A few weeks ago, as the middle and high school students in my Sunday school class packed up their Bibles and shoved a final munchkin or two into their mouths before entering “big church”, we had a little conversation about the books of the Bible we most enjoy reading. It was fun to hear their responses, and undoubtedly a little wonderful to know that most of them read their Bibles on their own time. 

Kind of awkwardly, I mentioned my love for the prophets. It’s weird, I know, and I admitted as much. No shame in my game. I have no idea where my penchant for these books of lament and grief and doom comes from, but I don’t tend to view those books that way. No. When I read them, I am overwhelmed by the hope and grace that flows out. I am wooed by this relentless God who loves these broken, broken people. I am in awe of the singular voices who call everyone back, and who are brave and faithful enough to speak of a reality that seems impossible to those listening. 

In a lot of ways, the prophets frame the gospel for me. They prepare my heart to want Jesus, to believe that his coming means something. They convince me to take hold and believe God for my own impossible realities.

I was twenty years old before I ventured into all of those strange books in the middle of the Word. I remember the first great adventure: I was sitting in my family room in a swivel chair, my Bible on my lap, and I got lost in Isaiah for a couple of hours. I challenge you here and now—read Isaiah 54-55 and try not to be swept off your feet by this God. This compassionate, gracious, tender God.

I finished reading, closed my Bible, and in a moment of rushing anger, threw it all the way across the room. It hit the wall.

Thud.

Why did no one introduce me to this God before now?

Such a shame.

—-

I have been reading Walter Brueggemann’s book The Prophetic Imagination this winter, and at the same time, guiding the youth through this one question: 

God, where do you want to transform us?

The idea to talk about transformation first came to mind back in December. I was on a cruise. It was warm and sunny and there was a whole lotta reggae looping in my head. I’m sure I’d had one or two of those drinks-of-the-day. I thought: Wouldn’t it be cool to not only teach people that God can transform them, but to become people who ask Him to do it and see what happens?

Great idea, Kristin. 

At the same time, I had Walter Brueggemann whispering lines from his book into my subconscious. 

What the prophetic tradition knows is that [reality] could be different, and that the difference can be enacted. 

Yahweh makes possible and requires an alternative theology and an alternative sociology. Prophecy begins by discerning how genuinely alternative He is.

…things are not as they should be, not as they were promised, and not as they must and will be.

All of my thoughts boiled down to this: if we are following Jesus, there should be something different about us. Brueggemann calls us to an alternative reality because we are following a God who is different from all of the other so-called gods and systems of the day. Paul commands us to be transformed in our minds and actions. Jesus challenges us to leave our stuff and our jobs and our families and follow him. And God makes this all possible somehow.

And if following this different God into a different reality looks exactly the same as the American dream, or consumerism, or keeping up with the Joneses, and the only difference between me and everyone else is that I go to church and read my Bible, I have to question whether I have maybe misunderstood something.

God, what alternative do you have for us? I wondered. Transform me, God. Show me. Open my eyes.

—-

I have discovered something: transformation feels a lot like death. It seems to start there, in the dying. 

I guess it makes sense. Things that are already good don’t need to transform into something good. There is no need for the places in me that are trusting God and following closely to die and find new life. On the other hand, the places that are barren, lacking God, opposed to Him, have to die first and wait in hope for the newness.

This spring, as I was leading the students in asking God to transform them (the students, it’s all about the students, God!), He took the opportunity to show me (more than) a few places where He wanted me to submit to my own dying.

It was not pretty. By March, I was about spent.

It’s a hard and vulnerable thing, to suddenly see your sin. To be aware of the places in you that are prideful and hateful and bitter and angry. And to know that they are that way because you fundamentally don’t trust God as much as you trust yourself.

But in the midst of sure death, the prophets start prophesying. And their message is not one of punishment and condemnation, but one of hope. It was true for Israel, and it is true for me. 

Yaweh creates life from death—from nothingness, even. Again and again in those books, I read that. When all hope is lost, when reality overwhelms, He steps in and creates a new reality, reveals His perpetual hope.

I start feeling as if new life is being breathed in, sweeping the dead things away.

—-

On our final night of youth group for the spring, we testify to how God has been faithful. To how He has transformed us. 

Oh, and He has. He is. He will.

We pray prayers of gratitude. We build ebeneezers and lay hands on thick on one another’s behalf. God, don’t let it stop! we pray. 

And I leave them with this: one of my favorite passages lately. Appropriately, a prophet. Because I want them to know, I want myself to know, that this is our God.

The desolate land will be cultivated instead of lying desolate in the sight of all who pass through it. They will say, “This land that was laid waste has become like the garden of Eden, the cities that were lying in ruins, desolate and destroyed, are now fortified and inhabited. Then the nations around you that remain will know that I, the Lord, have rebuilt what was destroyed and have replanted what was desolate.

