Rewinding Joy

We are on the expressway.

Powerful five words to begin this post.

I am sipping water with lemons floating on top and listening to the imperfect tense.

“Bam, bas, bat. . “

And the instructor on the video is telling those of us in the white mini van

Speeding down the expressway;

That the imperfect tense is the tense to describe what is ongoing.

Therefore not complete or “perfect”.

I am the imperfect tense. 

I think this as I hit the turn signal and take a turn to leave the fast road and head down the slower roads.

We move to new vocabulary together.

Younger son wants the video paused.

“You know that word “pabulum” that means “food for animals?”

Yes. I do.

“Well, I know I am always talking about dinosaurs. But, anyway, maybe we get the word “pebble” from “pabulum” since dinosaurs are animals and sometimes they eat pebbles?”

Hmm.

I say “maybe” hidden behind a small smile.

Usually they do well with derivatives.

I am not at all sure about this particular one.

And then I remember, as they hit the “play” button again, all that I have to “do”.

The boys start chanting.

I start listing.

Piano lessons. Library. Home to finish school. Dinner.

Turkey sandwiches again? I must use my crock pot more often.

Soccer. That will be Husband’s to handle.

Bible study. That is mine.

I need to clean.

Defurr the red couches. Vacuum. Dust the tables.

The bathroom needs attention.

My hands prickle with anxiety.

Do dinosaurs really eat pebbles?

I must look that up soon.

I feel the weight begin. The lungs tighter.

I hear the Latin DVD end.

Older son hits “eject” button.

He asks to put on Toby Mac.

We switch Latin for Toby in a quick exchange.

The chanting leading to rapping seems paradox.

Old to new.

Quiet to loud.

Studying to dancing.

Me to Him.

I turn up the black volume button.

I want to dance.

“One World” begins playing.

And I start to dance in my seat belt.

While driving.

Laughing.

Singing.

Stop light.

I turn around quick, hair in my eyes;

“God says: What is the dealie with the silly I see?”

I sing it loud with Toby as I look at each son of mine.

Tickle them.

Younger son is all animated.

Dancing. Eating peanut butter and strawberry jelly.

That look on his face that Husband gets when he’s lip synching rap songs.

Super awesome-cool boy of mine.

“One world. Rewind.”

Music, laughter surrounds this moment.

Stamps it soundly in my scrapbook.

“I’ll look out for you, you look out for me.” 

Older son’s voice joins in. 

He smiles big and giggles.

It will all get done.

Or it won’t.

I remember that I am the imperfect tense.

Not finished.

And I can handle that.

He can handle all.

But I must choose not to resist spontaneous fun for the illusion of control.

This moment is what they will remember.

Me too.

What we will rewind.

We pull into the library parking lot.

Finish the song.

Why rush?

The van is shaking with our movement, the volume and our laughter.

The music ends.

I feel lighter. Lungs breathe free. Relaxed.

And I slide open that back door.

Sons eyes meet mine again and it is the miracle of time and tense.

The choosing of joy.

“Worship the Lord with gladness; (put down your lists, your anxiety) come before Him with joyful songs (and make memories worthy to rewind).” Psalm 100:2

Sharing today with Ann at Multitudes on Monday(www.aholyexperience.com) , LL at On, In and Around Mondays(www.seedlingsinstone.blogspot.com)  and Jen at Soli Deo Gloria (www.findingheaventoday.blogspot.com). Jump on over to these beautiful writing corners that always inspire me.

Beginnings

Our love began with a vitamin.

You walked across the classroom.

Fifteen years have passed.

“That was a good lesson on Vitamin C. Really good.”

I was packing up my shiny new book on education.

The book fell into my bag as my eyes met yours for the first time.

Our first class as emerging educators.

Learning how to teach.

And we still laugh about this.

Those first words that you ever spoke to me.

Words of encouragement to a lover of words.

I’ve probably told you too many times how I danced to my car.

The thawing process began.

You.

My Spring.

We became friends.

We would study “A Simple Heart” and finish “The Awakening” together.

And I admitted to you, over paper cups of cappuccino spit from that machine;

That I was in love with our white-haired professor.

You just laughed and winked at me.

You knew.

And I started the revelation.

I revealed myself.

Stripped layers.

There is all of this.

Is that alright?

I toted lollipops for energy and watched mirrors for security.

