Coming out of Hiding

Once upon a time, there was a little girl.  This little girl had a best friend.  This best friend was so wonderful that the little girl was desperate to tell everyone about Him.  He was the good news that she wanted to share with the entire world.  She would have gone to the ends of the earth to talk about Him.  She didn't talk about Him because she was supposed to, or because she felt a moral obligation, or because she was worried about her friends burning in hell.  She talked about Him because her entire life revolved around Him.  She couldn't help it.  It was like her little cup was just constantly spilling over, and she couldn't help getting it on everyone that she was around.  Sometimes people didn't like it.  Sometimes they really liked it when they got to know her best friend.  But that didn't really matter to her.  She just couldn't help herself.  It was like breathing.

Then one day,  she isn't sure when, she got scared.  She learned that her best friend was offensive.  She learned the word "tolerant," and she learned that that word was the most important thing in the world.  She heard about these people called fundamentalists who tore people down.  She was scared to be like them.  So she went into hiding. She took her best friend underground.  She loved Him and loved people, but she was scared.  It wasn't okay to overflow anymore.  Unfortunately, going underground didn't work.  He was still her life.  So she had to shut up and try to cut herself off from her best friend.  It seemed to be the only way to function in this great big world that hated her best friend.

So the little girl grew up.  She grew up with a heart that was turned off because her best friend was in there. She really couldn't get away from Him. She was lonely and confused.  She was empty and had no anchor.  But she was not allowed to turn her heart back on.  He might hurt people's feelings.  He might make waves.  What if people disagreed with Him?  It was a very sad life for this young woman.  You can't turn your heart off entirely, so there was always a faint, nagging glow in her chest.  It always reminded her of her best friend whom she wasn't allowed to speak of.

Now, this young woman wants her best friend to be her life again. She misses her heart too. She isn't quite as afraid of the world. She is stronger, and more desperate.  She remembers the joy and relationship and wants her best friend more than she wants to be quiet.  She doesn't want to hide.  She doesn't want to tiptoe.  She doesn't want to live out of fear.  She is learning who she is, and she is learning that it is okay that she is intricately woven into relationship with her best friend.

She is coming out of hiding.  Because she misses Him.  Let me introduce you to my best friend, Jesus.

Weeping Definitely Endures for the Night...

I am holding two realities in tandem:  I loving being a momma, and I am really really dead tired.  

Last night was one of the worst yet, and our child is well out of the newborn stage.   I don’t know if it was teething, tummy ache, or just fussiness, but she screamed for three hours in the middle of the night.  We don’t sleep much to begin with.  This is an understatement.  She usually sleeps for two hours at a time, and she is seven months old. I can’t really figure out sleep training thing.  I can’t even figure out how I feel about sleep training.  

Sometimes Jordan has to hold me down at night so that I don’t get up to comfort at the first sound of distress.  Other times, I punch him, or scream at him, or both punch and scream, leap out of bed, and swoop in to “rescue” my baby.  I don’t condone punching or screaming at your husband.  It just seems instinctual at times. I'm trying to stop. 

Consistency at night is not my best quality.  I am genuinely happy for mommies who have babies that start sleeping through the night at seven weeks, or four months, or six months.  And I also have moments when am ferociously envious of those mommas.  Mainly those moments arise at one in the morning.  

I LOVE being the one who gets to nurse my baby.  That communion together is precious, and most of the time I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.  And I get really mad at God that He didn’t make daddies with the capability of lactation. Come on, God, it would have been so easy. Just insert the little mammary glands into their boobies too. Then we could share duties. This anger with God also usually surfaces in the wee hours of the morning.  

In the middle of the night, muddling through hours of screaming, I don’t know how we are going to make it through.  I can’t see a light at the end of the tunnel.  I feel like a terrible mommy and an even worse wife.  Then the dawn comes.  Another night over.  The light of the morning comes every day.  There is grace.  There are apologies. Sometimes many profuse apologies.  Maybe we will figure out sleep.  Maybe we won’t.  Hopefully we will. But we love.  

Her morning smiles, babbling, giggling, and playing wash over the dirty remnants of the difficult night. It is cleansed.  Joy will come after tears. 