 ~Ezekiel 36:34-36   

Amen.

I sat, wonderstruck, under the arching limbs of a massive pine tree—the kind with needles so long and soft they sway gracefully in the wind. My five-year-old body leaned up against the gnarled tree trunk, legs resting on the sweet-scented needles that blanketed the ground, head bent awkwardly to the side to avoid the stooping branches. 

It felt like home.

A few feet away, the whole world carried on. My parents chatted with perfect strangers in the park. A small petting zoo of farm animals kept most everyone entertained with sheep-shearing and goat-feeding. Small children ran wild in the grass and adults grasped wiggly toddler hands so they would not escape unaccompanied into the parking lot.

I’d discovered this towering bunch of pine trees by accident—and to my complete and utter delight. Curious about the giant trees I saw at the edge of the grass, I’d gone over and lifted one branch, moved forward, lifted another branch, and then realized:

I’d stumbled upon another world.

It turns out that the pine tree underbelly is really quite spacious once you get past the large, drooping circumference, which is all heavy and weighed-down with pinecones. The branches get thicker and stronger the closer they get to the main tree trunk, and it creates a perfectly round little room there, with the trunk acting as the centerpoint and the sprawling branches forming flying buttresses overhead. There is plenty of room for a five year old to stand up once he or she makes his or her way in. 

I spent a couple of minutes tidying things up—sweeping my outstretched hand softly over the dry pine bed below, even-ing up the ground; taking the scattered pinecones and piling them up in a special spot; brushing away moss and stray bugs and pockets of uncovered dirt.

And then I laid down, put my hands behind my head, looked up. It would be years until I’d visit a real cathedral, and it would be a long time before I understood the intricacies of worship (or even knew what worship was), but what I saw and experienced in that moment became my baseline. The sunlight dappled just so, the deep green pine needles and rough, speckled branches formed an architechtural masterpiece. I was filled with a deep sense of peace. Belonging. Joy.

Home.

The whole interlude lasted for less than thirty minutes. But, twenty-five years later, I still examine every ground-sweeping pine tree with a hint of wonder. As in: I wonder what other world exists under that tree.

—-

It was right around that same time that my family started going to church. 

I remember very little of the before and after of it all, other than the fact that one day, we were nothing, and the next day, we were a family who went to church a lot. 

(If you ask my parents, they have a much better story. But in my five-year-old mind, that was what happened.)

And while my memories of church and becoming part of the community of believers has a lot of really good images attached to it, I remember what went through my mind the first time I walked into a church.

I thought: This place is really ugly.

It was all wooden pews and chipping paint and cinderblock basement walls painted turquoise and wiggly tables and too-small chairs in Kindergarten classrooms sat on by smiling ladies with much-too-big behinds for the tiny chairs and wearing much-too-much sweet-scented perfume and orange-tinted lipstick as I sat there, feeling completely out of place.

I didn’t really have any idea what was going on. I didn’t know how to act. Or what to say. Or any of the answers to the questions. I stuck out mightily.

But I learned something there. I learned about David, and Adam, and Noah, and Jesus. They really liked Jesus. And they liked the songs, too—the ones with the silly hand motions and the words that rhymed and jingled up and down in funny ways. I had fun there. 

And by the time I left, it was a little less ugly.

—-

The next few years stretched out slow and peaceful. I would spend every afternoon during recess tucked away in a quiet corner of the woods with a few friends. There was a thick, forested area just off the playground that we went to; it had a large, cave-like boulder with nooks and crannies that six-year-old bodies could squeeze into, and a little alcove just outside provided endless fodder for the imagination.

We dreamed of making homes from sticks stacked tepe style, or of hiding bravely from strange forest creatures, or of living free and independent with just the rocks and the trees and the skies for company.

The woods have always made my imagination sing—they are dark and dense and brimming with secrets that want to be heard. I like that. I feel like I belong there.

In the evenings, my brother and I would sometimes accompany our parents to the home of a couple who were teaching them about the Bible. The place was warm and cozy, lit with flickering candles and soft lights, and we had a little spot in the upstairs loft where we would watch television as the adults drank coffee and talked about Jesus. 

I remember that in our comings and goings, the man would sometimes challenge us to name all fifty states at one time—and we ate that up. Once, we could only think of forty-nine of them, and it continued to bother us for days—all the way until the next Sunday when we sat a couple of rows in front of him in church. During the sermon, a little slip of paper was passed to us, elementary-school style, with only these words written upon it:

U-tah. Me short.

Of course. How could we forget Utah? We looked back and smiled and laughed and did our best not to catch the eye of the pastor or our oblivious parents.

After that, the church started to feel like home in all of the ways that home does—with the decor and physical attributes of a place becoming less noticeable as the people and the memories and the life lived together becoming more and more the point.

