When the Bowling Alley is Full

Sometimes you have such grand ideas, good and great expectations. And sometimes, you get to the bowling alley, and all the lanes are full. Having your grand ideas let down is sometimes like walking into the bowling alley and seeing there are no vacancy, no room for you to play.
And sometimes, when you see the no vacancy at the bowling alley, you feel like everything is that way; one great unfulfilled ambition. Melodramatic, I know. But tonight, I feel this great exhale, the slight inward tilt of the shoulders, the sigh of being let down. But at least I drove to the bowling alley; sometimes hoping against the odds pays off only in the strengthening of one's ability to hope. And someday, I will go to the bowling alley, and there will be an open lane, and I will enjoy the simple pleasures of a grand idea being fulfilled.

Choose Your Parents Wisely

/Fathers be good to your daughters/Daughters will love like you do/ *

Those infamous words John Mayer loves to croon, tonight they press against my chest, burning to be answered. "How will you love?" I think is the question their letters ask, if only we could hear beyond the words. 

"Chose your parents wisely!"**

My human bio professor loves to tease us with this caution against diseases inherited from family. She quips referring to genetics, and I am always reminded of John Mayer's soft voice asking me, "How will you love like He does?" 

/Now we are soaked in all the grace that we've been given/Unchained from all that we have done/***

As these words float through my ears I am again reminded, I am the product of my Father, yes, my Father who is above all. The One who was from the beginning, who is today, and who will forever Be. He is the One I long to love, the one who is wildly in love with me, the One I seek to be like in this thing called Love. If I could choose my parents, I would always choose Him; because He has always chosen me. 

Again my heart shall sing, I am my Father's daughter; like Him I want to be. 

I am my Daddy's girl; HIs face in mine I want to see.

A Daughter of The King.

*Daughters by John Mayer

** (Van der Werff, Pam. 2012)

*** Alive by All Sons & Daughters

Love Wins?

The past months have been a roller coaster ride of life, love, and seeking to understand justice in the face of death. Pouring months into a business plan that purposes to bring life and hope to the marginalized and disenfranchised; life. While learning about the atrocities that have happened in South Africa, Rwanda, Ireland, the US; in the face of death. Death taunts, but life and love and grace are triumphant. Always. And in the midst of death's grasping for victory, love still wins!

The perpetrators are just as loved and covered in grace and sought out by the Father's heart?
This is a truth I have struggled with and been so convicted of these past months. Watching footage from the South African Amnesty Hearings of war crimes committed by police officers. Things so horrible it feels a crime to even hear them spoken aloud. And in those minutes, feeling the tug of righteous anger I've known; and all of a sudden a revelation of something new:

The love the Father has for His creation extends beyond every evil every produced by mankind; and He yearns for His child who is so enslaved to death.

What is this news?

The price Jesus paid was for the Hitlers, the lynchers, the mass-murderers as much as it was for me. Because they, too, are Children of the Most High. And their Daddy is calling them Home, into His embrace, His love, and His astounding Grace.
Oh Death, where is your sting? 

And with tears streaming down my face, as I feel the Father's heartache, His longing for His sons and daughters to come home I find, I want them to come home too. My brothers and sisters are lost, and my Daddy waits for them in heartache and great love, watching, waiting for them to return to His Love. And that is what I want for them to.
Oh Grace, what is this you've grown inside of me?

And how can they come home if they don't know of their brokenness and need for redemption? And who will tell them, if it is not me and my fellow princesses and princes who go and show them what is this Good News? Death; is dead! The grave is overcome! The time for hurting is past, the time for healing has come!
How far does love win?

And I wonder in hope and expectation, who will I meet when I get to heaven someday? How far does love go? beyond the grave? This great mystery, to me bring a hope that perhaps, someday, in the presence of the One who's love knows no end, I will see my brothers and sisters who are lost and have taken life standing side by side in communion with those they have oppressed. Oh what a day that would be! That death and his dealers would be cast into an empty place- because love has redeemed! What if when Jesus died, He paid for all of the sin of the world? Past, present, future. What if we get a chance as we cross from this realm into eternity, as we see the face of our Lover and our Friend, to chose Him still?
Oh what a sight that would be!

Because Justice, I think, is not seeing the oppressor, "get what's coming to him." Justice, perhaps, is seeing the oppressor and the oppressed standing on even grounds. The ending of violence, justified or not; perhaps this is the secret Justice longs to share.

And maybe I am a dreamer, but maybe I dream with the One who teaches me first to love.

When I Exchange My Heart for Yours

"I'm so terrified of getting married," my friend said to me today. "I have this fear that I'm going to wake up one morning and see my husband and realize that I'm not actually in love with him and not know what the hell I was thinking."

