Sometimes home is breaking wide open; we are not a broken home, I am a momma, who has been broken, that has concluded with great fear and trembling my brokenness does not exclude me from beautiful pouring out of family and all that comes with it.  I waited, not so patiently, to be “fixed”, cured”, or “done” with this putting back together process. Sometimes things shatter and splinter and keep breaking wide open.  We can’t get ahead of it.  I assumed that my being of any use for really authentically taking care of my people or of being any use to others would be dependent on my lack of brokenness.  I would have waited forever.  No sooner do I have a piece put carefully in with strong hold glue do I become aware of a shaky place deep in the recesses of the mortar is all but crumbling. Then, it crumbles.  Still I have not been released to the recesses, but instead I am propelled with pieces falling all around remembering who HE calls me if I turn down all of the other voices and do the next best thing next. Dust flying, shards of me cutting deep, the words in my head flying with fracture, but with a persistence outside of myself I do safe.  I hear. I see. I sit.  I wonder. Sometimes on days like yesterday, the words fly aimlessly out of my throat with the “I quits”, “I cant’s”, “I’ll never”.  The “not enough” and “always mean” splinters my soul and breaks a daughter wide open because I am being forced for use even when I am breaking wide open.  Today must be new, today has to be worth breathing through, today I must pray that the “them” of ‘Himhimthem” will somehow recognize the brokenness as being outside of them and that the safety, the hope, the place to go when we are splintering with pain that we can’t swallow is inside of us, each of us, in our home doing the next best thing next. Breathing in safety and knowing, praying, believing, that the broken is the beautiful.  The broken is the safety.  The crevices of pain are the places we can trust to be worth the time to be present in, to understand, to honor. This broken apart self will not die or destroy others.  It will be tolerated and honored and is worthy of being called Beautiful not in spite of the broken and breaking, but because of the broken and breaking.  All I have in me for the next thing next is don’t let me break them apart, Lord I beg of you Break me Wide for You and when it looks like none of it makes since they see You there lingering in the unexpected, tried to avoid the pain, must walk through the dark places clinging, and be present place we all call home.  The brokenness is what is flinging me and them and him and us towards the safety and hope.

This is part of a series -31 Days of Being Present…continue reading  

words scribbled but not recorded for days 1-4

Day 1-
Called Yours by the Lord
YOU are calling me by name and it is the name YOURS. Disconcerting and comforting all at once, I try and wrap my head around this idea. I have been called by many names and called myself out by names…lazy, exhausted, sad, angry, frustrated, full, empty, energetic, kind, organized, mean, wife, daughter, mother, sister, friend, broken, better, hopeless.
YOU, You, Lord….call me Yours. Because You call me yours, I can be ‘in it’. I can be present with each place that I land, in each place that I land. I can be in it all, with it all, not anxiously awaiting for things to come, go, or stay, for names and ‘known by’ to be heard or silenced, but to be present in You called Yours. I can be present because of what you call me….’Yours’

Day 2-The day that will remain silent

Day 3-
I have been captured by my own anxiety around all feelings including anxiety. Irony-yes, but by sitting still and being present in the very places of -pain-hope-joy-fear-anger-grief-sadness, they can no longer capture me for taking captive. I have been gripped by the idea that if I lean into the waves of overcoming-swallowing up-rushing ever present grief and conflict, both inside and outside of me, they lose the power to drown me. I am resting, present in the enveloping of the very place, stuff, and feelings that are actively pushing and pulling. I take long deep breaths to find that as I gain footing I am at shore with new deep beauty surrounding me on every side, the beauty of not having just survived the wave, but having become, of becoming, and being a woman of greater depth after leaning into the wave of the place and time that captured me. Healing and living has become possible in presence.

Day 4-
Embracing joy and grief and not finding them exclusive of one another is my challenge. Simply grasping that they are not the difference between life and death is a challenge. They are weaving in and out while honoring all of the life and all of the death in each moment. I find that  embracing the difficult can bring residing joy through it all even the pain. Grappling with the big stuff in the small space, the moments of truth all caught up in the living while trying to stay alive.