“Ima” (The Prodigal’s Mother)

 Birth is the only jubilant end

To one life being shared with another.

Not so joyous is the letting go that comes after.

No one told me what kind of empty I would feel in my chest

The first night he did not need me to soothe his cries.

Every lullaby was a prayer for peace

For hope, for restoration 

For dreams of a future.

I held you to my chest and memorized your heartbeat.

I prepared meals as a benediction.

My heart danced to the music of your laughter.

The day you left, I felt the string of my souls tugged right between us

And I spent weeks humming lullabies.

The story of your father will be told throughout history;

His jubilee at you return,

His fattened calf and celebration.

A father’s love is decided and uproarious,

But a mother...

Her prayers live in the secret place where you grew.

They are in every brush of her broom,

Every smooth of your hair,

Every deep longing she sighed in the night.

I might live forever in the background of your story.

I might not be the one who ran to meet you on the road,

But please know, my love, I knew.

I knew because I heard all of my lullabies come back to me.

I felt your heartbeat in my chest.

Where there was once only empty ache,

I was dancing.

The Gospel of Wide Open Spaces

Imagine this:

You spend most of your life in a cave of a dungeon.

Steel bars embedded in stone

A ramshackle cage.

You’re starved, pale, worn...

But you dream.

You dream of light and majesty.

You dream of more room.

You spin silent tales of rescue

Of someone coming to save the day.

Now, imagine this...

One day, they do.

They open the door, scoop you up.

They carry you away.

They hold you in their arms, take you all in,

And smile.

Delight lights their face,

And you find yourself in the most beautiful valley

Wide open space with mountain surround.

None of your dungeon-dreams could even compare.

But you’re still pale and work.

Weak from years of captive stillness.

You begin to fear

Enemy mounts on the heights above

Arrows poised in the shadow of the sun.

You tremble

You try to catch sight of your cave

You fret

You buckle

You know

You know, you know, you know

You aren’t fit for a life like this

Majesty, light, open space.

You don’t deserve more room.

But, imagine this:

You feel their hand in yours

And they smile.

Delight lights their face.

Even with enemy on the heights

They prepare a banquet celebration.

They lead you to your wide open space.

Blue sky above and soft grass beneath your feet.

Now imagine this—

Even as arrows whistle through the air all around,

Instead of retreat, you take their hand

And dance.

Rescuer Part 2

In your blood, I found you.

Worn and wasted away.

You spent days and nights against the cold.

You felt as though the sting of abandonment

Had pierced you through.

My love, you know I spoke once to you,

“I make motion of the dead.”

Even in this movement, you turned your face from Me.

You hid your cries as though I am the one Who drove you away.

My love, I never locked the door.

I left a fire burning.

I left the light on for you

And waited up with bated breath.

My love, you are my greatest treasure.

My love for you crashes like ocean waves

And smolders as a fire’s warmth.

My love, I knew all along.

If you had come to me,

I would have broken over you 

I would have cleansed your wounds.

The ways in which your heart has broken

The tears that graced your face

I know

I know

I know

And I will redeem them.

I will make them the laughter that lights your face.

I will give them purpose.

I will make them glory to grace your head.

I will make them strength in your hands

And swiftness in your feet.

I will make you whole.

I will make you a light in the darkness

A sharpened sword.

I will make you a force to be reckoned with.

And when you survey your power

You will see your name 

Carved into the palm of my hand.

My love, in your blood I found you 

And with Mine, I will exalt you.

On Aprils

Ten years ago, I sat in the dining hall of a Christian camp. A man my father's age sat with me. It was April, and I had no idea... I had no idea how the next ten years of my life would be measured by this month.

"You need to let him see who you are."

It was the prophetic word from a man named Bob. It was the best advice I've ever been given. It was the key that started a journey.

I was full of anxiety. I couldn't drive a car. I couldn't, for the life of me, pass a college math class. I froze up any time I had to speak in front of a group of more than five people. I hardly ate. I hardly slept. I had no idea who I was, and the me I was hiding had been hurt so many times, I didn't think it was worth exposing.

I tried anyway.

He was the most gentle boy I'd ever met. There was a safety there that I had never really known. He was the first person who asked me to take up space with no reservations and no conditions.

By the next April, I was planning my wedding. I was graduating college. I was driving my own car.

Five years later, in the throes of infertility and emptiness, God saw fit to give me three new additions. Not by birth or adoption, but fruit nonetheless. Three incredible women, whom I have the privilege of calling friends.

Two years later, in April, we found out we were expecting our first child-- long awaited Josiah, a little mess of a promise.

Three years have passed, and April is the month when we lost our next little possibility of life.

Who knows what next April will hold?
Maybe life, maybe not. Definitely revision of some sort.
It seems that Aprils bring either death or resurrection for me.
All I know is that I can't hide from it.

Let’s Go to Church

In 2017, I wrote a book.

It’s not the book I thought I would write. I was on course to finish my third novel, In Terms of Liv by November. I was trucking along, I had over half of it written. The hashtag #metoo spread like wildfire, providing the perfect societal backdrop for a young adult novel about sexual assault. Then, I hit a brick wall. It was the most monumental case of writer’s block that I have ever experienced.

For a month, I sat with fingers poised to finish the book, but nothing came.

Then I met Emily Walker.

Emily’s a lot like me when I was seventeen. Quirky, sweet, a little angsty, a little disenchanted with church culture and everything it seems to say about her.

She also has a problem that still plagues me— one that I didn’t know I had until I started writing a book about her.

Emily doesn’t like to take up space.

She wears a lot of black. She wears headphones a lot. She stays out of people’s way, and doesn’t like to say how she feels— especially if it’s going to upset them.

