Bigger Picture Moments: On community and creativity

I was desperate.

By last week Thursday, after weeks of feeling like we're at the over-saturation point with all the demands of life -- a small business in limbo, my new job, my writing and John's increasingly demanding full-time job -- bleeding over the lines we'd carefully drawn to protect our family life and our inner lives, we didn't just need to put the brakes on, we needed to full out stop the car, fling open the doors, get out and breathe together.

So one night we did. While that time was exactly what I needed with my husband, I still felt in need of refueling --  but I needed a stop that would take longer than one at the pump.

I needed nourishment and strength -- the kind you get only when you surrender from the road for an entire night after you've been driving wildly for days {weeks?} on end.

When life goes into overdrive, what suffers most {behind, unfortunately, our marriage when we're not careful} is my inner life. 

When my voice goes quiet here for lack of time or energy to write my heart out

when there are no hours to spend with people who get and love me

when prayers become quickly shot arrows into heaven

when stillness is found only in the few silent moments before drifting off to sleep

there's a slow sinking of my heart, my inner life into a sand trap of depression.

As we rested heavy into Saturday's Creative Soul with times of writing, reflecting, sharing and pouring our hearts out onto blank canvases spread before our hands forming Visual Prayers,  I was reminded that we weren't made for a life of long-term over-drive. 



But, rather, we created for a life of rest stops

where we refuel around the table

together

Photo courtesy of Melissa.

not just to eat but to be nourished.

where we reconnect through stories shared,

remembering where we've seen Faithfulness

weave into our interwoven lives.



where we refresh our souls through

Conversation that often happens in the quiet.

A weary traveler, I stopped in my desperation to refuel this past Saturday.

But instead of simply just filling up the tank,

I found renewal in the purpose of continuing the drive.

Link your Bigger Picture Moment at Corinne's!

{Interested in Creative Soul? Read more here! Also, we're doing it again, and we'll release details soon!}

Everyday Life: On Vacation

 

"As the sun on summer days gladdens us with beams more warm and bright than at other times...so is it with the mercy of God; it hath its golden hours; its days of overflow, when the Lord magnifieth his grace."  - Charles Spurgeon

One glorious week spent beneath August sun on the sands of a tiny lake in Michigan, and I find myself full.

Full from a feast of gladness.

Every now and then we have to get brave

and brake

in order to break up this steady daily rhythms of the rushrushswoosh of time.

Every now and then

{despite the pull to just keep swimming through the currents}

life needs to be interrupted by

waves gently sweeping over sandy beach

toes immersed in clear water

laughter erupting from little lips

crickets singing in the crisp air of dusk

whispers uttered beneath stars, amid burning embers.

And then

like the golden summer light of August, of summer making way to fall

mercy begins to drip thick

like honey from a hive

as the heart hears

and the eyes see

and the lips confess

all of the small and beautiful blessings

we breeze over in the day to day

but realize in full

when we brake

and break

from the spin cycle of the everyday.

Everyday Life: Rest and Rain

It rained on our vacation while we we were at the lake.

I prayed it would. 

Normally, I don't pray for weather beyond begging to be spared from two feet of snow in April.  

But we've been entrenched in this forever-long feeling drought; this summer has been one of endlessly sunshiney days with hardly any lost to rain or chill.

And we've done what most midwesterners who've been cooped up during long prairie winters do -- we've taken advantage of the sunny skies, filling our days with parks and swimming and walks and friends and cramming each one from sun up until sun down. 

Though it doesn't show as obviously as it does on the trees, the plants, the flowers, all distressed with their brown leaves, drooping stems, wilting blooms, I began to notice the harshness of the deep-summer elements taking a toll on our family last week. I felt like I was at my breaking point before we left for the lake this past Friday as I impatiently barked orders at my squabbling boys. 


We've been feeling just as scorched as our plants. 

The rain that would normally send us inside for a quiet afternoon or inside day of play hasn't come. 

We've been as out of rhythm as the weather. 

So Saturday, after a long day in the sun, when the wind started blowing and clouds started thickening into gray just over the lake while we were getting ready for dinner Saturday night, I prayed it wouldn't just rain on our parade


but that it would pour

because the parade has long needed a reason to stop

and just be still.

There's growth in the sun, yes.

But there's refreshment, rhythm repaired in the steadiness of a good rain.

Thinking, That's All: Sunday Morning {Solo}

Yesterday, I posted a collaborative piece from the prompt Sunday Morning by Ani DiFranco where I shared my captures and my partner's words.

Below are the words I penned for the prompt and captures.

Sunday Morning {Solo}

Head sunken into pillows, hips into the cushion of a wool-topped mattress, I used to sleep long and late into the morning, gracious husband downstairs with two little boys scrambling eggs and scrambling to find church clothes, dress two boys.

Inevitably, there was always rushing, some tears, frustration billowing freshly like just-brewed coffee. Sunday mornings groaned for restoration.

So my sleep has since been traded for early-rising, frustration for the fruit of patience and hot tempers for hot breakfasts together beneath summer sun. 

And I was reminded that before redemption could restore and penetrate my heart while sitting beneath the steeple that it had to begin in the heart of my Sunday mornings first.