We started to belong there.

—-

Sometimes, my heart aches to experience God in the church like I experience inspiration in the woods. I long to open the doors of a sanctuary and find it teeming with life.

But I admit that I don’t always know what life-to-bursting looks like in the church. I often wish I knew how to create a space where awe happens—where wonder and beauty and imagination and Spirit and belonging naturally bubble up. Were it just a matter of brightening up the paint and fixing the deteriorating pews, I would do it. But there’s more to it than that.

Because what is awe or wonder but encountering the living God?

And where do we encounter the living God but in one another in the daily context of an expectant community of believers? 

It’s ridiculously unsexy. But we experience new life and the resurrection power of Jesus when we pray for one another; when we are witnesses to lives being transformed; when we give what we have and receive what we don’t; when we break bread with others; when people continue to invite us in though our true colors show. It’s a lot of love your neighbor with equal measures of bear with your neighbor and forgive your neighbor and even love your enemy.  It’s a lot of I see you and you belong here and Jesus died for you, too.

That last one, especially, takes a lot of faith and an encounter or two with the Living God.

—-

The church may never speak to me in the same way as an afternoon outdoors. But the Spirit is there just the same, incarnated in the wonderful, complex community of believers, and I find that it draws me back again and again. When I am gone, I miss it and its strange mix of beauty and joy and challenge and ugliness. But I don’t mind the ugly things so much anymore.

It is home. And I belong.

I will never understand why 
you prefer low-hanging forest boughs
to the salty air and whipping winds
of the sea

or why you insist 
that I walk to your left
as we tread New England streets
at twilight

or why you wait until midnight
to unearth your secrets
—just as I am drifting to sleep—
when the light of day would do
just fine.

I suppose it has to do
with safety and space and allowing time
to roll itself out,
just so.

I can wait, because I know
the value of things well aged;
and waiting? It costs me
nothing.

I figure that 
in the grand scheme of things
I have already won
big.

This week, I am proud to be a contributor at the Women in Ministry Series at Katherine Willis Pershey’s blog! Be sure to check out the other Women in Ministry articles—I always find them very encouraging.

My anxiety was palpable as I stared out the passenger seat window at the dark road before us. Orange streetlights whizzed by every few seconds, and we passed a dingy old Waffle House, where a few lonely people sat at the counter. As we merged onto the wide highway, I wrung my fingers in my lap and opened my mouth a few times before the words actually came.

I need to tell you something, and I need you to tell me whether or not I’m crazy.

Click here to read the rest.

Last night, I felt the urge of Spirit and made room to hear. After all had retreated to their bedrooms, sleepy from a full weekend, I turned off all of the lights and sat on my couch and just waited.

For quite some time I sat there, listening. Waiting. I have learned that you can’t rush these things, nor can you force them. All you can do is make space when they beckon and have ears to hear.

But I heard nothing, except for this: enter in. And since these words are nothing new—since they have followed me here for a while—I leaned into the mystery, and went to bed.

——————-

I had been asleep for maybe twenty minutes when the older one cried sick from her bed. 

It began a night of ups and downs; one of those nights you dread as a parent. First, one child would up and get sick, and inevitably, as soon as we would lie back down and drift to sleep, the next one would wake and start the process over again. 

By the morning we had one feverish one in our bed, wrapped in towels and surrounded by buckets and tissues and medicine. The other one stayed snuggled tightly in her own  covers, only a sad, pathetic cry away from Mommy and Daddy when her body would rise and turn on her.

All night, every time I would wake suddenly and rush around in my half-lucid state to hold heads and rub backs, I would get back in bed and fight the Rushing Thoughts. The ones that said but you have so much to do tomorrow. This can’t be happening right now. Why do they always get sick at the worst times?

Perhaps it was because I was so tired that I could ignore the voices for once. That I could slam the door in their faces and insist no, not now. Or maybe it was the burning foreheads and the oh, so pitiful bodies that writhed in my arms.

That was probably it.

I realized, partway through the night, that I was glad to be there. That I was entering in.

That this was more important.

—————-

There is this thing I am learning about ministry and about how we are all ministers.

But the funny thing about all that I am learning is that it isn’t coming in the usual ways; it is not coming from books and meetings and theories and ideas. It’s not something I am planning ahead for or doing intentionally. 

It is coming from being right in the middle of things.

I am learning more about Jesus and my place in his kingdom in quiet, spontaneous conversations, in planned coffee dates, in awkward situations, in heated arguments, in middle-of-the-night-hair-holding, in bold laying on of hands, than I am anywhere else.

All of these are places where my first urge is to shy away. To leave people to themselves, to turn away and say sorry, I can’t help with that. Good luck. Let me know how it goes.

