For the hungry heart

I learned, as a girl, to believe in the promises of God- learned how to trust. My mom spoke Jeremiah 29:11 over us and I scribbled the same reminder in the front flap of all my journals:

Hope against hope, I trust in You.

And sometimes it can feel downright insane to trust in what you can't see - when life just seems all wrong. Sometimes, trusting in "what will be" is the only way through.  


As a high school senior I couldn't see beyond the next twenty-four hours. I wanted to believe in the promises of God when all went haywire. I wanted to believe He had a plan, maybe even a back-up too. I had messed up and I needed to know that all would be well.

Because from where I stood, the  locusts were feeding on my days and on my future. I needed to know He would buy back what time was devouring. 

When I was seventeen I walked New York City with a youth pastor who served up grace and truth like no one I've met since. We had walked the streets of Quito just one year before and our conversation was still going. He fearlessly led our group of teens to the city. We slept in rows and our sleeping bags overlapped on the second floor of a men's homeless shelter.

For ten days we called The Bowery Mission "home". By day we served up steaming plates and then washed them again. We painted walls and stairwells, gave out sandwiches and soap on the Midnight Run.
Each day, the men filed into Bowery chapel pews, always a precursor to a hot, free meal. And for some reason they invited us to lead worship ... us white kids from white suburbia.

We did our trembling best.

But really, they led us and when we looked out into their faces, all we really knew was that we didn't know a thing.

Because those men walked in off the streets and they were glad to open their mouths for praise before they ever opened them for food. They bellowed six simple words that soared up to the heights, cut right to my core. The men meant what they sang. And I felt hollow.

It is well with my soul.

I stared straight ahead and my eyes welled up. I tried to sing but that sound of their words ... it plunged into deep places. And I envied them.

I needed it to be well with my soul too.  

We walked up and down Bowery Street in July heat and the city smelled of concrete and rubber, exhaust and stale urine. My eyes blurred and stung while I cried on the inside for some soul healing.
All the while, I couldn't eat. Not at The Bowery, not anywhere. Not for a good year before and not for several after. Not well, at least. Never letting myself get full ... my hungry heart starving right out in the open.

by LuciaM

Each night, bakery trucks rolled up to the curb and we met them outside, assembly-line ready. The pastries, breads, donuts and bagels hauled in from all over the city, just twelve hours stale and unsold. The men who were hungry for a sweeter life fed on the city's finest treats. And those sweet smells crazed me and the youth pastor watched real close, watched me pine away and pass them along the line, right under my nose. He wondered with grief while I denied myself anything good at all.

But the men were thankful. They fed their mouths and filled their guts with the bounty. It was the city's goodness and they swallowed it down as if it were God's.

And it was. 

It's strange now, how my memories of that time aren't so much about homeless men ...
but of hungry me.


That pastor walked me through Central Park and through The Met. We looked at art and I told him how my life seemed to be turning out all wrong, one grey/green sloppy brush-stroke at a time. I forgot about hope and a future. I was disappearing into shadows, my self melting into my mistakes. He offered plain bagels and he pulled out his bible right there in the middle of the city.
He said how sorry he was, acknowledged the hunger. And he offered me Jesus.  

It has been sixteen years since I slept hungry in New York City. But a few weeks ago, I drove down Bowery Street.

On the way to a birthday surprise with friends, the street sign caught my eye and the moment snuck right up. And I hadn't been back since my heart has been well. Suddenly there we were, away from home and on city streets.

And can't Jesus prove a promise kept at any moment He chooses?

Because for the better part of July, we'd been living in a cabin in the woods. We' been working for friends who said "come." I played camp nurse while my family played hard.  

We lived simple on our friends' Pocono property where kids pulled in by the busload all summer long. Weighed down by heavy living, they stepped out of New York City concrete and into God's creation. They came hungry and hoping, unable to name the deeper need. They sang by campfires, slept in cabins. They prayed to crazy rhythms I still can't find and, at Fort Plenty, they ate their fill.

They came to me with belly aches and tears and it wasn't a nurse they really needed.
Because I can recognize Homesick and Hungry when I see it.

And for a few sweet weeks, we sat back and watched their souls fill right up.



For each of the seven days they came, they took in mounds of love, heaps of encouragement. They drank down God's promises over broken lives.

Promises that are hard to conceive of ... near crazy to believe.
 