You noticed all this. 

Finally, gently, you wrapped your arms around me and I leaned into you.

We spent evenings by that lake.

Where the Indiana night would hang cold and I could see your breath as we talked of our future.

It would become dark and late.

The clock tower of our university chimed.

Keeping time.

I am in love.

Completely in.

We began our “student teaching”.

The students did teach me. 

 A new love is birthed in chalk and eraser dust.

You nodded knowingly. 

You already knew how love paints a glow on my face and you recognized it.

And you were a coach.

I “helped” by chasing junior high kids around the track each afternoon.

I watched you teach on distance and short sprints.

Catching time on your stopwatch.

I trained with those teenagers. 

Keeping time with you.

I sat on the field and graded papers on ANIMAL FARM.

Dreamed in maxims.

And you packed up the helium filled balloons for me.

The leftover cookie cake of my final day.

And when it was all safely inside. 

I turned.

Completely.

You held me.

And we began. 

**Of all the ways that I know He sees me. . . my husband’s love is the most constant reminder. We will celebrate 12 years of marriage on March 10th. This post is a little early, but I woke up from dreams of our beginnings and wanted to type out the pictures in my head today. Thank you for journeying back to my days of finding the love of my life.

***Today also marks the one year anniversary of this blogging corner. Thank you for being here, for covering this writing place in your prayers and encouragement. Thank you.

Doors and Boxes

He wanted to stay.

We are standing in the balcony.

Mary is pregnant with the Holy Spirit in the stained glass ahead.

Gypsy son asks me to bend.

Whispers the question.

“Who is that?”

And I tell him.

He loves stained glass. 

I never knew this.

Thankful that he sees the beauty because so do I.

Light flowing through the stained.

The stain itself making the light colorful. 

Begging the “adjective”.

It is quiet.

Smell of my childhood Jesus surrounding me.

A monk is at the altar.

“Momma, is he the pope?’

I stifle the giggle.

We aren’t in Rome.

This is Conyers, Georgia.

“No baby.”

My heart fills and feels tight and loose.

I am dizzy in memories.

I must bend again.

“Are any of those guys popes?”

Precious child of mine.

“No baby, just one pope. He is in Italy.”

We walk to the stained glass again.

He presses his nose to the royal purple, the blues of motherhood.

I want the stethoscope again.

I want to hear the hearts of my sons as they beat in this moment.

As we leave I dip a finger in the holy water.

Forget where to put it so I cross my head.

“Help me Jesus. You’ve never changed. It’s me.”

And we open the wooden doors to walk back outside again.

The saints are all pictured in books with the faint yellow circles of the Holy Spirit around their heads.

We need Him there, don’t we?

And I have the holy water on my head.

The cross.

I want a picture.

Sons peek back into the different and beautiful.

I want to cry for a moment in the middle aisle of my grocery store walk with Jesus.

But I click the camera instead.

We walk to the middle of the green grass.

A circle of new and old friends come together today for encouragement but also to pray.

“When pain and distress is overwhelming.”

“When the healing process goes slower than hoped.”

The healing process.

Slower than hoped.

Is it ever faster than we dreamed?

Do we ever heal completely?

Tears.

Salt of the earth presents itself in a stream down my cold cheeks.

“Lord be close to give your comfort.”

That is the response.

Our response.

These prayers. This circle.

And the sweetest woman sings as the prayers end.

She is starting her battle with cancer.

The church bell rings.

“Praise God from whom all blessings flow. . “

We sing with her. Voices joined.

And I walk with a beautiful friend I’ve loved for seven years to feed the hungry ducks.

We go down the hill.

Tearing bread.

I walk with gypsy love.

My walk always seems different from others, but in that is the truth of my heart.

It is bible study night.

“What is your denomination?”

The question asked.

My faith has no exact value or size.

I am not a category.

“She lives on the edge, don’t you Danelle?”

Amen.

May I always live there.

Truth?

The edge is where we are most easily touched.

And Pastor Jay on Sunday?

“God won’t fit into your box. He’s too big.”

He blows the balloon.

The box explodes.

He opens it.

A perfect cross.

I remember the way the door to the chapel closed so slowly that you must walk away on purpose.

I whisper to my good friend.

“Do I need to shut it?”

And her reply.

“No.”

Doors open. Never closing.

Boxes become crosses.

