Truthful Reminders

Within the past few days I've come across this particular piece twice - taking some time to ponder this and let it all sink in.

Reflecting on Love

Reminders...

The end of yesterday brought with it many stories of brokenness and left my heart feeling heavy. It is hard to walk through brokenness and not want to gather up all of the little pieces and put them back together. Ugh. Thankful for a new day and for the reminder of things greater than myself.

Home

We took a drive today and headed up into the mountains for a hike. It was a beautiful way to spend our afternoon: spending time outside, seeing my kids breathe deeply again as they take off running to explore, gaining a few moments of silence, catching a few glimpses of my husband as he wanders through the trees. These moments bring me a strong sense of peace and an enormous amount of gratitude. 

As we were heading back into town the song "Home" was playing on the radio. Maybe it was the magic of the afternoon. Maybe it was the two semesters of studying music therapy kicking in, but I suddenly found myself weeping as I listened to the lyrics and realized that this song was actually offering words to my unspoken prayers over the past five months as we navigate life with the three babes. We have been attempting to navigate our way through this uncharted territory that has been full of moments when each one of us is paralyzed with fear from some "demon" that is rising up within us. Those moments rarely come with a clear direction as to what we should be doing next, so more often then not we hunker down and try to wrap our arms around each other, as walls are torn down and trust in family hopefully becomes a little easier to hold onto. 

"Home" Phillip Phillips

Hold on, to me as we go
As we roll down this unfamiliar road
And although this wave (wave) is stringing us along
Just know you're not alone
Cause I'm gonna make this place your home

Settle down, it'll all be clear
Don't pay no mind to the demons
They fill you with fear
The trouble it might drag you down
You get lost, you can always be found

Just know you're not alone
Cause I'm gonna make this place your home

Ooo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo. Oo-oo-oo-oo [x2]
Aaa-aa-aa-aa-aa-aa-aa. Aa-aa-aa-aaaaaa [x4]

Settle down, it'll all be clear
Don't pay no mind to the demons
They fill you with fear
The trouble it might drag you down
If you get lost, you can always be found

Just know you're not alone
Cause I'm gonna make this place your home

Ooo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo. Ao-oo-oo-oo [x4]
Aaa-aa-aa-aa-aa-aa-aa. Aa-aa-aa-aaaaaa [x4]

Pondering

I wish we could all stop looking to the horizon for beauty and find it near us, all around us, profoundly close to us in the hearts and faces we meet each day.

I wish my heart would never stop softening, never tire of breaking, never quit believing for one second that every human matters.

All we need is more love.

The good news? We grow it the same way we grow peas and peppers.
We grow it by planting it.

~Flower Patch Farmgirl

Pondering

"We're depending on God; He's everything we need. What's more, our hearts brim with joy since we've taken for our own his Holy name. Love us God, with all you've got - that's what we're depending on."

Words of Encouragement

Still not sure where to hang our chalkboard, but until we figure that out we provided our waiting hearts with some encouragement. 

Pondering

"Suffering invites us to be radically human with one another, perhaps doing nothing more than reaching across the table, clasping hands, and weeping together. We are afforded the chance to create a safe place for someone else to mourn; nothing is needed but space, proximity, presence, empathy. You cannot possibly give an answer, so don’t try.Grief cannot be sidestepped; it must be endured, so may we be a people who endure with one another rather than constantly mitigating, explaining, propping up. Let’s just hold one another through the dark night and wait for the sun to rise."

~Jen Hatmaker

Changes

Change is never easy. You fight to hold on. You fight to let go. 

Pondering

"Sometimes the first time we pray, we cry out in the deepest desperation, 'God help me.' This is a great prayer, as we are then at our absolutely most degraded and isolated, which means we are nice and juicy with the consequences of our best thinking and are thus possibly teachable."

"I was so sensitive about myself and the world that I cried or shriveled up at the slightest hurt. People always told me, 'You've got to get a thicker skin.' like now they might say, 'Let go and let God.' Believe me, if I could, I would, and in the meantime I feel like stabbing you in the forehead."

"We will see and read about deprivation and barbarity beyond our ability to understand, much less process."

"If we stay where we are, where we're stuck, where we're comfortable and safe, we die there. If you want to know only what you already know, you're dying. You're saying: Leave me alone; I don't mind this little rathole."

From: Help, Thanks, Wow by: Anne Lamott

Pondering

“You will lose someone you can’t live without,and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.” 
― Anne Lamott

Pondering

Pondering

“There is amazing love and grace in people’s response to the killings. It’s like white blood cells pouring in to surround and heal the infection. It just breaks your heart every time, in the good way, where Hope tiptoes in to peer around. For the time being, I am not going to pretend to be spiritually more evolved than I am. I’m keeping things very simple: right foot, left foot, right foot, breathe; telling my stories, and reading yours. I keep thinking about Barry Lopez’s wonderful line, “Everyone is held together with stories. That is all that is holding us together; stories and compassion.”

~ Anne Lamott

Pondering

Pondering

"If you are wise - are you listening, my brother? - instead of torturing yourself over what you could not help and did not foresee, you will allow the grief in you to be a simple open wound that Christ may touch and, in good time, heal.  This thing happened.  It has broken you to pieces.  If you can find the humility to allow it, grace will also heal you: you will be stronger in the end for this, one day.  This grieving is the filth and mess that turns out to be the bed of sticky clay that, if we plunge our hands into it and bring them out full, we can craft into a grail of hope.  It is so.  I promise you."  

~ Penelope Wilcock

Pondering

A Time to Remember

This morning I flew out of Denver, traveling to Albuquerque to celebrate and remember the life of my uncle, Kenny. He was my father's youngest sibling and he will certainly be missed.

Pondering

Justice is a garment.

Love is a thread.

Pondering

"You tell what you know  what you've earned, what you've learned the hard way. You watch it fall on what seem to be deaf ears, and you mutter something under your breath, something about pearls before swine. But then ten years later you realize that one fragment of your story has now been woven into someone else's, a very necessary thing, a bridge to a new way of understanding and living. I didn't need proof from a theologian or a tip from a church practitioner. I needed a piece of a story, something real and full of life and blood and breath and heartache, something way more than an idea, something that someone had lived through, a piece of wisdom earned the hard way. That's why telling our stories is so important.
Tell the stories of love and redemption and forgiveness every time you experience them. Tell the stories of reconciliation and surprise and new life everywhere you find them."
                                                                             ~Shauna Niequist

Pondering

Something worth considering on the eve of Election day.....