I am so glad that the morning follows night.  Always.

The Beautiful Agony of Writing

“There is no greater agony than bearing the untold story inside of you.”

Maya Angelou

I stopped writing for six days.  I turned off that part of my brain.  It seems that when I shut down other parts of my brain, the writing part goes with them.  I have only located one power button in my emotional brain, and it controls the creative part as well as other parts.  I can’t really pick and choose what sections I turn off.  I guess that this is why lobotomies don’t work that great. 

On the surface, I didn't feel too great of a loss, but...

I haven’t decided yet if I am a writer or a writer wannabe.  I usually consider myself a wannabe in all of my endeavors.  I think that this assessment protects me from really becoming disappointed if I fail.  

Writer or poser, however, I guess that I feel really sad and empty when I don’t write. 

For a couple of years, I buried that part of my heart so deeply that I didn’t know that I missed it.   With the encouragement of wonderful friends and a committed husband, I located the burial plot and resurrected the writer in me. (Or the wannabe).  The problem with writing is that it also resurrects other parts that I might not want to dig up.  If I am going to really truly write from the heart, it means that I start feeling more emotions and becoming...duh duh duh...authentic.  Authenticity can be terrifying. 

This might be why I took a week off.  I needed a break from the realness of writing. I needed to slip back into the false reality of being shut down. Writing opens up the world to me, and the world hemorrhages all over my keyboard.  And I’m squeamish. Like really squeamish. Like faint-from-clipping-a-fingernail-too-low-squeamish. Writing heightens my awareness to life.  I see the universe through different eyes, and these eyes are willingly open to a greater level of experience than they were before.  This is good and bad.  It is breathtakingly beautiful and devastatingly heartbreaking.  I come face-to-face with glory and eye-to-eye with evil.

So I am faced with a decision.  Do I write or not write? The pen can be a weapon. It can be an instrument of healing.  Can I handle the surgeon’s tools slicing open my heart? There are words that want to flow.  I fear that they will be messy.  Do I dam them or unleash them? Writing is incredibly dangerous.  But so is living, REALLY living. 

Pouring Out

It is more blessed to give than to receive, to be poured out, broken.

That first latch.

Those eyes.

I prayed to be poured out for you. 

For the grace to give.

I am filled to be emptied.  I cannot find more satisfaction than is found in this action.  It houses pain, but so much more joy.  The crystal blue eyes that look up into mine, as I pour out for you. 

The little fingers that grab, grab, grab. 

My hair, nose, mouth, chin, teeth. 

The attentiveness with which you watch my facial expressions.  As you grow into your body, you can interact and engage with a simple look.

We have complete conversations with no words.  Pre-verbal does not mean pre-communicative.

The sacrament of giving, of pouring out, of self-emptying so that you can be filled and live.

It is so much more blessed to give than to receive.  Never has eating served a higher purpose.  This once agonizing act now serves to provide life for two.

I cling to the moments.  You are more efficient now, so the seconds are fleeting.

You are learning how to self-sustain, which will carry you when I let go.  But for now, I carry you.  I pour into you.  He pours into you.

We have struggled.  The sacred act has been at times a wrestling match. 

The arched back. 

The sputtering. 

The showers.

But we persevered, and you have thrived. 

And instead of wondering how long I have to do this, I wonder at the privilege and ache at the thought of it ending.

I am filled with grace, and that grace is poured into you.

Grace fills, and empties, and fills again in the emptying.  It is the ascension of the mountain, only to be poured out all the way down.  And that is why we ascend.  Because it is more blessed to give than to receive.

There are no pretenses, no masks.  We remain unedited for one another.  You have yet to learn how to sensor, and I have no need.

God is in the nourishment.  He is in the pouring out. 

In Him, I am filled, and thus, in Him, you are filled.

We reflect divinity to one another.  So simple, so pure. 

There is hope.

I whisper thanks, and I see Eucharist in your eyes.

Considering Lily

“Consider the Lilies of the field, how they grow. They toil not, neither do they spin.”