My Jesus.

Yours. 

**Sharing my heart here with you today. Sharing with the following beautiful writing communities as well:

www.michellederusha.com  & www.lauraboggess.com & www.seedlingsinstone.blogspot.com & www.findingheaventoday.blogspot.com and www.aholyexperience.com.

Find your way to these communities if you have another moment. They always inspire me so very much.

Crutches

Mark. Chapter Two.

I contemplate whether I am the mat carrier or the one stricken with legs that won’t move in my own strength.

And then I realize that I am both.

There is the crowded house and the Healer is there.

“Savior” isn’t what prompts the pilgrimage.

It is the Healer.

As a carrier, I am pained to see that I beg rest and seek wells along the way.

As a broken girl, I urge my friends, my carriers, to move quickly. 

I am stricken. I need healing.

Move fast before He is gone.

Please.

So tonight I begin a journey with those that limp and lean.

We will share the mat rolled out on the floor in my “living” room.

There will be relief as each girl enters the door and notices we are all leaning on crutches.

The crutches a confirmation of God with us.

Not just God “fixing” us.

And with all that leaning, He still assures us of this:

“My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:30

That mat is where we beg the miracle.

We realize the miracle.

Beginning with cookies, cranberry colored mugs of hot coffee, laughter and sometimes tears.

We take it all in. 

The crumbled, the messy, the comfort, the stomach aches from laughing, the final tissue torn in half to be shared.

I won’t throw our crutches into a closet or send an email requiring them to be painted the same color as the faded jeans we will circle around each other in.

Camouflage is for the hunter.

And we want to be captured.

His Love and Forgiveness desired more than legs that walk without a wobble.

We will allow our crutches to sit beside us.

Limping to carry my friends.

Joy comes even if the “miracle” is simply that I can still carry others while leaning on my own crutches.

And not that my every prayer request has been answered precisely as I desire.

It is difficult to stoop low in humility while walking “perfectly” in pride.

Seven girls will gather.

Broken.

It has been a full two calendars that have been placed and pulled off walls since we’ve been together like this.

We will both carry and be carried.

Removing roofs together. (Mark 2:4)

“And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” Mark 2:5

May He see our faith.

And may forgiveness heal every broken part.

Until we really figure out that we will walk with crutches forever.

God the crutches.

Us the broken.

Grace the Healer.

**Sharing with www.michellederusha.com for HEAR IT ON SUNDAY, USE IT ON MONDAY. Have another minute to read some inspirational words? Find your way over to Michelle’s beautiful blog. Also sharing with Ann at www.aholyexperience.com for WALKING WITH HIM WEDNESDAYS and www.gettingdownwithjesus.com for GOD BUMPS AND GOD INCIDENCES with Jennifer and KD at www.journeytoepiphany.wordpress.com. for Painting Prose.

**God speaks to me in such awesome ways through my Pastor. Many early week postings are simply my heart processing his words. Want to listen? www.southedge.org

*** Pray for a brand new bible study beginning tonight at my house? We haven’t circled up in years and I wait in joyful anticipation for tonight.

The Direction of Real

“There is something golden in back of them. I mean, in front of them.”

Older son says this when I ask him about what he sees in a picture.

A blogging friend has posted three pictures that she has recently painted.

The birds on the canvas speak to me. 

Dark birds hanging on to a bending limb.

Will the limb break?

And the leaves are almost gone.

Yet there is light, orange and yellow swirls of brilliance.

The contrasts are always what causes the  soul shiver.

The leap of the heart in knowing what is beyond is the direction of real.

And older son’s simple words become the focus of the next few hours.

Thoughts of whether I consider the light to be ahead or behind me.

It makes all the difference.

I can feel the sun on my back, but I cannot see it except in shadows.

And I need to know.

Need to see.

Like the birds, dark, hanging on bending limb

Not just feeling but seeing sun in winter

Knowing spring will come

And reading today just this. .

“Real fruit always grows quietly as it ripens.”  - Wil Derkse

**The picture? Such a beautiful soul and such a beautiful blogging corner over at http://canvaschild.blogspot.com. Go check out Emily’s three paintings that she posted yesterday (2/2/2012). You will be blessed.

**Linking up to FIVE MINUTE FRIDAY over at www.thegypsymama.com where the subject matter to write for five minutes today is REAL.