of Him for whom I search, or am I an Outsider, welcome but not yet understanding everything that goes on here? As I answer, I feel the welcome come. I'm not a Saint, not one who can say that I seek Him as I ought, but I am one who knows how He should be sought. 

Some days, that's the best I can do - I can continue to seek, and to seek how to seek. When I pray these words each morning, that's what I pledge to do.

Meditations on Liturgy: In the Name of the Father

In the name of the Father,

and of the Son,

and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

I don't remember the first time I said these words. I've said variations of them so many times that it all blends together. And in some ways, saying them is just habit. When I pray Morning Prayer, that's just how I start. So if nothing else, these words are a marker. "You're praying now," they say, "And you're praying to God." 

There are things I don't like about that fact. As a writer, I'm a firm believer that words are supposed to mean something and that these particular words are important. After all, I don't think Western Christendom would have started so many prayers that way if they weren't. 

There's a lot of truth, a lot of deep theology behind these words. They denote a triune God, and one with the persons we've come to label as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They mark the equality of each of these persons, and yet hint at order in their relationships because they're always referred to in the same order. While we tend to take all of these concepts for granted now, I know that many Christians did hard theological, psychological, and interpersonal work for years in order to hammer out these doctrines in ways that were as true as possible to Scripture. I know that people still work on them, refining them and nuancing them, to help Christianity as a whole have a better picture of who God is. 

These words also say that this is the God in whose name we pray. It's this God who has the characteristics we go on to delineate, this God who cares for use enough to listen to our words, this God who allows us to come close enough to say anything at all. 

And maybe it's here where words-as-marker becomes acceptable. In the hustle and bustle of my days, it's easy to forget to pray altogether or to make my prayer time as crazy as the rest of my hours. But when I say these words, I remember who I'm talking to and the gift it is that I have the ability to talk to him. I don't always think about Trinitarian theology, but I do begin to think about God. And the theology is there, somewhere in my thoughts. Maybe that's the true power of words: to take us to a place beyond words, to bring about a state of mind that's different from the usual, even if we don't consciously know how and why it's different. 

In the end, there's nothing wrong with words-as-marker. We all need to see the way laid out before us, sometimes. And these words function like the cairns that mark the way on a confusing trail. They help us (or at least, they help me!) stop and remember where I am and who I'm talking to. They denote sacred space and time, especially when they're used to do that time and time again. 

Meditations on Liturgy: The Sign of the Cross

Morning prayer always starts with the sign of the cross. Forehead, sternum, left shoulder, right shoulder.

* * *

I first made the sign of the cross when I started going to an Episcopal church during my last year of college. It was something I'd been afraid of, something Roman Catholic and, therefore, something sketchy. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to believe it did something magical to me or if, on the other hand, it meant nothing at all but was a ritual carried over from more superstitious days.

And so I didn't do it. For months, I participated in the liturgy but didn't cross myself. I wondered if anyone noticed and what they thought of me, or if they were all being properly devotional and so unaware of things happening outside the realm of their own souls. During that time, I got to know some of those people who crossed themselves, and they seemed normal to me. Sane, everyday, properly Christian people who came to church on Sunday and made the sign of the cross.

I don't remember who finally asked the question, but I was there when the priest answered it. "What does the sign of the cross mean?"

And he told us, then, that it was many things. Most common among these was a reminder of salvation. Making the sign of the cross said, "I believe in what Jesus did on the cross. I believe that I needed that, and that he did it for me."

Well, I could sign up for that one. Certainly, the cross had always been central in my understanding of the Christian faith. And, quite frankly, making the sign on my body seemed to be doing more about the cross than what I'd seen from many Christians.

But the priest went on. "Many use the sign of the cross to claim truths that are spoken during the liturgy. They use it to say 'This belongs to me, too.'" Thus, many make the sign of the cross when references are made to the name of Jesus (to claim his death and resurrection as their own), or when the words comment on the resurrection of the dead (to say that they will be among those who rise).

When I heard that, I began making free use of the sign during my liturgical practices. Making it seemed like an act of faith, or at least a reinforcement to faith, saying, "I believe this. No matter how I feel this morning, no matter how improbable it sounds, this is what I choose to believe in this moment, this morning."