Matthew 6:28

Postpartum OCD is an issue that is rarely discussed in open dialogue, at least to my knowledge.  It is often seen as something shameful, and new mothers fail to reach out for help.  One author says, “I never knew the wheels could fall off of my brain.”  This is how I feel frequently throughout the day.  That my brain is careening out of control, down a never-ending highway of terror and loss.  In any given moment, as I look at my daughter, I see a handful of scenarios that strike terror in my heart.  I feel like I have a glimpse into another dimension, the dimension of “what ifs” that I cannot filter out.  I think that it is somewhat normal to get an occasional glimpse into this dimension, but living there is complete torture.  The fear of what could happen to Lily colors every interaction.  It influences our lives in so many ways.  All new parents have fears.  This is absolutely normal.  Postpartum anxiety and OCD cause fear and stress that can paralyze and cripple.  This type of fear is what I have been wrestling with over the past seven months.  In this midst of all of this mental and emotional torture, I find some solace in the pursuit of gratitude and trust.  May it be known that a chemical and hormonal imbalance cannot always be cured by spiritual platitudes and scripture quotations, but for me, it offers just enough peace for me to hold it together, at least for the next few moments. 

Consider the Lilies...

I can’t protect my daughter.  Something, anything, might happen.  She might be ripped from my arms at any point along the way.  I am not in control.  I can do everything right and something go wrong.  I could do everything wrong, and she could end up all right.  So what gives?  How do I live? 

Consider the lilies…Why did we name her Lily?

They do not toil nor do they spin….She’s not mine.

How they grow…She’s His Lily.

Anxiety has been my anthem for years.  This is the same song, different verse.  My anxiety just picks new people and things to hone in on.  Lily is its prime target.  

But how ironic that God would give her a name so reflective of the garment of trust that He desires to wrap around us.  Maybe God chose her name knowing how much I would struggle with the fear, knowing that I need constant reminding of my daughter's Provider and Keeper. 

Do you not know your Father? 

The one who named your child?

Do you not know that He loves you and He loves her? 

Do you not know that he knows the number of hairs on her head?

Do you not know that her very life is a miracle, one that was birthed out of a broken and dry body?  The medical marvel of fertility after a lifetime of damage?  Can you not see that she is His, not yours?

He whispers to me, “Let go.”

It’s not on my shoulders.  I don’t have to carry it.

Care for her with gratitude, with thanksgiving.  She’s a gift.  Enjoy her.

In Him, she was created, is sustained, and has her being.  Not in you. 

Megan, you are not God. 

In life and in death, we all are His, not our own.  In disaster and crisis, we are His.  When the unthinkable happens, we are His.

The fear and anxiety negate joy.  How can I revel in this blessing when I am riddled with the gut-churning terror of loss?  How can I step out of the terror when it seems to swallow me whole?  In thanksgiving, I recognize that I am not in control. In gratitude, I lay down my sense of my own self-worship.  And then a tint of joy colors my life.

So I still feel anxious.  I have irrational brushes of sheer terror.  I have visions of death. I long for the day that my OCD doesn’t write death all over the screen of my life. But I have thanksgiving and gratitude.  I have joy in knowing that I’m not the one in charge.  So far, I am not cured.  But when my brain is threatening to careen out of control at unimaginable speeds, my heart whispers the truth of why my daughter is named "Lily." 

Leaning into the Longing

I recall an experience with a magnificent sunset.  I was pulled into its beauty.  I literally chased it along the Kentucky trails, until the last light disappeared behind the horizon.  The loss of the sunset felt catastrophic. 

Here in Kansas, sunsets are incredible.   I navigate the road, trying to maintain my driving skills while adoring the splattering of colors draped along the tips of the trees. I feel profound loss as the sky transforms to the darker hues of dusk. 

Still on the topic of glory…Glory is a big thing.  Beauty.  Beauty is a big thing too. The beatific vision.  When you reach, reach, reach, almost touch it….but it is gone.  The loss of beauty is devastating. The good dream from which you suddenly awaken to realize that you are back in mundane reality, and the baby is crying. 

Plato understood this in his cave.  Augustine captured it in his beatific vision.  C. S. Lewis talks about it in The Weight of Glory.  Ann Voscamp encapsulates this concept in One Thousand Gifts.  