Writing this book about Emily was like seeing myself in a mirror.

I’ve learned a lot from Emily. I’ve learned that making myself smaller is not admirable. It does not make me more lovable. It doesn’t enrich relationship.

I’ve also learned that taking up space looks different all the time. Sometimes, it’s speaking. Sometimes, it’s being comfortable with silence. Sometimes, it’s stretching out in all the space someone’s got roped off for you. Sometimes, it’s kicking out windows and letting the rubble fall where it may. It’s not always gently unfolding into love and security. Sometimes, in order to take up space, something has to give or break or be destroyed.

So, I wrote a book in 2017. It’s a book about kicking out windows and taking up space and stepping into the light.

Emily’s a pretty cool girl. I can’t wait for you to meet her.

“She was not unhappy. She knew nothing of the world except the tomb in which she dwelt, and had some pleasure in everything she did. But she desired, nevertheless, something more or different. She did not know what it was, and the nearest she could come to expressing it to herself was -- that she wanted more room.” - George MacDonald, “The Day Boy and the Night Girl”

On Superhero Capes

There once was a girl who wore a superhero cape.

It wasn't a fancy cape. A hodgepodge of florals and stripes, bold and tame. Fashioned from scraps found along her way, it gave her a super power.

Superhuman strength... but not the kind that can stop bullets or lift cars clear above her head.

The kind that can walk through fire.

The kind that can silence storms and tame the wild.

A few too many battles changed her mind. She didn't wield well this strength. She decided that the only way to survive was to use her superpower to protect herself.

Her heart turned to forged iron. It made her stand tall. Her cape changed from rags to shimmering light, and she thought she could fly. She used heavy stones to build a fortress. She flew to its highest turret and lived high above all of the people she knew. She was untouchable. She was unhurtable. 

She was strong.

But this power was never meant to protect her. It was never meant to draw battle lines in a circle around herself.

People came from far and wide to see this heroine. She wandered the halls of her fortress, watching the people from her spire. But she could not touch them. She could not help them or love them or live among them, for her cape was only beautiful and her heart was only safe inside the stone walls.

She grew dismayed, her iron heart rusting ever so slightly at the seams. She prayed each night that she would become strong again.

Her strength did not return. Rain began to fall each day. It eroded the mortar between the stones of her tower. She cursed the sky from which it came, and the God Who had seemingly not answered her prayers. Her cape turned slowly back to rags and her heart to flesh and blood.

Our heroine awoke one day to find a bright sky and the sun shining warm.

"Maybe, for one day, I could walk amongst the people. My fortress is no good anymore anyway."

So, she ventured out with her cape made of scraps. She tried to lift the heaviest stone she could find, but she wasn't able. She tried to fly above the treetops to see the glorious view of the sky, but her feet hardly left the ground.

"This old cape isn't worth anything," She said as she trudged back to her tower. She reached to untie the knot, just as a ragged stray dog stepped into the path before her. It limped and snarled all at once, warning her away. But, she knew it was badly hurt. 

"I just want to help you," she said, reaching out a cautious hand. "It's really no use trying to guard your wounds."

Slowly, the dog obliged. She wrapped it in her cape and cleaned it up. As she continued home, the dog followed, and she realized that even if she couldn't fly-- even if she didn't stand tall-- she could tame the wild again.

On Being Overdressed

Imagine a little girl, dark wispy hair, big gray eyes. She dances in a black velvet tutu across every part of her life. There is joy in the assuredness of knowing who she wants to be. More than anything, she wants to be a dancer-- a ballerina.

At age 5, she's handed a shirt. It's been so long since then, she can't remember what color it was, but she knows she slipped it on over her tutu and tried to keep dancing. The shirt is too big on her, and it turns her graceful movements into lumbering steps. The big, block lettering scrawled across the front distracts her at first.

"Big Boned" is all it says.

Over the next few years, she is handed more and more shirts. She doesn't think to remove the previous ones, just keeps layering them up.

"I don't want to be your friend."
"Cheeseburger."
"If you don't like it, change it."

Layer after layer, she just keeps dancing. But, to those around her, her dance looks more and more foolish as her movements are inhibited by her bulk.

At age 13, she stops trying to dance.

She receives more shirts. Gifts from people who admire her from afar, but can't handle her when they get close. Identities that she silently dresses herself in.

"Unstable."
"One emotional outcry after another."
"Why are you like this?"
"You're always having a bad day."
"Why can't you just extend compassion like a normal human being?"

For years, she buys clothes that are too big and too dark in hopes of appearing less. She wages war on her own body for its betrayal of her. She tries to see if wasting away will make her feel smaller.

Those who know her well can see this. They hand her more shirts, trying to encourage her and remind her of who she really is.

"You're perfect the way you are."
"You're beautiful."
"You could never scare me away."
"You're the smartest girl I know."

But they are shirts, nonetheless. No matter how well intentioned, the words are still something she has to either prove false or prove true. Layer upon layer on a body that is already far too large.

Things do change. They do get better. It's not the shirts those dear friends hand her that makes the difference. It's the fact that they believe what they're telling her, and they're still there. It's the new people she meets that can look past all of the layers to see that little girl with the big gray eyes who was made to dance. It's her Maker whispering in her ear...

"No one else gets to say who you are. You are Mine."

She doesn't know how many shirts she's put on over the years, but she knows that she has a choice to make. Sometimes, when she looks in the mirror, she sees grace and elegance flash across her reflection. She could spend her life peeling off and replacing layers of clothes and lies.

Or she could cut through it all and find that black velvet tutu again.
The one with the satin ribbons and tiny pink rosebuds.