* * *

I don't attend a liturgical church anymore. I still find my spiritual home in the words and phrases I said during that time, though, and in the sacraments and symbols I learned to love during my time at that church. And so I still cross myself, even in my current evangelical setting, I make the sign on my body when we talk about (or sing about) things that I want and need to claim as my own.

I suppose people are watching me do it (I support this claim with the fact that a number of them have mentioned it to me, over the years), and I know they don't always understand. I hesitate, sometimes, because I don't want my practices to be confusing to others or to keep them at a distance. 

At the same time, the sign of the cross has become something meaningful for me. It's my way of saying, "This isn't just an abstract idea, but something that I need." Jesus acted for me, and I want to remember that. 

And so, when given the option to open my prayers with the cross, I do it. The prayers before me aren't, after all, just words on a page, but something that I intend to pray from the center of myself. I can't always fulfill that intention. I get distracted, the baby cries, my anxieties and thoughts about the day take over. But I can always intend it, and so I begin with the sign of the cross.

Today I Believe

It's one day at a time around here right now. We're waiting on paperwork from the state on at least two different fronts, and they say the envelopes should arrive and yet they don't. I call and call and I might as well be talking to the wall, as effective as I am. My husband can't work in his new field without some of this paperwork, and so we're in a holding pattern. Again.

Lord, you have always given bread for the coming day,

And though I am poor, today I believe.

I'm tired. Pregnancy does that, and allergies and waking up and not being able to go back to sleep. I stare at the ceiling, wondering if it's better for the baby if I take the medicine or if I don't get the rest that I need. I imagine horrible things in those dark hours, tragedy and loss and things getting worse for us and not better. And when I do sleep I dream, strange sagas that don't seem much better than lying awake. 

Lord, you have always given strength for the coming day,

And though I am weak, today I believe.

Sometimes, it's hard for me to see any life for us but this one, this constant treading water, taking several steps forward only to take other ones back and find ourselves at the starting point once again. I trust, I grip God's hands when they're offered and pray, "Please, please, please," even when I don't know if it goes beyond the walls of my room.

Lord, you have always given peace for the coming day,

And though of anxious heart, today I believe.

I forget that we're fighting an enemy, that this life is a battle and every day, even the good ones, are days when we should be ready for attack. I forget, and I get weary, for carrying a sword is hard work. It looks glamorous on TV, I suppose, but the reality, this redeeming and transforming every moment that we're called to do, is a much more serious, mundane task than it appears. 

Lord, you have always kept me safe in trials,

And now, tried as I am, today I believe.

This world is not my home. I know that now, in ways that I didn't know it before. It's not my home, and I don't want it to be. But that doesn't mean I shouldn't see the beauty, shouldn't love the stolen moments when my girlie smiles her toothy grin and he takes my hand across the table and we watch her, overcome with joy even though there's no good reason. 

Lord, you have always marked the road for the coming day,

And though the way is hidden, today I believe.

And so I hope, not that it will be easy, but that we will learn to see beauty where we stand, wherever we stand. If I give my children nothing else, I want them to know that circumstances are just that: circumstances. They're not to be ignored or brushed over, but accepted and grieved and lived in and made meaningful, but they're not the end. Never, ever the end. 

Lord, you have always lightened this darkness of mine,

And though the night is here, today I believe.

We can only embrace and transform our lives and our circumstances when we see them as part of the whole, when we remember how temporary and transitory they are. They form us, if we'll let ourselves be formed by them, but the end of the story is always the same. Joy. 

Lord, you have always spoken when time was ripe,

And though you be silent now, today I believe.*

* The prayer is from Celtic Daily Prayer, the prayer book of the Northumbria Community.

When it's Silent

On days when God is silent, I try to listen anyway. If I can't hear him, I try to listen to the sun and the wind and the little voices and the big ones, hoping that I catch a word that spans two worlds.

