Rambles...

Confession: This blog will be a random post of thoughts and happenings. I cannot be held liable as my brain is overstimulated. 

I find myself drawn to study monks and nuns these days. Yep I said it...monks and nuns. I am quite intrigued by their commitments to the committed life of stability through spirituality. I think we often think of nuns and monks as "those who can't have sex". But it doesn't seem to bother them. They transcend into this marriage with Jesus that utterly thrills them. Strange? Or Greatness? While theologically, I don't subscribe to all their beliefs, I find the serenity they have found very soothing...God like even...unencumbered by the entanglements of this world and it's draining power...they ascend to bliss maybe? Or do they? I'm not sure...but I will search it out. This week as I was finishing a 12 hour shift to go home and study I thought of how great a weekend retreat in "silence" would be at a monastery...Hmmm...more to come on that one...

I heard tonight on Oprah's life class..."Your inner life is your real life." I believe it. More than ever. As I descend more and more into periods of time with only myself, I find the stability that comes out of relationship with God and oneself. It cannot be priced. Yet it's painful and lonely. Hmm...yep more to come on that one too...

Beginning "Home Tonight: Further Reflections on The Parable of the Prodigal Son" by Henri Nouwen. Nouwen is a priest that suffered a mental breakdown...this book was written during his breakdown and healing in solitude for 9 months. I find it fascinating already and it kinda goes along with points one and two of this blog: Do those in solitude have a special bond with God? Or do they have breakdowns too? Also, it seems Nouwen wrote a fantastic spiritual piece during a breakdown in solitude after he faced his own humanity...I like it.

Lastly, church today felt like a symphony within my soul. I hadn't been able to attend in three weeks and I was saturated with God and his disciples. We need community. Plain and Simple. We need Him. Plain and simple. Both are utterly delightful. I'm a grateful girl. 

Grace n Peace,

A ~

Living Led...

I drive tired...yet it all feels worth it. Nights away from the babes...squeals of joy as I come in the door...lunches together at school on off days...it all seems very very worth it.
I learned a long time ago from my Father that life must be led...with a stiff upper lip...and I did this for a while...incorrectly...all angst and black and white...full of answers to questions I had not lived...

Now...I know how to live life led...but it's so different than what I had originally conjured in my inexperienced mind...

Led life must be gentle...accepting...born through hard work and experiences...sometimes broken...

Led life requires laying my heart on the throne while driving to work at 5:00 am...gasping at my own thoughts and desires...gently leading my beating mass away from angst and "rights"...to a place of peaceful acceptance of His gloriousness in my life...

Led life...it's a whisper...a gentle tapping in the dark as I drift off...it's examining my baby girl's hand and making mental pictures...praying for what they will one day touch...

Led life conquers me through presence...It's the only way to remain empty of myself...and I often fail it...

Led life requires conscious choices again and again...to choose wisely for the eternal...what will last...I sometimes want out...

But then I am drawn again to the tree...hewn and made rough into a cross...that my lover died upon so I might be present...that I might smile at a stricken family in the hospital....that I might caress my child in times of heartache...that I might deposit into the hurt world ever so gently...one smile...one accepting love...one nurturing moment at a time...

I'm drawn again to run my hand against the splinters that tore His life asunder on this cross...and gave me mine...

I am led...

Nail scarred hands...I am led...deep and quietly...to accept that I am in a passageway to the eternal...forever depositing or removing from this life...and what to deposit or remove?

Delight or dilema?


Acceptance or fear?


Joy or hatred?


Praise or blame?


Meekness or spirited words that injure?

All can be deposited or removed by my minute walk through the passageway...

Undone by these moments and choices...I am led to Him again and again...to choose love that knows no bounds...to choose peace that literally transforms....

Led to delight in what others find mundane and attainable...I am undone...

Forever searching...forever striving for pieces of the eternal on the planet of the temporary...I am undone...

He leads me...I follow...gently as I learn more and more how to be led in the passageway...

Tree rough and bloody always in my sight...as I tread the passageway to eternity determined to step lightly yet leave my footprint...

I live led.

Grace n Peace,

A ~

Raising Gentle Women...

“Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.” Ephesians 4:2 (NIV)

I am currently living in one bedroom of my parents home with my two girls...