They sat in a chapel where the praise went up and the light streamed in. They heard about a plan and they imagined a future. They listened and believed as others spoon fed the hope.



And I didn't catch the irony until we drove Bowery Street that night, the four of us together. Our closest friends for all these years, all this time ... this camp. They work for The Bowery.

So when we took a night off to celebrate, we made our way toward their headquarters, toward the city. We sat on hot concrete and we talked of time and change and friendship. I held my husband's hand while we marveled over our children who slept back at camp, how our God knew long ago about their plans for a hope and future. How He knew about our plan.

How He knew about mine.


We laughed hard and sang loud in the backseat. We ate cannolis and gelato, shared cappuccino. I was filled with all things good and my God made sure the moment wasn't lost on me. My husband and the others kept right on talking while my eyes stung quiet in the backseat. I took it all in: the heat and the smells and all the bounty that's been mine since then. This time, when the sweet smell of grace passed under my nose, I inhaled it long.


I received all the good and I whispered "thank you" from a satisfied place.





Later that night, we drove from Little Italy and back towardcamp. I brushed remnants of city sweets from my teeth, washed July sweat from my skin. Our drive past Bowery Street had been inconsequential for the others. I didn't fill them in. But for me? It was the sweetest celebration of the night:

a celebration of a God who keeps promises,
a God who fills empty spaces,
a God who is always enough.



It has been sixteen years since I was hungry in New York City.

And I'm not hungry anymore.
It is well with my soul. 

Thankful today for Rich and Suzy- for showing Jesus in radical ways, for celebrating life so well. Grateful to Dave S. who walked and talked with Truth and Grace. And humbled for the privilege to serve among the all-stars of Mont Lawn Camp. Thanks for loving His kids, every single day. 

Where I'm From ...

Inspired here. Just what this little brain needed to get going again ...

I am from crosses over doorways, from spider plants dangling long over copper pots and aloe in the kitchen sill. I am from the beige Berber carpet under shelves lined with books and markers of where we have been. I am from Pearl Buck and Frances Hodgons Burnett, the wishing for my own secret garden with strong, long limb for reading ... my own key to hide away.

I am from John Denver's Christmas, from pickling spices simmering on stove top, a Jesse Tree. I am from marigolds in wagons and geraniums in window boxes, silver tubs of soil. I am from a magnolia by the front door with lingering perfume and leaves waxy green. I am from Los Angeles brown, from backyard pools, stray cats, post card collections, and pink checkered Vans.

I am from lasagna for dinner guests, coffee strong and black for dessert. From stories around a dining room table, folk songs and a guitar, communion in my living room. I am from Winland Strasse and Nevada Avenue, from alpine skiing and Malibu swimming. I am from orange-tent camping with a red-checkered table cloth.

I am from my mama and her mama on Davis Drive. From Puddy, Toshi, Ginny, Janny and Suzy. 

I am from "Go Army, Beat Navy" and "Be not afraid, I go before you always." From "On my honor, I will try..." and "Can you feel the love coming out of me and sticking on you?"

I am from walks through woods over the Hudson River, fall leaves in pockets and pressed between pages. From West Point cadets and Cream of Wheat, pickled eggs and pussy willows at Easter, kilbasa. I am from Nurnberg, Germany and bratwurst with mustard.

I am from liturgical living and the kneeling, hands clasped right next to my mama. I am from 'One Bread One Body,' from watching the multitudes walk forward with palms turned upward and me -- falling in love with humanity, one 'Amen' at a time.

I am from a family of prodigal sons and daughters: on LA streets and in night clubs, behind fun house mirrors and down sordid side roads, up fraternity house steps. From hunched-over shoulders, all wayward and slopping with the pigs; all home now and kneeling at Father's feet,
dining at His table.

I am from running too far and falling into shadows, paper-thin. I am from choosing, this day, Whom I will serve ... and feasting in new robes.

I am from Big Grace and no room for drama and parents who made the 'big gesture' every time. I am from redemption that is real and multiplying. I am from heart friends who love like family. From a Colonel-father turned humble, with eyes welling up when he speaks of Forgiveness.  From a mother who taught "faith is a gift" and whispered prayers for children over a lifetime. From a helpmate who models love: steady, kind, extravagant.

I am from palm branches creased into crosses and a home that learned to make way for the One who makes rough places smooth. I am from an assurance that if God is for us then who...?
I am from Water who quenches, from Bread who fills, from the Word who dwells right here.