Why does beauty produce a longing, yearning?  An old ache exists, a brush of ancient nostalgia, but not for something from this lifetime.  As C. S. Lewis says, this earth is merely a symbol of something else, and we will outlive nature.  The stars will burn out.  The galaxies will collide.  

“Our natural experiences (sensory, emotional, imaginative) are only like the drawing, like penciled lines on a flat paper.”

Why do we as a people long for art, for beauty, for the representative?  We will not be fully happy, fully satisfied, until we can fully grasp the true beauty of Creator God.  While we search  for this complete and total satisfaction on earth, we will not find it.  Could it be that contentment is leaning into the longing?  Is it being happy and satisfied in the dissatisfaction, knowing that it will ultimately be fulfilled in the final Vision?  

“We see now but in a glass darkly, but then face to face.” 

1 Corinthians 13:12.  

Can we continue to run after the visions of beauty, the penciled drawings on scrap paper, embrace the longing, and know that one day, the veil will be lifted?  There is great joy to be discovered in the beauties found in this lifetime, and even greater joy in the awareness that they can’t compare to the beauty for which we were created.

Putting on the "Weight"

For a brief second the veil is lifted.  A crystal clarity cascades in its place.  What is this glory?  

The glimmer solidifies and reality becomes clear.  

The message of the scale shifts, and once again our culture is found wrought with insanity.  This image, our culture’s glory, stands, gaunt, pale, and minuscule.  She is made of gold, and we worship her.  We become her, and we drain ourselves of the weight of glory. 

When did we turn inside out and upside down?  We worship weightlessness and emptiness. We purge the glory of God from among us.  The cold wind blows through our emptiness, lifting our feet from the ground, and we shiver.  In our insanity, we believe that the swelling of the emptiness will somehow satiate our hearts.

God’s glory, “kabod,” is derived from the root word “heaviness.”

When did weight become something that we were afraid of?  

When did lightness become more desirable?  

I want more glory, for God to weigh me down.  I crave heaviness, not lightness.  

God reveals his weightiness, heaviness, glory, through the beauty of nature: 

The mammoth descention of a sunset. 

A swollen, silver moon.

An overflowing waterfall, gushing, bursting forth from a towering cliff.  

When did we decide that the lighter we were, the more beautiful we could be?  Do I want the weight of glory to break my scales and my body to barely tip them?  Is this one way that the enemy makes a jab at God through this culture’s worship of thinness?  Is it a slap in the face of his glory, His Kabod, His heaviness?  The enemy grins with the satisfaction of knowing that he has led God’s people to worship the opposite of glory.  I want to live a life saturated and heavy with the glory of God.  I want fullness and richness.  I don’t want a gaunt, wasted, feather-weight life.   The weight of glory is a weight that is often rejected and replaced with mirages, infinitely weightless, insubstantial, and fraudulent.  So here I stand, holding to the clarity of this brief second, ready to put on some healthy “kabod.”

Why I don't want recovery

Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? 

Isaiah 43:19

I cringe when I hear the word recovery. 

Recovery of what was lost. 

Recovery of the old. 

Before the disaster struck.

Before the choices were made.

Before life crumbled.

Before everything was stolen.

Recovery to the previous state of being. 

Like the suffering never happened.

Like the pain was meaningless. 

Granted, recovery is sometimes preferable to the present state of affairs.  Recovery trumps addiction, brokenness, and estrangement.  When life is in shambles, what used to be often sounds infinitely more desirable than what is.  

Recovery means the return of something lost, or the act of restoring to a previous condition.  I may be a bit presumptuous in my hopes and expectations, but I think that I want more than recovery.  I don’t want to go back to life as it was before.  

I want something new. 

Something fresh.  

I want something that looks like a promise, and the promises that I have seen cast large shadows on the word “recovery.”  I struggle to find a word for this promise.  Possibly transformation, or redemption.  The process of healing houses a world of change that steps outside of the realm of recovery.  

No, I can’t go back to where I was before.  I know too much, have been through too much, have seen too much.  

I am being made new.  

I will never be the same.  I never want to be the same.  

