…to him who led his people through the wilderness;
His love endures forever. (Psalm 136: 16)

We read the Psalm last night- a slow history, a repetition of a True Thing: the world goes crazy, death and birth, but (and perhaps, always)- His love endures forever.

Like a heartbeat, it pulses softly- His love endures forever. Older editions read mercy: his mercy endures forever. Hebrew: Checed. Strong’s translates it as “goodness, kindness, faithfullness”.

He is here. Isn’t that it, distilled? He was here. He will be here. He is here. He is -Emmanuel- God with us. Here. Now.

I’ve thought about that a lot. Traced the days quietly. I confessed my rush last week. I’ve near drowned in the rushing river of busy to get- where? exactly? The question faces me, shards of hard truth. I’m not sure of the answer. Crawling out on the bank, away from the rushing water- it’s a bit like waking in an alien world. In some ways, I wonder how I ever functioned. It’s taken me nigh on two weeks to finally get rested- to wake without a crushing, sickening exhaustion burning behind my eyes. And even at that, I find I must curl up and sleep much sooner than I think; that my energy fails me before I am ready to end the day. It makes me wonder.

I suddenly realize how much stress my children have felt; how interconnected their behavior is to the choices I make. I am humbled. I find myself throwing myself on His mercy, every morning, sometimes every moment. And I wonder, why isn’t this posture my normal posture? Why isn’t trusting and praying in His grace my standard operating procedure, my daily to-do? I have friends that breathe this truth, live this grace. It’s palpable. You can near touch this place between you and they, where you know glory rests, where peace is true- even when they are frustrated, sad, distraught, they speak in Grace. It’s a balm to be around any of them. And me? I feel like I speak and glass-shards go ricocheting. That I tear down, not build up. I ponder that here, in the quiet. I realize it’s a heart condition. You can believe in Christ, believe in Grace, and yet, that never translates down to arterial song. You have to drink deep the Truth, and it sets the rhythm: His love endures forever. Because~ ”For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” (Luke 6:45)

I’ve been offered a second chance with this; rare is the time that I can stop and reconsider, evaluate. I’ve always rushed headlong into the next thing. I am doing my best to just stay- quiet- listening. Healing. Trying not to name the things, put them in boxes, label. Just living. And listening. Listening carefully to the pulse- His love endures forever. May I never let things get so loud again that I can’t hear that. I know I will, most likely, because I am a broken sinner- but I am trying to re-order my life so that this is the first sound I hear when I wake up, and the last when my eyes close. May my arterial song be Grace…

Truth can be a slow rising, making no difference at first. But as each moment weaves itself into the next, as we believe Him in the great right now, His truth becomes a strand woven into the fabric of our minutes.

~ Emily, Chatting at the Sky, Jan. 19, 2012

I’ve been dwelling in a quiet place. My last day of work ended Friday, and with it came a wicked twenty-four-hour stomach bug. I left with a whimper, barely finishing my last tasks, instead of with a bang, but what of that? It’s over now.

The days that followed meant rest; sleep. Full eight hour, ten hour full stops. No spinning mind, no waking with a mad to-do list ricochet-pow! around my brain. Just rest. As the Sabbath dawned, I attended church, fully there. No spinning madness, tilt-a-whirl round about the liturgy–you forgot to do this, you failed at that whispering through. Just the Word. The body. The bread. The cup. I felt dizzy in the hushed.

Noon and lunch followed, children down for naps, and I wandered my house. Rediscovery. I read. I clumsily knit a few rows. (What good therapy I shall have for my wrist, no?) I scribbled poetry. I sat in the quiet. I felt dizzy in the hushed.

Three more turns of clay, light and dark, have passed, and the dizziness is passing. I greet the quiet, slip her folds about me. I feel spring. I have lived winter long enough. There is no word to name this year, but more, a feeling: an abiding. A dwelling. A healing. I wandered our backyard, and discovered I had forgotten seasons. I walk, discovering feet. My body greets the subtle pain of use with gladness. I will weave the days, re-weave the threads that have fallen while I chased mad after desperation.

I’ve struggled to write here the last few years. I’ve struggled to be creative. I’ve just plain ol’ struggled. And—I’ve felt guilty for struggling. Guilty for not being able to be an encouragement, or glory-be, or…I don’t know…that Christian blogger that’s got it all together, with a creative streak, natch. But you know what? I had a conversation with myself a few years back- to tell the story. And whether I like it or not, my struggle is the story. It is where I’ve been.

I keep coming back to relationship. It the story of Him. It’s the story of us-my family. It’s the story of us- universal. It’s where we’ve been and where we’re going, and the Home we are journeying towards. This has been making the rounds on Facebook like wildfire, but it’s worth a watch if you have a second.

I keep thinking about grace…I think we talk to ourselves intellectually that we would let Jesus in should He knock at our front door—but the thing is? Would we let our own selves in? How can we extend grace to others if we’ve never learned how to truly forgive our own failings? If we’re so busy questioning someone else’s lives, choices, salvation? Do we really, really, really believe in the scandalous grace of Christ?