I am from all that was. I am from the promise of One Who Is. I am from the hope of what will be.










Working hard to define this space, all these rambling words here. And I am just not good with a plan! Thanks for kindness. Thanks for coming back. Keep checking in? I've got some ideas and, well, I am finiding my way ...

Peace, as always, to you. My friends.

Spend Yourself {Day 25} :: On People ...

Friends came over last night and we sipped coffee and they talked about family... how it can be sad sometimes and just feel all wrong. They told about parents who left gaping holes.

How mixed-up love can sometimes go bad and leave you wide open ... lacking.

And we talked redemption and healing and the evening ended with Jesus.

But I couldn't help but think back to last year:


I'm at work on a Wednesday and I walk through the locked metal door. That all-star therapist peeks her  head out and stands to meet me. I adore her and she doesn't give herself enough credit. The work she does...

She pulls me aside to tell me that "my girl" is waiting for me today... to be ready. I haven't walked on the hall yet. I call it The Gauntlet because once I step across that line into visible space, they descend. The teenage girls who live here all day, every day, will flock like gulls and I need a report from the off-going crew. Then I'll take a deep breath. Go.

"She just spoke with her mom," the therapist says. "She will give up custody. Just isn't invested."

I sigh, drop shoulders.

"You just need to be prepared," she tells me. "And I'm glad you're here tonight. For her."

I nod. I know.

And when I step onto the unit, I see her there in her usual place. She is pacing, leaning into the cinder block wall ... shoulder rubbing, holding her up as she goes. This is what she does when she needs to work through a moment, to decide what she will do next.

I know her. She will pound her fist and the tears will come. And after that it depends on who is around, to talk her down ... or up. And it could be any one of these sensational staff who does either.

It is like Russian roulette.

I walk to med room, count narcotics. Check all things check-worthy. I hear her. She is pounding now and this is always the part when they look to me.

"What do you want to do , Ms. Abby?"

And when all eyes are on me I wince. I am not a decision maker but this job has pushed me, like a shove in the back with whiplash, into a leader role. This hospital policy will allow for "hands-on" if a child is unsafe and this is a big deal.

Because this is some one's child.

Whether they want to relinquish custody or not ... this is some one's child.

And I sometimes wonder what I am even doing here.

I should be home with my own.

And so I don't jump too quickly. I know she can work this out, but she hits the side of her fist on hard wall now. She keeps breaking her hand and how do I not get excited, talk her down?

What do I know of mothers who abandon?

I decide to join her. Find her stride. Wave everyone off. We will do this together.
Tears are streaming and she says she's trying to use her skills. She bites her shirt and I laugh and tell her not to eat through another one-- her chin all tucked inside with wet ring on cotton. We threw her other shirt away just last week.

I tell her to stop pounding, tell her I don't feel like sending her out again for x-rays. She smiles and it's a good sign. She links both her arms around my one, latches on tight. We are in step and she slows ... asks if she can show me something. I wait to be invited into her room and when I enter in and look, I am stunned.

There on four walls, nearly top to bottom, are pictures: of mothers and babies.

Mothers holding babies. Mothers cradling babies. Mothers kissing babies.

White walls covered in mother love and I am blown away. On every picture, ripped from trendy magazines, she has written her name. She has named them ... given every infant on the wall her own birth name.

They are all her: held, cradled, kissed.

This long neglected seventeen year-old girl sits on edge of bed and tells me how she feels. She used to shut down, flail, and fight. She couldn't make a request ... didn't feel worthy of one. She used a pacifier to soothe herself to sleep. And now? I listen and realize how far she has come in these months. She has made poor choices, yes, but she is learning.

She pulls up sleeves, shows me her pain in black ink-- every wrong word in every which way. This is what she calls herself and I offer to help her clean up, to help her replace those words with words that are true. We walk to sink and make water warm...find good soap.

I  rinse black expletives and hurt down the drain and soothe with encouragement. Compassion.

I glance up for paper towel and her affirmation list catches my eye: her reminders displayed in a prominent place.

1. I am lovable
2. I am a good girl.
3. I am safe here.
4. I can ask for what I need.
5. I can say how I feel.
6. I am beautiful.
7. I will be a good mother...

I will be a good mother...

I read her ball-point scrawl on paper on mirror and I am undone. I hold my breath and my face gets hot and these white walls are moving.

