A somewhat belated Valentine's post

As part of my internship year, we have the opportunity to go on overseas trips with Mike P, who spends around 6 months of the year travelling. The options this year include Australia (twice), Cambodia and Malaysia, Canada, and Holland (also twice). The trip I can't get away from (and can't remotely afford) is Canada, and I am steadfastly praying for the trip's estimated cost - £1060. Last Tuesday, two extraordinary people in my life told me that, because of what Daddy has been saying to them, they'll match my money if I manage to raise half the costs. Since then, I've been given a further £100. How's that for a Valentine? An I love you, I love you, I love you from the One whose love stands undoubtable. 

Words from a not-yet Mama

A letter to my babies.


Dear babies,


As I write this, I do not know that I will ever get to meet you. I'm not dating, let alone married. I have a sincere hope that I will one day get to hold you and love you, and at the same time, I worry that I could never be a proper mama to you... I want to live sold-out to Jesus, and I worry that I will leave you neglected and broken. I released my best friend, a precious man with whom I fell in love, because Daddy told me to. I lean into the pain of it and rage and weep, but I am obedient. So what if He tells me to walk away from you? You, my flesh, my blood, my heart walking outside my body? What then? Or what happens when He calls you to love His people, away from a place and space where I can see you and call you 'safe'?


The only answer is to trust Him with you. 
(And honestly? It is a fight, on this, and so many other things.)
I have to trust Him. Now, while you are dreams and whispers, and then when you are a wriggling bundle of newlife in my arms, and then when you are grown and can run wild and Spirit-filled into the world to be salt and light and love.


The only way to not get hurt is to numb your heart and not feel at all, and I am too far gone along this openhearted journey for that. I practise my Mummalove on those around me who need it, about whom Daddy whispers to me and asks me to be His hands and feet and arms. I nurture and protect and fight and pray and  speak His truth where I can, and I wait breathless for the day when I can tell you about Him. I wait, and I pray. Always, I pray.


With love, and a heart that aches to know you,


Your Mumma-to-be


xx

linked with the lovely Sarah for the 'Practices of Parenting' Carnival

In which...

...I want to run for the hills and find a way to soothe my aching heart. Any suggestions?


Please?

Tender

Five minutes, no editing. Linked with Lisa-Jo at The Gypsy Mama
Go.
Living tender in this world is a tough thing to do. It is a hard, hard world, so full of brokenness. It is so hard to live with a heart exposed to the sharpness of the world, hard to write out my heart, my life, even in the hidden place that is this blog. I haven't written in weeks because there are healing places that are tender and that I don't want to expose. I am falling more and more in love with Jesus as I get to know Him better through the stunning teaching I am being blessed with as part of my Soul61 year. The more I love Him, the more I want to run out into the world and talk about Him, extraordinary freedom-bringer that He is. I want to pray for my brothers and sisters and see them freed and equipped to run out into the world and take on the injustice that runs rife and breaks my heart as surely as it breaks the heart of my heavenly Daddy. I want to shape the church so that it is living loved, and can love living, running wild and free and Spirit-filled. I want to live the tender years of youth through all the ages to the days when my knees creak as I bow in worship, entirely tender-hearted and on fire for Him. 
Stop.

Roar

I am woman, hear me roar.
The image that brings to mind is that of a mother lion, protecting her cubs, fiercely and fearlessly. There is something in that that I identify with, deep in my spirit. I want to protect those I hold dear with a maternal fierceness, and I can't fight it. I want to bear their burdens, hold their hopes and dreams, and kiss and pray away their hurts. I want to speak life and be a source of comfort, a safe place to which people can run. I want to be able to build up and to nurture and to send my beloveds out into the world, knowing that they are loved. 
But there is more. The lion in my heart wants to roar at the world and see it changed. I want to fight injustice, and leave the bad guys trembling in the face of my strength and sharp teeth. I want to lose my fear of the fight, and see people set free to fly and be the precious people they were created to be by the One who loves us all and sent His one and only precious son. I can do none of this alone. 
Without my Daddy, I am just a little cub, mewling in the dark. 
Written for Five Minute Friday, with Lisa-Jo at The Gypsy Mama.

'I can hear your heart.'

God is love.


That is what we read in 1 John 4:8.


Today I saw that truth in action as I opened up to one of the newest people in my life, and she gave me permission to be sad and to weep as Daddy closes this chapter. I prayed that someone, just one person, would hear my heart in this, and she repeated back to me the desperate words of my prayer and told me that she was here for me. That is love.

Source: bippityboppityboo.tumblr.com via Jetty on Pinterest

'Love' is my word for 2012.

A word for 2012: love

Source: getcrazybitch.tumblr.com via Stephanie on Pinterest

For 2012, I choose the word love. I don't know what that will look like, but I want to explore love as a verb and as a noun, how I am loved, and how I love others, and how I love my Daddy God and how He loves me, and what I will do for that love. Radical obedience and surrender and excitement and passion and family and friends and writing and reading and living... Looking at love seems to cover all that catches at my heart. For that, love is the perfect word for 2012. 


(That, and the persistent whisper from Daddy that this word is His choice for me.)


I have begun this year by surrendering to His will, by releasing to Him a person that He asked of me. A dear and special friend, gifted to me by Daddy for a hard and dark and redemptive season, someone whom I love with the whole of my aching and broken heart. Someone whose dreams I got to hold and speak life into, all while he held my hands and spoke life into me. I thank Daddy for him each and every day, and I am giving him back. I will hold him in my heart and my prayers, and I will see what Daddy does with us. It feels like a radical pruning - a rose bush may produce beautiful flowers, but the master gardener knows that sometimes it must be pruned back until it could be mistaken for dead, so that something more beautiful and more precious can come with the regrowth. 


I am finding it hard to explain my heartsadness to those around me, because I cannot find the words to say what has happened - it is too deep, and too heavy. I am longing for someone to hear my heart and walk with me and just say, 'I know.' For the past year, the very person I have just let go is the one I would turn to. For now, I will weep in my Daddy's arms, obedient for the love of Him. I will seek Him, and see what He does with me. 

Source: kristynam.tumblr.com via Stephanie on Pinterest