Lately, it's hard to hear him, and hard for me to discern his voice when something comes and I wonder. I wonder if I don't hear him because he doesn't speak, or if he's speaking and I'm too confused or afraid to hear. I wonder if the words are pouring over me, but all I hear is the wind ripping across these plains. I wonder if, somewhere in the baby's babble, are his words for me, if I could just separate them from the nonsense.

Sometimes, though, I wonder if he's just not speaking at all.

God speaks through people and music and prayer and art and dance and in more ways than I can fit into this sentence, but sometimes he's silent. I'm tempted to think that he's an introvert like me, that sometimes he just needs to step away so he can be fully present when he steps back in.

But instead, I think he knows the place of silence, knows when his presence speaks louder than any words, and when it's enough to be near. I don't think he ever speaks when there's nothing to say, and that he knows how limited words can be.

And sometimes I think that's what he wants from me in return, someone to offer presence, not because he needs it but because he wants me. Words can bring us together but they can also help us keep ourselves a safe distance apart. That distance hurts him, the one who made us because he wanted to be with us.

So on the days when it's silent, I try to listen. And if I still don't hear anything, I try to be, to pull close and curl up and sit, until there's something to say again.

Wandering Words

What to write about?

Should I tell how she climbed on my lap yesterday, fever making her so sleepy, and put her head on my chest and slept? How I knew I should wake her, if I wanted her to sleep overnight, but I held her instead because she was beautiful and warm and sick, and because I miss getting to hold her when she sleeps?

Or maybe I should talk about how I feel, connected to my body in a way I haven't felt (indeed, that I'd forgotten) since the days of hook kicks and ridge hand breaks and Basai Dai? How it feels so good to push myself, to find out how far I can go, even when I'm the weakest in the class, and usually the slowest, too?

Maybe I could find the words to talk of disappointment and hope, of waiting and waiting and waiting for the future. I could tell you of impatience, of angry words and fear, and also of rest and peace and joy, when we finally see a road sign.

Or maybe I will just wander with my words, touching here and there but never landing. Maybe I'll toss out hints and see what becomes of them, throw out the first part of a sentence and see how you finish it. Because thoughts don't come whole and life isn't tossed around in digestable bits and pieces. Sometimes, I have to chew a while before there's much to say.

Back with Imperfect Prose today, where it doesn't have to be polished or fit in the nice little box with the ribbon.

Baby Lessons

Yellow hair, like straw but much more frail, goes in every direction at the nape of her neck. In vain, I run my fingers through it, trying to make straight or curls, something other than chaos. But it doesn't matter. My efforts are futile and she doesn't care anyway.

She doesn't care.

I love how she doesn't care how she looks, doesn't care if I put her in a dress or a t-shirt, because it's all going to get dirty in the same way. And she doesn't notice her hair, doesn't notice it's crazy and runs wild with the wind and holds her food sometimes, when I wonder if she's saving it for later.

I knew another girl once, a girl who cared so much, too much. She tried so hard to make her own frail-straw hair do something other than hang straight and glint in the sun. Fingers and curling irons and enough hairspray to slick back a horse's mane didn't matter. It always ended up straw-straight, limp and shiny. It did whatever it wanted.

I keep saying that I can't wait until she can talk more, can't wait until we have conversations where we talk about ideas and Good and the stories we read. And I can't. But with that kind of knowledge, with knowledge of what she's thinking and how to articulate it, comes knowledge of herself. With the ability to discuss ideas comes comparing those ideas and, eventually, comparing herself.

To save her from that . . . oh, to save her from that. But already she sees what she does not have and strains for it. Now, across the table. Later, through the storefront glass that separates her from whatever she dreams will make her beautiful on that day.

I tell her every night that she is beautiful, and that she's loved no matter what. I hope it will make a difference, that somewhere in her baby-brain she holds that through all the years.  And I wonder how I know that, how I can say it with so much confidence to her. Is it because someone once whispered it to me, through yellow-straw hair that went every which way?

If only we believed the things we tell our children. I catch myself, sometimes, telling her things and realizing that they're true for me, too. I am loved and beautiful and held, chosen, a gift, so precious. But we lose those messages along the way. They get hidden, under layers born of the people we should be and the things we ought to do.