How inadequate I can feel at this mothering profession and here I am, linking arms with a girl who just wants the time back ... just wants it to look different.

This mother-longing has worn her right through, hollowed her out, laid her bare.

And I brace myself in that moment, one hand on counter and one hand on hers.
I look her straight in the eyes and I tell her.

"You will be." I say. Her eyes ask the question.

"You will be a good mother."

She falls apart and falls into this shoulder and this mother-nurse plants feet firm and waits out the storm.

And I know this lacking will end with her. 

Because He can make all things new and He can graft us in to new family and she can be the first to offer a different kind of parent-love.  

That night she waits at her door, leans into hallway and asks to say prayers.

I enter in again and she takes the lead.
She says the Lord's Prayer.
She reads Psalm 145.

"One generation will commend your works to another... the Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth."

I turn out her light and tell her she did great work today.

And she sleeps under dreams on walls of what could have been ... dreams of what will be. I marvel at how far she has come. I offer her up and I am spent ...

And this is how it goes.

Because we spend our whole lives on people. We don't always relate, but we enter in. We don't always know what to do, but we walk alongside. We point people back to Him when they become muddled, hazy grey, and we ask them to do the same for us. We offer hope. We live out this hope together, side by side, every single day. Because, really, this is what life is about.

People.

And it was all for the love of people that He came down ...

Spend Yourself {Day 23} :: Reasonable Worship

We had been married for ten days when we packed up a U-Haul and drove the eighteen hours to our new life. Together.

We lived above the best restaurant in town with a private staircase leading straight into the dining room, all dressed in white linen. Too many nights we used that private entrance and helped ourselves to a table and a cheesy biscuit. The waiter would slow down, turn and wonder from where we had come. 

We were new to this obedient life. We were new to this married life. We were new to this small, southern town life. We were vulnerable and hopeful and naive about covenant love and ministry. We did a lot of things wrong ... sometimes went to bed angry; sometimes spent too much time loving teenagers and not enough time loving each other; sometimes skipped church. We were aliens and we gushed about our colonial town in the fall and the candles in the windows during winter. They gushed about high school football ... and college football. And they were beautiful people who loved us well.

But it was hard. So much new. So far away. I wavered in all of the new. But I had a deep sense of His goodness over this life too and I had a new focus. I battled. But I didn't fall.

Because I had been miserable. I had felt afflicted. I had been all locked up in my own messed-up living and He had shown compassion. Now I was living in relief and in gratitude. (See Romans 11:32-12:1) I didn't really know how to love teenagers from a ministry model. I just knew I did love them.
Truth is, there were so many people in my life along the way until that point. So many women that loved me regardless of the struggle or the choices. So many people, just one step ahead, that assured me by their living, and by their love, that it was worth it to keep choosing Jesus.

I had all these markers in the road along the way. People who had shared their lives. With me.
I wanted to be a marker on some one's road. I wanted to love kids regardless of their struggles or choices. I was good at this: good at entering into relationships, good at offering safe space. I was good at listening and showing compassion, telling them about a relentless God who pursues and who has a plan. Todd was good at this too. Gifted really. So we lived out our thanks together.

And several years later after leaving Arkansas and returning "home," I found myself frustrated while building a resume. I am all over the place, I thought. Who will hire me with a job history that looks like a three-ring circus? I felt like a failure after trying and not succeeding in the intensive care unit, on the night shift with too many buttons and too much beeping, too much equipment. That dim hall was too quiet for hours with complicated IV mixtures and unpredictable moments. 

In the mean time, I met with eight girls once a week. We were still meeting together three years later. They were darling and mixed up and rock-solid. I just adored them and they knew it.

I tried out labor and delivery downtown and migrated to the teenage moms who arrived and left again in the same pair of size 4 jeans. Ate lollipops while they labored and laughed with girlfriends and mothers and no daddies. They called me a good nurse but I just adored them and they knew it.

I taught french and algebra for a year. And we laughed and I was terrible at controlling a classroom. They called me a good teacher but I just adored them and they knew it.

Then I had my first baby and it was the most natural thing I had experienced yet, this little person with little fat fingers and thighs. She traveled with me to bible study and we slept on that crazy striped couch, watched Gilmore Girls. I hoped she was the beginning of my own little posse because I just adored her and I think she knew it.

