i write to believe.

The week has been my first week outside the work environment I've lived in for 4 years.  I've packed my things in boxes and silently slipped out the door.  A week  before that a team of artists gave me a surprise gathering as a "send off" and a framed caricature of my face with all these handwritten notes thanking me for what I have done for them. It was an overwhelming feeling to be deeply acknowledged like that and I can only find my words in acts of gratitude.  There is nothing else to say when you know that you haven't been as perfect as you can be yet people see through your imperfections so gracefully and honor the heart you put into the effort. These are moments that seldom pass ones life but when they do, you can't help but stop and just lift up a song of praise for being affirmed that Heaven sees me walking. Heaven sees me walking.  Walking above the circumstances that may have brought me down.  Walking above the perceptions.  ...

A morning of light musings. Flipping the pages of the Holy Book and seeing Hebrews as a letter to me from Paul who wrote this centuries ago. I saw markings of where I stopped reading. Verses I highlighted seven years before starting only to come true for me seven years later. I'm hungry to dig into his words. Words fueled by the passionate witness of a Savior who set him free. Free from the life that accused him and stereotyped him. Free from a life of control. Free from the unnecessary anxieties the clamor for his attention. This is the life I want. And I am happy to have been able to reach this place despite the long journey that took to get me here. I'm walking feebly. Obviously exhausted from the past days of struggling to get to this freedom. And now I'm just tasting restoration moment by moment. Faith rising with the words, "We are not among those who draw back and perish, but among those who have faith and will possess life." I walk ...

When I sit very quietly in the morning, everything is indeed restful throughout the day.  And I feel that this is supposed to be my regular rhythm.  Starting in the quiet and leafing through pages of books and writing longhand across journals.  Reading other pages of others on a screen.  I feel very whole and integrated when I start my day this way. The morning rain just wraps it all around an embrace filled with peace.  I sound different when I read these words to myself.  Less hurried and commanding.  Less impatient and intense.  But I also feel that I am slowly becoming very deliberate.  Knowing that I can choose what to say and what to feel.  What to see and what to say about what I am seeing. The writing helps me ground things down.  And I wrote on my journal the verses of Ephesians 6 about the armor of God because I want to remember the words that offer a different response to the everyday anxieties I may encounter ...

I thought I'd go back to one of my old routine of waking up with a camera today.  Well, before the camera was my journal.  I woke up to Holley Gerth's post talking about what to do when you don't know what to do next.    It hit me that the one thing I can do is what is right infront of me.  It's timely because mulling over this the past few days since I've officially ended the first week of the new year.  I could easily go back and say I'd like to structure my life outlined perfectly in a resume of sorts and submit it to corporations.  My left brain would click on it.  But my right would struggle and nag.   If there is one thing I am beginning to accept about myself it is this: I like structured experiences but I don't want to be limited by them.   These days, I find myself going about the days in a more peaceful rhythm.  The weight has been lifted and I can talk about things without the need to rush and be conscio...

I wonder about the things I felt I’ve lost throughout these years that I’ve buried myself in nothing else but the pressures and expectations of work. I haven’t really identified them aside from the absence of time. I’d wake up in the morning and rush out of the bed to dress up. I go so hurriedly that I don’t even have time to look carefully at what I’m wearing or if my face was properly made up. In my thoughts are the list of things to do and the problems unresolved and the desire to just get through them until day’s end. It almost feels like a certain kind of panic. I have to finish it, I’d tell myself. Like a hammer it pounds on to me so hard that I’ve already lost the peace even before I tried to step into it. I’d read the Word hurriedly thinking I’d get something because I comprehend English but it’s more than just reading. Understanding these words take more than just intellect. Today I mull over the “I will restore and replace for you the years”. Having felt th...

I never got into the habit of deliberately making resolutions for the New Year because I always thought I'd fail at it anyway.  But I sit here this morning with my bed head and night gown staring out the window to what is now the first day of the year 2013.  The streets are quiet from the night of fireworks and frenzy.  Counting down moments till midnight kept many awake and awaiting that pop of champagne or that sip of wine.  We simply stayed at home and watched the countdown on television but lit all the lights and opened windows to welcome the 1st of January.  Our meal was simple.  A slice of butter bread, cheese and ham.  A bottle of wine.   So I may have started this year less festive than usual, I seem to not mind it.  I actually like that it has been void of the usual fuss and kept it to a minimum so I can pay more attention to the meaningful.  To the ordinary.  To learn how to open my eyes to the "grace of the small....