To Have and to Hold

I look at my hands and I know the truth.

These hands were formed perfectly in the dark waters, their very prints etched by the mysterious swirling and the imagination of a Creator God at work. From the beginning, purpose was pressed into their pattern. Even before one grain of time’s sands slipped through the glass, their shape and form and capacity were determined.

I know this. I do.

And yet I still catch myself wringing those very same hands, the ones that were shaped just for me.

Do I somehow believe that, in the wrenching, all the worry will fall away, like old brittle snakeskin, shed to make room for new? Or is the action more akin to a kneading, an attempt to make one thing into another? What is my intention when I take the very handiwork of God and close it in upon itself, over and over and over?

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I am writing over at SheLoves Magazine today and I would love for you to join me there. This month's theme is Enough and you can finish reading what I've learned about my hands and enough.

SheLovesMagazine

In which I declare my life as Crazy Wonderful

I've been quiet for a while now.

The last few weeks have pressed in on me, one atop the other, until it became a bit hard to breathe. And as the days stacked upon each other, it became a little darker and where I was holed up became a little tighter.

But time is a healer and night turns into day and miracles are all around us.

I know this for there is one inside of me right now.

And what else could I do but fall to my knees and whisper "Glory" when just days after I let go of that secret wish for more babies that I had carried down deep and had, instead, begun making plans to close the door to my womb, I found myself harboring life at its very beginning?

What else is there to be but humbled at the realization that there are plans for my life that go beyond my understanding? Plans full of care and hope?

It is in this place of complete stupor-wonder-confusion-awe-and-fear that my husband and I have been dwelling.

Life is this marvelous happening and the two ends of its coil dance in and around each other inside of each day's very spin and here we are, privy to its every facet. The truth of this can, sometimes, truly overwhelm.

And so, these weeks in which I have been quiet have found me murmuring, over and over,

"So, how then shall I live?"

Because, I have been embedded with the glory dust of heaven and that, my friends, is no small thing. And as the worries and concerns and plans of this world continue to swirl around my head, it is growing inside of me, this budding joy, this holy wonder. 

So, I believe the right and fitting thing to do is to declare my life as 

Crazy Wonderful.

For that is what it is.

Poetry is like bread

Poetry is like bread

to me

these days

And I need it 

in the pantry

close at hand

For there are storms howling

outside my window

bleaching the landscape

and

driving me inward

deeper into the

center rooms

and even the crazy quilt

isn't enough to

drown out the

loudness of my mind

so I reach for

bread

because it is all I can stomach

for now

and

it

is

enough