I watched my husband last night, leaned over an ER bed with an extremely sick little boy- our fourth son, Josiah. Everything is all right now. But it was a scary night…a night where we paced the floors…where a daddy looked over at his not-so-baby boy with all the love written plain across his face, his lips whispering quiet prayer. And all I can think about tonight—my husband. He’s just a man, just trying to do his best, a daddy. And my God calls himself Abba. Daddy. And if my husband, broken sinner that he is- loves his son like that….maybe, just maybe…my Abba Father God is looking down at me, broken and sick sinner, and praying over me too.

I’m observing the passing of the year with a properly raised Spock’s eyebrow. It just hasn’t been logical. And I want to side with the Vulcans and say it all lines up nice and tidy, but I’m only an emotional human. Life has taught me differently. Life has a logic that defines the human senses. Only He knows. Upside down, contradiction, servant not master.

This is the year that I let go and let God. I don’t mean that in the trite cliche it smacks of. It’s just that you can cling to things so tightly, knuckles white, that you don’t realize that those things have fractured and shattered, and your hands are bloody and torn, and the only way to stop the pain is to let go.

Fast away the old year passes…

Time moves differently now. It used to seem lockstep, forward march, onwards, go! to me. I was always facing backwards. Mourning a past I could not fix, gazing over the blackness. Not realizing that the reason I couldn’t see was because I was gazing at a path that no longer existed. God’s time, the kronos, kairos- they seemed other-worldy. I could never grab them, wrap my mind around it. Pain tempers that desire. Time is a river. We ease into it. Sometimes we hold on a Rock in the middle of the rapids, sometimes we float on His love. But we are always in time, never apart from it. To try to hold time in place- I think that’s the call of the dark one, to be frank. Only the Lord can hold time. He is time. Weird how claims like that no longer bother me.

Hail the new, ye lads and lasses…

I won’t ever pretend I know what it’s like to come back from physical war, the death you see, the pain you endure. But I can tell you what spiritual warfare is like, and the thing is, from all I’ve seen and read, the two aren’t much different in the end. I’ve been walking away from the battlefield a while now, and still, looking across the horizon, I can feel the thing, just over that far hill. My memories are filled with the losses. It is a scar that will always be with me.

It make me regard the new with a bit more awe. That each day, we rise again, take a breath, move and have being. It is a grace and a gift we often fail to regard. I don’t want to forget that feeling anytime soon. In fact, learning eucharisteo makes walking every foot of that battlefield worth it. I am less, and He is more. It is as it should be. It’s taken my whole life to finally begin drinking that into my soul. I begin to wonder that it will always be a new discovery, each morning. That first YHWY breath of conciousness as the sun tips the sky each day.

Sing we joyous all together…

The song on my heart as I greet the new year: wild grace. Steadfast mercy. Everlasting compassion. And faith. Faith in the Mystery. In the Things Unseen. In the God I cannot see but Whose imprint is everywhere if I have eyes to see.

I was thinking about the culture that defined me this year, the things that surrounded my thoughts. I’ve long since realized that culture is a powerful thing. For good. For ill. When I think about the culture that cried out to me this year, I think the thing that strikes me the most is that they are all a cry for the Light. I’m not one to stick with overtly Christian things simply because they are labeled such- my favorite band still remains The Dave Matthews Band. (And yes, I realize I have just shown my age.) But this year, everything I loved happened to be labeled Christian. I look more for art. Beauty. Truth. I am so thankful that the Christian community is finally stepping up with some real meaty substance for a change, not watered down. I know it goes in cycles, but I’m so thankful for the change right now. I needed the strong stuff.

The books: Refractions by Makoto Fujimura. Give Them Grace by Elyse Fitzpatrick and Jessie Thompson. One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp.

The music: Far and away had to be Josh Garrel’s Love & War & The Sea in Between. It is still on repeat. Close second was Gungor’s second album, Ghosts Upon the Earth. Both seem to be imbibing what Micheal Card has been saying for years- excellence matters. Art matters. Faith matters. Forget the label. Play your heart, speak to Christ the longings of your heart, and the rest of us’ll get it. Don’t make the next top 40 hit. Speak Christ.

The movies: I’m about four years behind. I’m always watching stuff after the fact. The entire Harry Potter series (both books and movies) are definitely the defining point for media for me this year. Jeffery Overstreet has made powerful contentions that all stories that point back to the Story are worthy of reading. And I tell ya, this dark series was one of the serious catalysts for pointing me back to the Light. Of course, I advise discernment. (Shouldn’t we always advise our dearests to discernment in all things, labeled Christian or no? Shouldn’t it all be weighed against the Truth, the Word made Flesh?)

And here, the miracle of another year is upon us. A chance to breathe new. Whether they will be labored breaths, or shouts of joy…

Welcome 2012.