The “me” that I experience now is a deeper, more genuine Megan than I ever knew before the eating disorder and everything else.  Forgive me for this statement if it is too brash, but “recovery” would be utterly devastating.  Simple recovery would render my suffering meaningless.  I do not believe that all of this could have been in any way meaningless.  All of this suffering, heartache, and pain is profoundly teeming with meaning. 

I want change.  

I want new life.  

I want fresh.  

Paradoxically, in this newness of life, I discover that I am more myself than I have ever been before.  There is an old Megan, an ancient, ageless Megan that emerges from the rubble of the catastrophe.  She is recovered, but she is so much more.  She resembles the old Megan only in that she has grown into the promises that were once only evasive shadows.  Those promises actualized, she is discovering new promises.  This life is encapsulated in the building of cocoons, emerging new, and repeating the process, until our final emergence from this earthly chrysalis into glory.  

Oh, recovery is so insufficient.  Call me demanding, but I want more.

Morning Goodbye

Your phone alarm jolts us out of sleep.  My eyes wander to the clock. 5:47 AM.  

How many feedings throughout the night?  At least four.  I can’t really remember. 

But I remember that little hand creeping up, tugging my lip and wandering to my nose.  The rhythmic motion of the rocking in the dark room, lit by her little aquarium night light, with her name in pink sparkles on the wall.  Drifting in and out of sleep, waking to see her still eating, still tugging my lip with her little fingers.  She’s compelled to trace the features of mommy’s face in the wee hours of the morning.  

Between tracings, we slept at least a little last night, I think.  

Now, I drift away while you shower, and before you return I hear the chatter in surround sound.  She’s only a door away, but I keep the monitor sound turned up.  Safeguard.  We do crazy things for peace of mind.  I listen, tuning in for signs of distress.  If she is content, I will stay, wrapped up for a few more sacred moments, clinging to the hope of more sleep.  

You come in from your shower.  “I think she’s stirring.”  I wish that you could stay.  

For a millisecond, I have a vague memory of sleeping past 6:30 AM.  I will myself out from under the warmth of the covers, glancing at the monitor one last time before the morning greeting.  

I adore the first recognition of the day.  I stumble in her dark room with a forced cheerful “good morning.” Her smile, the sunrise, greets my blurry vision, clearing it in an instant. Suddenly genuine joy infiltrates my visage. Her baby jabber sounds something like, “YAY! Mommy’s here!”.  My heart leaps.  

The deep comfort of coffee wanders to my nose, and I remember that you have my back. You programmed the pot last night. I am infinitely grateful.  She bounces in her jumper, jabbering at the kitties, who keep a cautious distance.  Her affection still looks like pulling of hair and tugging of tails.   

As I sip the rich dark gift that you left for me,  you hesitate for a few seconds. I know that you would rather stay and play.  I inwardly sigh and say goodbye.  A lingering kiss.  You call her “Bug.” She flashes you a smile, giggles, and returns to the plastic sunshine, bouncing a bit more enthusiastically.  We watch you go, and look forward to your return.  She can't communicate it yet, but she wishes you could stay. We miss you more than you know.

Kairos

Is there time to become engulfed in this second?  

This millisecond?  

Could this moment house a million blessings, or even just one?  

Will I whirl past, unseeing, unknowing?  

Eternity is found in the now: 

In the blink of an eye, in a gasp of breath.  

What is next?  Why does it matter? 

A ray of sunshine. 

A drop of rain. 

A flutter of a wing.  

A sip of coffee.  

I lose the now, entangled in the next.  

Pause...Soften... Listen. 

Glory is here...  

He is here.

It is elusive... 

and now it is gone.  

Don’t hold on too tight.  It slips through your closed hand.  

Bite, chew, and swallow.  

The wind is here and then gone.  

Your “is” becomes “was.” 

Be in the Kairos:  A cosmic collision of the sacred and mundane.  

Chronos retreats when Kairos approaches.  

Kairos, swollen with expectancy, bursts open, spraying meaning over the chronos.  

Kairos, where God hovers over the formless and creates.  

Glory. 

His Glory is here, now.  

Let this pregnant moment give birth to life.