After a certain point, life is the peeling back of those layers. It's getting back to those so-early night whisperings, the ones we went to sleep to before the places our memory can reach. And the womb-whispers, the ones we may never remember as words but that warm us when life gets cold.

I want to live in the memory of those places, to fill myself with true words and not with things that seem easier to reach. But it's a journey, a slow uncovering, like getting out of bed on a cold, cold morning. Every day is a step, some forward, some back, but all going somewhere. And one day I'll wake up, warmed from the true center and not because I've successfully huddled under the blankets.

New Life

It's a long time, I've been gone from this space. Long in days and weeks, but also long in distance from the previous life.

New job, new state, new rooms. We stuffed boxes, filled a truck, drove cross-country, had our car stolen, listened to the baby bark. Then we unstuffed the boxes, learned how to live with one car, watched it snow and felt the cold tingle up our arms and legs, and held the baby so she could sleep.

And now we're here. Down one car and some possessions we probably didn't need anyway, though my heart grieves the original art pieces we'll probably never see again. They're most likely in a dumpster somewhere, valuable only to those who could see with our eyes. But we're up a new life, a new start, a place to begin again, and I value that beyond the car and the TV and the microwave and even all of Dave's tools and his dress clothes.

There's power in beginning again.

I feel like I need to say that one more time, for me and maybe for you, too. There's power in beginning again.

I don't pretend to think that we leave everything behind, that the shadow of this last 14 months won't continue to influence how we think and feel and see and pray (or if we pray - I'm the first to tell you that it's hard to pray when God seems like a wall). But I feel like we can breathe here, like there's some space for us to heal and seek and, if we're blessed with it, to find.

And maybe that's enough - to live in these moments, to hold them close and let them be and just receive for a bit, where we've been struggling with what's been taken.

I think that's what we're to do this year - to live. Just live. To breathe in each day as it comes, each hour and each moment, and then move on to the next. To release everything that last year was and wasn't, and find what we have now. To let the hard, hurt places release and become soft again. To let it be what it was, without trying to make it into something it wasn't.

So here's to life, my friends, and the living of it.


I love that Imperfect Prose is back just as I'm posting again. Serendipitous.

Christmas Beckons

The holidays are upon us. They do that, springing out of nowhere on their little cat-feet. But for the first time in many years, I'm ready for them.

What with the moving truck showing up two days after Christmas, without her I'd be tempted to let things slide. I'd be tempted to put in a half-effort, to figure that next year is time enough for us to get it together and have a real celebration. But now, even when I tell myself that she won't remember it, I know she'll hold her first Christmas in her heart somewhere, in the part of her that tells her what it's all about, and I want that to be a solid place for her.

She makes me ready, her fair face peeping out behind hair that could use the serious and dedicated application of some scissors. For her, I want more than decorations thrown up at the last minute. In fact, the decorations don't matter so much anymore. It's the heart of the season that I want her to feel, right from the very beginning.
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I went on a retreat, once, and drew several pictures of trees. Most of them were green, even the one with the moonlight. But one was a tree in winter, naked branches surrounded by snow and grey sky. I shared the retreat and the pictures that illuminated it, and the most baffling commenter said, "The green ones are beautiful and speak of life and growth. But I don't know what to make of that [grey] one. It's so sad."

And I didn't get it, because winter is beautiful, too, all glistening white and warm lights beckoning from windows and getting to see the craggy glory of the branches. A different kind of beauty I could give him, a kind that reminds of longing and things that aren't complete, but beauty still. Like sadness is beautiful.
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Nurturing is a kind of winter, asking my soul to give up itself for another. I am woman, but it doesn't come natural. It brings me to my knees, making Christmas for her in the places my feet rest right now. But there is life and joy and beauty, alongside the conviction that we are walking a dark path, a night path, one that runs through groves of naked trees.

We're waiting, the trees and I, for something to make sense of the snow. Maybe that's what he meant, my commenter - snow is beautiful, but if that was all we ever knew, we'd grow tired of it. The cold would overwhelm and our hearts would falter. Mine would, anyway. But I'm not sure I could ever grow tired of spring.