We share a bed...

We share a closet...

We share a bathroom with my mom (God love her patient heart)...

There are days...Oh there are days...where my "gentleness" runs a muck and my patience runs short...

You see, when you live in one bedroom with desks, books for three, toys, clothing, bean bags, etcetera...It gets messy IN FIVE MINUTES...which severely disarms me...

I want to scream...I want my apartment back...I want to run...

Then we head out to the pumpkin patch...and I look at these moments...

I sit back in the hay and take in every moment...these babes...my little women...are growing long in limbs and strong in heart...time is escaping me...

I have measured moments to love them...instruct them...know them...they will be gone sooner than later...

And once they are gone to fly into their destinies..I will have time to wash socks and reminisce of the moments we developed as a family...I will have time to remember how I chose gentleness over impatience...and I will be ever so glad...

Thank you God for bringing this verse to my over packed inbox this morning...and reminding me that our lives are vapors...that gentle women raise gentle girls who turn into gentle women...and that NOTHING...not school, jobs, and single parenthood override Motherhood...

“Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.” Ephesians 4:2 (NIV)

Being a Mother, is my greatest fulfillment and joy...and keeping that at the forefront of my days...keeps me sane and gentle....

Today I will wash 4 loads of clothes...study in between...go to lunch with my girls at school...cook dinner...clean up our room (AGAIN)...and love every moment that I'm afforded to do it with a grateful heart...Because you see...when I had the apartment and storage...I couldn't leave work to go to school functions as much as I'd like...there were no after school pickups...I was not afforded the luxury of engaging in their day to day childhood experiences as I am now...

All choices require change and commitment to the goal...I'm preparing for a more simple life with my Luvs...vocationally I will be able to spend more time with them and deposit into their day to day activities...THIS...this is priceless and worth every struggle...

When I send them off on their own, I fully intend to have vault of memories and a knowledge that we spent our days in joy...not busyness...angst...or regret...

Grace n Peace,

A ~

Intentional Fulfillment...

Sun streamed crops across the landscape...
Children enjoying breakfast on the "good" china...
Sounds of wind blowing through trees...
Bicycles thrown on lawns from quick escapes...
My rocking chair in the early morn doused in sun and Him...

These are the places I feel most fulfilled...I find fulfillment can come when you least expect it...in the places you never thought you would find such depths of soul understanding...

I sit in my rocking chair engulfed with nature and solitude...I am completely fulfilled. God whispers in this space of green and yellow...He has no need to shout...
I listen quick...it's easier when the only distraction is bird calls and rustlings amongst the foliage...

I am again reminded we do not require much to sustain us yes...but moreover we do not need much to fulfill us...
Simplicity enlightens...strips...encourages fundamental relationship...with children...with family...with Him...

In simplicity, I am propelled to make more of these moments happen...and I find that the only real way to make them happen is to live this way in the other 23 hours leading up to this one...simplicity requires preparation once imparted...

It's saying no to "stuff" not needed that crowds my spaces...
It's saying yes to "outside play" with children and pets...
It's saying yes to "solitude" even when uncomfortable...
It's saying no to a lifestyle of "more" and "better"...
It's yes to "need" no to "want"...
It's discernment of "important" and "needless"...

It's where I find myself full...sated...filled with the majesty of the present...no past...no looming future...only now....

Filled with joy and wonderment...I am pure soul...disentangled from world and worry...I am free in this place.

I am learning that for me, "intentional living" is making the sacred happen. It is orchestrating my mornings...my evenings...to encapsulate the beautiful in the mundane...

Crops in sunlight discussed with babes...afternoons soaking in fresh air...saying no to what is told will fulfill me to encourage the real essences of beauty that truly do...

We really have need of little more than Him, community, and nature...at some point the other elements become contrived...

These elements are fulfilling when enjoyed sparingly and intermittently...but true fulfillment is found in the depths of creation...in life...in the living...not man created....

We all need to enjoy some fulfillments of man...after all, I'm out in nature writing on my mac...drinking my coffee brewed...

We can do this though...we can move outside a culture of more and busy to capture the essence of intentional living...sharing the space of our lives with Him, others, and nature...

We just have to intentionally respond and create the space....

Grace n Peace,

A ~