Trapped

Everyone knows that some addictions are destructive, but some addictions make their victims look like heroes.  I am a runner with a history of exercise addiction.  This addiction was literally crippling.  As the weather has gotten chilly, I headed to the gym.  While I have healed tremendously from this addiction, the tendencies still lurk in the corners of my mind.  I have to be constantly on guard.  While at the gym, I often see individuals who remind me of myself four years ago.  The look in their eye is impossible for me to miss.  It makes me want to cry.  I often want to run up to them and tell them that there is hope.  But I know that this would be offensive, so I mind my own business.  These glimpses, however, inspired me to communicate the internal state that I experienced not so many years ago. And if any of you are reading, there IS hope. 

Frenzied, frantic, full-speed ahead.  

You cannot stop, can’t even slow down. 

The numbers, constantly rushing forward.  

Faster. 

          Longer. 

                      Steeper. 

                                   Harder.  

You never get there, because you are stuck.  

Puddles form. The “weak ones” come and go, come and go.  But you keep going.  Playing games, tricking your mind. Not three hours, but sets of 15 minutes.  Anything to make it go faster.  But you are in the whirlwind.  

Reason and rationality give up and wander out of the building, leaving you alone with your madness.  And the machines.  The gods. This is your sanctuary, your temple.  Your gods are slave-drivers, and you are never enough.  

The looks creep over, but they avoid eye contact.  You know that your eyes say, “Stay away.  Don’t you dare threaten my worship.” You are immortal, you truly believe.  The room may spin, stars may dance, but you will not relent.  

You are a king.  

Oh, but you are a slave.  The whip snaps. The tyrant screams. No coach is this inhuman.  You plead with him.  But he never lets up.  Your sanctuary is a maximum security prison, and you want nothing more than to escape.  Maybe tomorrow.  Maybe next week. Well, maybe in a year.  

You descend, legs jello.  Don’t stumble. Hold steady. No one can know that you are faltering.  

You can do anything.  You can outsmart the machines, the weak ones, the nay-sayers.  You are the exception. And this won’t kill you. 

And it is over.  You are released. Reserves poured out before your gods, you have nothing left for the rest of life, but really, nothing else matters.  You achieved your goal.  You revel in your victory and then remember that tomorrow is only 24 hours away.  You look down to see the ball and chain.  A wave of nausea sweeps over you.  The renewed awareness that you are no master or king, but still a slave.  Your prison, the gym.  

You lift your eyes, searching for someone.  But you scared them away.

Be!

“To be given a name is an act of intimacy as powerful as any act of love…To name is to love. To be named is to be loved.”… “Stories are able to help us to become more whole, to become Named.  And Naming is one of the impulses behind all art; to give a name to the cosmos we see despite all the chaos.”

Madeline L’Engle

“To name a thing is to manifest the meaning and value God gave it.”  

Alexander Schmemann

What’s in a name?  I touched on this topic earlier in the week, but it seems to be resurfacing. Why is the naming process so important?  Why are there so many books filled with baby names?  Naming a child is one of the most sacred acts of parenthood.  To name is to ascribe meaning.  

I can’t imagine how Adam felt.  I wonder if it was exhilarating, or overwhelming, or both.  You, Adam, get to name every living thing on this planet.  Name every animal, insect and bird that you see.  What a task! I wonder how long it took to ascribe a title to all the animals! I also wonder where he came up with some of those crazy names!

When Jordan and I decided on a name for our daughter, I was so thrilled. Lily was a name to which I had clung for years.  She is light, beauty, and purity. She is Grace, “charis”, love.  God created our daughter, and we have the responsibility and joy of naming her.  In this act, we experience God. Through naming, we communed with Him and with our daughter. 

What if no one had a name?  What if we were numbers? How sterile and sad would that be?  In Les Miserables,  Jean Valjean is known by Javar as a number, 24601.  This identification robs Jean Valjean of his identity.  Historically, “un-naming” people has made it easier to torture and kill.  Oppressors rob individuals of their names. 