Though it's here the hitch appears to lie: Would I love a forever-spring if I never saw winter's bleak beauty?


Linking with Emily and the Imperfect Prose community.

Thinking About Quiet Days

photo © 2010 Crafty Dogma | more info (via: Wylio)

I crave silence. I want the words to cease. At night, I lay in bed and tell myself, over and over, “No words.” And I feel tense muscles relax and tired thoughts still and anxiety abate.
__


To think is to use words, if you are me. Thinking is all well and good most of the time, but there’s such a thing as thinking too much. Such a thing as too many words.
__


Instead of spinning, I want to be silent. I want to see and rest and be without analysis and without apology.
__

I’m in the business of words, learning to string them and to strew them, loving their sound and image and intensity. But if all I’m left with are words, if I can’t make them stop, I’ve fallen off a horse of another color.
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Words make for easy answers. In a world without them, in that place between where I usually take a breath so I have the air to say more, things are complicated. Murky. Hard to hear and to hold. But beautiful.
__

Words can usher people in, can offer hospitality and the warm fire of love welcoming them. But they can also put up walls, keep people and their hearts at bay. Sometimes the line between the fire and the wall isn’t so clear. You-can-come-this-far-but-not-farther is something of a mixed message.
__

When my words cease, I wonder if anyone will love me. I wonder if I can make them all see who I am and why they should care I wonder if they’ll bother with the quiet girl. I wonder if they’ll remember that I stood here, that I lived and watched and tried to make sense of it all.
__

God is still there, even when the words are not. I don’t feel him right now, but I know he’s there, asking me if I can look at him without thinking of him, if I can make space for him when he isn’t speaking.



I offer these imperfect words alongside the Imperfect Prose community hosted at Emily's.

Last Weekend

Words fail.

I spent a way-too-short weekend with Kirsten and Terri, remembering Ewan, grieving him, and just being together, and I cannot sum it up.

Some things are un-summable.

But I will say this: people who dismiss the Internet and electronic communication as a way of finding true community are wrong. They aren’t always wrong or wrong in everything they say, but they only need look at last weekend to know that you can find true Anne-and-Diana bosom friends online.

That is all.

Praying in the Cathedral

I've been thinking a lot about what to write in response to Week 6 of God in the Yard. Notice that I said "thinking" and not "praying."

Ironic, that, since week 6 is about prayer and God's presence.

Ironic, too, that since I've been pondering prayer, it's gotten harder for me. To make sense of that, I have to explain.

I, like many, pray on a lot of different levels. Sometimes I just sit with God, appreciating presence and silence. I usually do this in the dim light of early morning, when the day's hustle hasn't started and I can still find time to sit with my tea and practice just being. Other times I give him my heart in words, walking through the situations I know of where his help is needed, sometimes asking for specifics, and others just holding the names of the ones I'm praying for before him, because he knows what they need. And sometimes I pray short, desperate prayers, "Please help the baby sleep, please, please, please," and "Jesus, what do I do?"

One link between all these types of prayer is that I often have the same image come to mind when I'm praying them. I'm in a large, greystone cathedral. Sometimes I'm alone, sometimes there are others. Jesus is sitting on a stool in the crossing, on a small platform with steps all around. Those who want can come sit or kneel on the steps to touch his hands or his robe as they pray. Sometimes I go, and other times I sit in a seat where I can just see him.

It was in the midst of one of these short prayers last week that the image changed in a way that shook me. I looked up while I was praying, as I often do, to see his eyes. But instead of eyes, there was nothing. Just a robe draped over a chair. No one was listening, no one could hear me, and I might as well have been talking to the air.

Now, I know that having images for prayer can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, images help imaginative people like me gain a better understanding of what they're doing. On the other hand, no image of God is perfect, and so there's nothing that can represent the fullness of him. In my own prayer life, I've found that these images come and go, that one that helps me pray for a while won't be there forever, and might disappear quite suddenly.

But I've never had one go bad quite like this one did. I felt startled, to say the least, when I looked up and didn't see Jesus there. And now I wonder . . . will he be there when I go back?