Then we hear these words floating from the radio. /And I'll surrender up my heart/And swap it for yours/. *

And this is what I think it might be talking about, this whole idea of marriage and falling in love, and then staying there. Working for it, and protecting it, and reveling in that heart exchange.

I don't know about love, or romance, or marriage first hand, but I think it might be a lovely thing. An adventure, certainly, it will be. And someday, maybe, I will have a heart with which to exchange this one I temporarily call my own.

Oh, Darling,
Let us be adventurers,
You and I. **

*Ed Sheeran- Lego House
**- Izabella  

The Thing About Being Brave

The thing about being brave is, you can never go back. you can look back, but never retry or repeat.
the roller coaster ride that never loops back around.

Tonight it's raining, dark, thunder and lightning.

"I don't wonder, when it thunders, if I'm safe in Daddy's arms." *

But I do wonder, when I take risks, if I've made a huge mistake

But that's the thing about being brave, you can't hit "Redo".

We use the sound of thunder that follows a flash of lightning to measure how far away the lightning is.

And maybe, in some strange way, I use the magnitude of my heart's quaking to measure the height from which I jump each time I take a risk.

"You are so brave!" my friend said to me this week, "You talk about stuff, and then you actually do it! You take the risk, and it is such an encouragement to me, to see you stepping out in love and risking it all."

I sometimes feel brave, and mostly I feel foolish. Sometimes, I even feel a slight pang of regret.

But if thunder reminds me of how close I am in my Daddy's arms. Perhaps I can learn to feel the same with each new cliff I jump, and step I take, toward a braver and more risky me.

Because, I would much rather live life doing all the things that fear tries to hold me back from, and feel the fragility of my heartbeats, then reach the end of my days and realize, I have yet to live.

*lyrics from When It Thunders by Jason Upton

Where the Lines Begin to Grey

Life is lived in the tension
the moments in between.
The lines between you and I blur as we unfold.
Perhaps one day we will look back, and see the blur was when your heart met mine.
Maybe my eyes are just out of focus.
For now I tip-toe through this maze, where the lines begin to grey.

On the Road

"I take a moment to become aware of Holy Spirit, because the One I am aware of is the One I will manifest." - Bill Johnson 

The road to healing is a strange one. Such highs and lows, and much in betweens. Each day, a little more ground is gained and some new hurt is discovered; a dance into the arms of Love. Two steps forward, one step aside. The moments of exhilaration are followed by a rush of fear and recollection, each fighting for spotlight in my mind.

And yet, Love is all around. There is something so deep and profound about the awareness of Love and Spirit and Joy. Spirit bring all of the above. To live aware of Him is my greatest pleasure and task. 

Hope's Anthem

"Hope, oh fickle friend of mine."
I heard this lie today. Yet when I look, I am surprised to find: Hope screams its reign over death. Helpless; no longer. Hope's anthem continues to grow. Bursting forth, colors in life.
There is such hope! For you, for me, for the world and humanity. It explodes and interrupts the lies of hopeless ends! Let there be hope among the nations, let it reign in my soul. Because, "I get to love You through whatever comes, what a privilege."*

It shall come to pass in the latter days
that the mountain of the house of the Lord
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
and shall be lifted up above the hills;
and all the nations shall flow to it,
and many peoples shall come and say:
"Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that He may teach us His ways
and that we may walk in His paths."
For out of Zion shall go the law
and the world of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations,
and shall decide disputes for many peoples;
and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war anymore. 

Hope abounds! Where the lies of lack, and helplessness, and despair whisper, hope resound with all the weight of heaven and glory.

 Because, "I get to love you through whatever comes, how sweet it is."**




* and ** are lyrics from Kristene DiMarco's Praise the Lord O My Soul 

"Can people be angels?" I asked today, thinking of the woman who was there when I hit my head because God told her she needed to be there for some reason earlier that day. "She is a citizen of heaven," was your response.

I want to live like this, to be this in tune with Father and His kingdom, that people say of me, "She is a citizen of heaven."

And that marked difference between a citizen and the earth, and even a "believer", and an active citizen of heaven!

It feels extraordinary to me, that one could be so closely in tune with Father's heartbeat.

That I might grow to be that active and in touch with this Kingdom I love.

Adventures in longboarding, and blessings in disguise

In My Dreams, We Meet

I met you in my dreams last night
You were tall and lovely
Running across the field you came
Windblown hair.

I waited for you at the post mark
Where you plane would land
Running across the field you came
Shoulders broad.

Coming close now
Ever on the horizon



I saw you in my dreams last night
Holding my heart in your hands.