Next, I coached gymnastics for two years and I bounced around with little, strong gals in leotards. We laughed too and I worked them to the bone. They called me a good coach but I just adored them and they knew it.

When we finally decided it was time for me to be a nurse again, I wondered where I would end up, literally. I had learned by now that the ER and the ICU with all of their alarms and tubes and necessary type A-ness were not for me. I had been a coach and a teacher and a mentor and a mom... 

And I realized that while my jobs were sporadic at best, they all had one thing in common: I had a little flock everywhere I went. I had been graced in each place to love and encourage kids, at every point along the way.

So when the nurse manager for a residential behavioral health center looked at my resume, she was kind, to say the least. I was surprised, then, when she stood up and gave me a big, rib-popping hug. She looked at me and said "I just have a feeling about you. You are just who I need."

And then she offered me a job.

This job was the beginning of a love for a group of kids I hadn't thought about or encountered. The more hours I spent with them, the more I saw myself in their faces. And I knew it was only by grace that I...

And when you know you have been loved well along the way, it is only reasonable to give that love back. When affliction has been relieved by compassion, it makes sense to dole it out again by the bushel. I was all mixed up once and He showed me how to love every little mixed-up guy and girl that came my way. For four years, I just adored them. And they knew it.

This job made me tired and sleepless at times. It was a strain on my husband. It was a burden and I carried their stories. It was sacrificial and it became a family affair.

All this, because it was natural. It was logical. It was reasonable worship.


What about you? Have you been loved well? Have you been relieved? Freed up? Have you discovered this reasonable worship? And naturally, I am speaking of offering ourselves back to Him, not to a job, per se. But doesn't it all mix together somehow? Spill over into everything ...

 "Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God-- this is our spiritual act of worship..."

Spend Yourself {Day 22} :: When it is reasonable, part 1

I stumbled upon him this evening and I was elated.  I love all of what they do ... the impact.
The enormous gift they are giving to so many!

And I love him too, because it is all so logical. And it's where my heart wanted to take us next.
In view of where he was, his work now is very... reasonable.




This is a small attempt to catch up a bit... stop by later and I'll follow this up before evening. Peace, friends. We are on Day 22 of 31 and it's all wrapping up. You have been so wonderful.  

Spend Yourself {Day 18} :: Offering

... After I walked through those doors in secret, I spent weeks out of class and in groups instead. Ate awkward and quiet around a table for a grade, drew myself in Oshkosh overalls and braids. My roommates didn't know I wasn't in school and I didn't go home for Easter. I logged a lot of hours ... learning how to live healthy and real and unafraid. Learning how to be comfortable in my own skin. Learning how to make mistakes, ask for help, be full.

I did a lot of practical work, realized earth-shattering things like: I can change my mind if I want to, it's ok to say "I don't understand," and I don't have to apologize so often.

And my drive to serve this false master was waning because you just can't follow a master when all its principles begin to crumble. I was shedding some baggage and I no longer wanted to go running. Not at all.

So when that doctor looked at me one morning and told me not to get married, something didn't add up. He said I had discovered myself "at my best." "This is who you will always be," he told me.

My heart sank for a split second and then I saw a glaring red flag. Because I had just stayed up too late the night before reading this.  Grace. In that moment, I had to wonder how much I had contributed, how much of my time and energy and fear had I offered to this self-life? How much had I paid out of my own pocket to stay empty? How much of my own freedom had I given up?

And why do we do that? Give so much of ourselves to serve the false when it leaves us ... subservient?

It bowled me over right in that office and I told him I would be offering myself to something new... that I finally understood. He did not understand and he said I was sounding awfully sacrificial ... "all this talk about offering."  I smiled, nodded. "Yeah, I guess I am."

He squinted and squirmed and assured me I would be back. Then he pointed to my shirt, that camp shirt I slept in, with those two words printed in white on baby blue. He asked me what they meant as I looked down ...

SIXTEEN: ELEVEN

This time I laughed out loud. And I knew I would be alright. Because the only One worth offering myself to had shown up that morning with truth ... shown Himself bigger than reason.

Tim Keller says that when we encounter the "weightiness of God," He moves from a hopeful concept to an undeniable reality in our lives. Suddenly there is no question about who or what to serve. We stop wondering about the better option. False masters stand out like a sore thumb.
 
And I answered the doctor's question and spoke that psalm with confidence. My chin up. 