There's a lot of things that could have happened here, and I'm taking my time to discern what I'm to take away from this experience. I'm praying through it, without images because I don't feel like I can trust them right now. But in the meantime, I don't have much to say about prayer.

. . . even if he does not . . .

 . . . even if he does not . . . 

A little over two years ago, three beautiful women and I spent a beautiful, heart-searching, restful, exciting time together. I'd seen all of them before, in college, but we didn't know each other until we met blogging.

When we came together, we were all at crucible times in our lives. There were big decisions, daily struggles, important questions, and we came together not to find answers or to make it better, but to figure out, together, how to live in the pain, the crunch, the stress of that place.

We found community. We found rest and forgiveness and a place where we could each be ourselves in the fullness of what that means. We found that a community God had joined together could be strong, even if it didn't make sense, even though some of us hadn't been sure we should really get on that plane, go, and reach out.

Kirsten was one of those women. It was her home we invaded, her food we ate, her wine we drank, her town we explored and came to love.

Eleven days ago, I stayed up late to pray for her son. Ewan was born beautiful, and with a broken heart. Eleven days ago, so many around the world gave up sleep and work and prayed him through a surgery even the doctors weren't sure he'd survive.

Over the last eleven days, I have cried great tears. I've prayed, beseeched, sent love and peace and rest and clarity and strength. I've spoken words and simply told God that he has to pray for me because I can't find the right language to say anything at all.

Last night, we prayed again. I fell asleep with Ewan's name on my lips and woke with it in the same place. But he was gone by the time I rose, safe in Jesus' arms, knowing love the rest of us only imagine.

I've looked at pictures of him off and on all day. I love his spirit, how he knows his mama and the baby wisdom in his eyes. I've focused on the photo above, where he sees her eyes and grips her finger. This was a precious baby, a loved baby, a little one who knew who held him and how secure that hold was. When I remember Ewan, I'll remember that.

And I'm left with a phrase that came from that special weekend two years ago. Three men, about to be thrown into a fiery furnace because they wouldn't worship falsely, asked if they were really that committed to their God. Could he save them?

They replied that he could, that he was great and worthy and he could do it. But even if he did not, they would choose to follow him. Even if he let them die in the heat and the flames, the would choose him every time. Even if he didn't show up, even if they looked like fools, even if he let the situation play out without any intervention, they had made their choice.

Eleven nights ago, God intervened. He made a miracle. Last night, he did not. But even here, even when he did not, my friend is choosing hope. That's no small statement. That's a huge, world-shattering statement, and a precious, tender one, too. What a legacy for the tiny one they love so much!

Pray for Kirsten and for James, as they bear this burden, as they bear pain and emptiness and the weight of questions I cannot imagine. I wish I could hold her tonight.

These last two weeks, walking alongside in my small way, following from afar a story that had taken up residence in my heart, has changed me. I don't know how yet. But I know this: my friend has a heart that can say even if he does not . . . and I aspire to have that heart, too.

Empty

O the deep, deep love of Jesus,

Vast, unmeasured, boundless, free!

Rolling as a mighty ocean

In its fullness over me!

Underneath me, all around me,

Is the current of Thy love.

Leading onward, leading homeward,

To Thy glorious rest above!

O the deep, deep love of Jesus,

Spread His praise from shore to shore!

How He loveth, ever loveth,

Changeth never, nevermore!

How He watches o’er His loved ones,

Died to call them all His own;

How for them He intercedeth,

Watcheth o’er them from the throne!

O the deep, deep love of Jesus,

Love of every love the best!

’Tis an ocean vast of blessing,

’Tis a haven sweet of rest!

O the deep, deep love of Jesus,

’Tis a heaven of heavens to me;

And it lifts me up to glory,

For it lifts me up to Thee!

Empty of words today, but praying so hard for baby Ewan and his family. You may remember the he sparked a celebration of life for me. Yesterday marked a victory, when he got off the machine that had been keeping him alive. This morning, he had to go back on it and no one knows what's in store. I've thought of him and his parents all day, praying as I breathe. Join me, if you feel led, contending for the life of this tiny boy.