In Isaiah 43:1, God says to Israel, “I have called you by name; You are mine.”  In this passage, He also says to “fear not.”  Is there something about being named that eradicates fear?  Madeline L’Engle seems to think so.  In her Time Quartet, the most and destructive fate is the fate of being “un-named.”  In this experience, the individual is snuffed out, or destroyed.  To be named is to emerge out of chaos and confusion. When that name is stripped away, the inchoate and formless state of being re-emerges.

Often, Jesus re-names His disciples and followers.  God re-names individuals in the Old Testament.  Abraham becomes Abram. Saul becomes Paul. Simon becomes Peter.  When assigned new names, these individuals exhibit different characteristics. They seem to grow into their new identities.

These thoughts bring me to a more practical idea. I believe that there are times that we “un-name” ourselves.  Over the years, I have been one of L’Engle’s echthrois in my own life.  My list of destructive names for myself is probably pages long. 

Unloved.

Evil.

Fat.

Annoying.

Stupid.

Ugly.

I have to stop now.  I feel the power of these names even as I type them.  What better way is there to destroy our true identity than to un-name ourselves? 

God has called me by name.  Megan. I am His. 

Beloved.

Holy.

Lovely.

Redeemed.

Daughter.

Friend.

Accepted.

Saint.

Temple.

Righteous.

Heir.

Chosen.

Blameless.

Alive.

Light.

Complete.

Life is bestowed in the act of naming.  Today, I will let God name me, and I will participate in His Divine nature by naming with words of truth and life.

Nap Time

You refuse to be put down today. Besides the occasional pesky need that I have to eat, I don’t really mind. Sleep training can rest for a while. You grasp a small clump of my hair for comfort. It hurts just a little, but I love that you hold onto my hair.  So exhausted, you refuse to close those big blue eyes, vast as the sea. You search my eyes, and I search yours.  That gaze…you take in my soul. Somehow, you seem to know the song of my heart even without language.  We converse through these windows. We pour out our hearts to one another. You desperately cling to wakefulness as you cling to my long hair. I study your almost invisibly blonde eyebrows, which predicted your hair color long before you lost your dark newborn locks. Your eyes flutter and then close, highlighting those lashes that stretch for miles. I brush your hair with my fingertips. Daily, it thickens, as your nascent bald spots disappear.  I analyze the healing process of the scratches made by your wandering hands, as you have yet to grow fully into self awareness that will soon prevent you from clawing your own face.  Your rosy cheeks display the evidence of the dry winter air in their chapped, barely discernable cracks.  Your lips, the most striking reflection of your daddy, rest in a content downward curve.  The remnants of sweet potatoes from lunch linger on the corner of your placid mouth.  As you fade into slumber, you have the sweetest snore, more resonant to me than a complete orchestra. I am alive.

This Gift

The sun was just peeking up over the horizon on a beautiful May morning when I made my debut.  Air flooded my lungs, and I was given a gift.  

Life. 

I am convicted this morning of my intense longing for heaven.  I certainly don’t believe that it is wrong to long for heaven.  In many ways, it is so very right.  Yet, there is a reason why God created this earth and why He gave us bodies of flesh and blood.  There is a reason for this smattering of years that we exist on this planet.  Despite the effects of the fall, I think maybe that God has something for us to experience here and now, in this lifetime.  Instead of a curse, maybe this life is a gift.  

Though it is a cocoon, and though I long for the rebirth of heaven, maybe this earth-bound cocoon houses its own joys.  How do I make the most of this stage?  How can I live with the awareness of the gift of breath and blood flow? 

Brother Lawrence understood something that few of us grasp. God is in the dishes. God is in the scrubbing floors.  God is in the production line.  God is in the changing of diapers. God is in the steaming of milk and dropping of shots.  God is in the smiles and the holding of doors for strangers. God is in the changing of lanes on the commute.  

These little gifts. 

This big gift of life.  

Let me not lose sight of the truth of who you are today, oh God, in the “mundane.” Help me get my head out of the clouds long enough to see a little more clearly that You have been HERE all along.  You aren’t just out there, in the vast beyond of eternity.  You are here in Wichita today in 2014, and you are there, in the New Jerusalem descending when time collides with timelessness.  

Let me not use my longing for heaven as an excuse not to engage in today.  I am privileged with this life.  Help me to live it fully and gratefully.