"You have made known to me the path of life. You will fill me with joy in your presence..."

You. will. fill. me.

He was frustrated and speechless and I was more certain than ever. I said goodbye and I didn't go back and I finished school. And then I followed my new husband to Arkansas.

I was on my way to being all healed up ... from the inside out.

Spend Yourself {Day 17} :: Getting Honest

For my final year of school, I hid out alone. Back from a summer of new living and new hope and new love, I was finally committed to a side. Put all my wayward ways behind me ... more or less. Only I had an inkling that this new life was just getting started, and I was going to have to surrender more than just my partying ways.

Jesus wanted all of me.

This made me nervous and I sensed some flailing coming on. And let's be honest, no one likes to flail in public. So I went underground.

He calls himself the true vine, calls us the branches. He tells us to hang on and, when we do, we will thrive. He also says He will prune away any part that doesn't bear fruit, isn't productive. He does away with the junk because this is a promise He made. The pruning is lifelong and He does it in love: the way a father grows up a child, the way a gardener pulls off the dead leaves. Sucking life away from fruit with potential.

That fifth year, I was living with these great girls who were boisterous and lovely. I was the oldest in our house by two years and I had been adopted yet again. I was going to be a nurse and the boy I loved dove right into the ministry life in the mid-west. He was eighteen hours away and all-in. My old friends had since graduated and moved on. I was there: raised to walk in a "newness of life" and I felt all alone.

This time, I had a new conflict of interest: a commitment to this Jesus and a secret life He wanted to be a part of.
Because when we say "yes" He likes to sink in deep, settling in between the joints and the marrow. Because He promises to finish what He began, to make us who He intended us to be. He does this by moving in, assessing from the inside out. And then He gets to work.

This can be painful and messy.

I knew this was going to be a battle like no other and He was getting a little too personal. I think He might have backed off, only He was answering a prayer I had prayed way back when.

"Make me who you want me to be..."

And therein lies the rub, really. We don't have to become that person, not fully. But if we'll give him some space to work? Some trust? Some time? If we will be honest with the One who already knows ...

Naturally, when I started to to hold on for dear life, this dysfunction took on a life of its own. I could see it happening, the falling apart. But I was too proud to ask for help, to proud to unravel in view and too proud to let someone bear the burden with me. 

And we are really capable when it comes to looking and acting just fine. When we are anything but fine. Especially when we think people with faith don't do that "self destructing thing." 

Only they do. 

And after a summer of learning to love others well, I loved my secret instead ... cradled it like a love child and waved everyone else off. Pretended and denied and stared blank. I was 22 and this man had proposed and I had said yes. I was wearing his camp shirt to bed and I was missing him, but I wasn't thinking about a wedding.

I was busy upping the ante. This "real faith" was demanding a little too much and I was fighting back. Offering myself to all things murky and me-infused, I ran with the sun coming up and I panicked with the sun going down. It wasn't long before I was no more than a shadow. Wispy and vacant. I had been here before, over the years. This was my default when I wasn't sure what to do: just. go. away.

Only this time, I realized I was running from the only One who might have a better solution, might actually heal me up ... for good. With a whisper from my knees, I handed over this part of me too.

The next day, help came to my classroom. She literally walked through the door. This genteel, compassionate woman looked into my hollow eyes and called me a "caged bird." Said she thought I had a lot of living to do ... if I would start living for real. Start getting honest.  

Becasue this was about more than not drinking too much beer, not using profanity. This was about more than putting on christian appearances, having christian get-togethers. This was about more than changing my ways, all the while still patting my own back for all of my new found will-power. 

This was about a God who is, and has always been, committed. This was about being changed in a profound way, by the One who made me, from the inside out.

Because Jesus doesn't want "fine." And I carried her card around for nearly three months, pulled it out every single day to call her office at 4:58 pm.

I never actually called.

Then in the spring, she walked into my classroom again. This time, she remembered my face and she didn't make me ask. She told me where to be and at what time and for some reason, I showed up.

Had the grace to know He was answering a prayer I was barely brave enough to voice.

And the next day, without telling a soul, I tiptoed through her doors and I signed on the line ...

Come back tomorrow, friends? Becaue this is not about me. But this is about you and us and finding beauty and life in wrecked places behind the "just fine." This is about being terrified and still getting honest. Knowing that living behind "fine" can be more painful than the pruning away ... 

There is so much more living to do.