A Holy Experience

Ann, a complete stranger has literally pastored me for months. 

God's Words and God's Hands... her diligent work in faith.

Her writing fills the spaces in me with Him. 

She has shown me things in a way they have never been offered to me. 

She has read and understood my heart.

She has written to and upon it.

She has taught me how to make a habit of finding Him in my real life.

She led my family to 1,128 (and counting) accounts of Gratefulness, 

and "Walking with Him Wednesdays" on any day.

She led my marriage through transformation,

with her series, "the making of a marriage bed", 

and taught me how to appreciation the quiet of a lifetime love. 

She showed me how to love everything He's made of me

and then how to let it all go.  

She has taught my family to never leave the table without chewing the real bread, satisfying our true hunger.

She brought us back to compassion and showed me the heart of her Guatemala. Brought us to Alexandro. 

to sarah and juan. 

She confirmed His asking to store the Word in our hearts. Committing to memory what quick paced and easy resources have deemed obsolete.

And now, God is moving me here,

as a blogger.

I know, like everything else He's change and healed in me,

this too will soon see change.

Thank You, God, for using Ann and her obedience to speak into this life.

Thank you,  Ann, for letting God use you so.

What am I doing here?

There's a constant discontentment in my spirit.

At first I didn’t realize the importance of it.
I just chalked it up to more of the "crazy jesusfreak" in me and figured it would pass.

Years ago I tried to cry through it. The way I could cry through a bad break up, or a falling out with my Dad.

The ache stood.
I tried to balance. Everyone says we should balance.

And I gained skill in walking the wire in that tension.

With a standing aching heart hidden under piles of ironed clothes, behind menu plans on the backs of cupboard doors, inside a stemmed glass of a mama drink with a side of chocolate, I balanced wife, mom, homeschooler, friend, housekeeper with an A-type edge, God lover, Christ follower...

I'd work that balancing act until He'd tip the scales again and again.
And the ache would become a pounding, resounding discontentment and demand that I couldn’t deny weighed more than anything I could pile on the other side of the scale. 

And then she wrote, and I read: 

...when someone takes me out for dinner on a riverboat at dusk. I look up at stars. And think of stars over Xiomara, the dump. I’ve lost my appetite. What am I doing here? When one day I’ll stand before Jesus... 
And about what shaun told her: 

“The world, your community.. even your family — they are going to try to push you back to the middle. North America feels pretty comfortable in the middle. Balance, everyone says. I don’t know what Jesus is going to say to you.. How He might direct your life now…  just don’t assume He wants you to live in the middle. Be open to the possibility of something radically different.” 

...and this all goes back to my beginning with Him. Hand in hand for the first time grown, almost 10 years ago. 

And now, where am I different from just weeks ago? The morning in the kitchen corner with "Jose and Sarah" and the biggest pot. 

The pot that fills the space He told me I could shine my ache into, empty.

The drawers are full and I am brimming with ache. 

There are NO pots missing from my life. 

Only questions, guilt, and second guessing.

And my list? 

My priorities? 

My concerns?
homeschooling additions. friendship upkeep. favorite season relishing. photo editing. base board cleaning. healing my stomach. cleaning my car. getting to my windows. leaf maintenance. turning the yard in for snow....

What am I doing here?

We need less and we keep obtaining more.

I’m looking. Searching so hard for what He’s trying to say.
And everything keeps reminding me that He’s not worried like I am that I’ll miss it. I just have to stay in the water.
Hear the call.

When I look around and ask why He brought us here to this home with five bedrooms and one kid... when I start to waver in wonder why He would give us such excess right before asking us not to grow, and ripening our hearts to the widow and the orphan, I have to consider: 

I've most clearly reacted to the aching of my longing spirit when given the option of living in the contentment of abundance. 

And I can't help but ask, just like Ann has, who is really the poor one here?

MI

I sit on a mattress on the floor in an empty apartment home 200 feet from where I'd rather be, and 200 miles from where I belong.

I look around. Not in the dark room with the big black and pink comforter hanging in the window blocking the grey cloudy morning outside the window. i look around inside my heart. at my life. Searching the face of God.

What are You telling me?

When each night came to an end Zeek and I shuffled over to this place. I double checked each door leading out, and then closed us into the corner of a bathroom bedroom area with the latch locks inside. I pulled out our own blankets, stuffed animals, and comforts of the small entourage of an Apple store inventory we carry with us when we travel.

Something... anything to break the silence in where I hear His warning sound. Again.

This couldn't be. But I know it is.

People live like this, and less. Much much less. 

I pray out loud as my little boy soaks in the duck taped tub with a jar opener for a drain cover. i pray for our night, our hearts, our health and safety and full rest. 

Then I pray the clearing of any lurking evil in each room. I claim Him and call in all that He will send. Jesus, Holy Spirit, Angels, hedges, protection, peace, security, health... all the while, in the back of my head layering prayers of forgiveness and covering in the case that I might be freaking out the future of my son. I beg the One Living God that my kid will not be cut with the same jaded edge I've seen on the masks of a Levi I love so deeply... and a Tony, and an Eric. Wounded by the misrepresentation of the body, walking a shaded path through pain and perceived abandonment dealt by the hands of the men/spiritual leaders they've entrusted themselves to.

  

I Plead that Truth will be solid to Ezekiel all the days of his life. 

Truth. That his mother could call on Jesus out loud, first and foremost, in the darkness. 

Truth. That Jesus is there. 

That she could arm herself and her child in His promises and see out preying demons in the name of Jesus. And that demons who would have otherwise spent the night hit the streets running. 

That we can have night after night of safety, peace, and full rest in Him, one after the next.

And I feel the Water running over me again. 

This could be. This is. What garbage dump parents cling to, and so much more.

I look in the mirror above a plastic vanity in the bathroom and I hear the words my Dad spoke the night before; 

"...when you look in the mirror and you are shocked to see that old person standing there..."

and I am shocked to see that broken, tear streaked, swollen faced, slowly becoming woman of God, standing here.

And I ask it again. What are You telling me?

As i'm anticipating the falling death of the star in me,

trusting Him to take me out as gently as can be,

I pinch-check that I am still where I vowed to remain these past days.

Waiting and listening, as movable as I can leave my stubborn self to the hands of a Master extreme vessel renovator.

I am good and solid broken.