And you know what? Usually, that’s true. I am almost always unable to help in any substantial way. But it is not a minister’s job to fix everything, to make the world right. It is the minister’s job to bring the heart of God into these barren places. Into the sickness, the hopelessness, the loneliness. 

It’s God’s job to fix things. But someone has to usher him in.

—————-

I had this thought a few weeks ago, and I shared it with some of the youth. The moment I said it, their eyes lit up and I knew that we were onto something—something that, really, we should have known this whole time.

What if we the Church spent our time being comforters, people who enter in and walk alongside? And what if we did it because that’s what Jesus does, and we have him living in us? Would that change things?

This generation—they see that. They get it.

They have stories to tell—powerful, humbling ones—of standing up to evil. Of being gap-fillers. Of loving when it is risky—not because of the risk, but because of the love.

—————-

Ministry starts and ends with incarnation, with entering in.

And so, today, I am sitting on my couch. I am flanked on either side with sad-looking little blonde girls. We are covered in towels and sick and fever and pathetic-ness.

I am not at church today; I am supposed to be. But God has something here for me today. He has ministry for me to do among my people. He has toast for me to make, water for me to get, baths for me to give, cheeks for me to touch.

And I sure as day can’t fix it. If I could, I would.

But I can bring Jesus in here—his heart, his Spirit, his love. His gentleness and care for those who are broken.

Today, this is me, entering in.

I know exactly where I was when the words in a song wrapped themselves around my heart—a friendly embrace—and urged me to keep going.

It was in the Family Christian Bookstore across town from my house. I was at the music sample wall, nearly shackled by the too-short store headphones that connected to the various Christian albums on display. I’d been drawn to the new Caedmon’s Call album, and a quick scan of song titles on the back of the CD case pulled me instantly to song number four. I pressed the button and on came words that were a lifeline to my sinking soul:

Cast out my doubts, please, prove me wrong. These demons can be so headstrong. Make my walls fall, please prove me wrong. Cause this resentment’s been building. Burn it up with your fire so strong and before I bail, please, prove me wrong.

Before I bail. That was what was at stake: I was ready to bail. I’d had enough. I needed God to come and intervene—to prove me wrong.

But the problem—oh, always this problem—was precisely this: I was ready to bail on my faith because I just. couldn’t. find. God. I was looking—desperately. And He was nowhere to be found. My doubts—like a black, tarry mess oozing through my soul—crowded every inch of me, leaving no room for Him.

But needing God to intervene in the problem of Him not intervening seemed like quite the conundrum. A circular problem without an answer. 

———————————————————————————

The next day, I took a five hour car ride in a snowstorm by myself. And I listened to that song the entire time.

The ENTIRE time. 

Tears dripped down my face, one hour after the next. The song was singing my heart—the only way that I knew how to pray at that point. The only way that I could reach up to God and say, “Please! I am here!”

I was headed to one of those gigantic conferences for Christian college students. You know the ones: Massive stadium. Big-name worship. Tens of thousands of students with Bibles under their arms packed into tiny living quarters for a few days—the kinds of people who don’t cross the street except at crosswalks and who raise hands high during worship. The kinds of people who have all the answers. Who know where they are headed. Who love, just LOVE Jesus, and who are ready to commit everything to Him the second they have their diplomas in hand.

In every way, I was one of them. Except that I felt like an imposter. I remember wondering if I was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. 

I would sit in that stadium full of shouting Jesus-fans, watching their genuine love for God lifted and displayed for all to see, and I felt as if I were seeing it all through a pane of glass. 

What is wrong with me? I wondered.

How can thousands of people just like me believe with everything in them, and I just can’t? How can I be trying so very hard, and I just don’t get it?

It was a rough week.

Let’s be honest. It was a rough couple of years there, for a while.

——————————————————————

The thing about doubt is that it is insidious. I guess that’s true of all sin, but I think that doubt is a special case.

The first hint of doubt scared me and, wanting to be the good Christian that I assumed I was, I shoved it down and ignored it, desperately hoping that it would go away. And because of my human instinct to bury and cover, I built a nice little perfect-Christian persona atop the waking doubts. But when the rains came down and the doubts came up, well, let’s just say that it didn’t work out so well. 

At that point—when I was involved in leading Bible studies and talking to my friends about Jesus—to admit reality would have completely destroyed me. My identity would have been wrecked, and I would have been left with nothing to catch me. 

That’s why the whole situation was so scary.  

I knew that admitting my doubts about God and my faith was inevitable. If there would ever be healing, it would come through honestly tackling the problem. But I worried that being honest about my struggles would alienate me from the people of faith around me—the very people who could help me. I feared that they would reject me. That this was too big. Too unfixable. 

I feared that I was unfixable.

So I just kept up the charade. And I became very, very unhappy.

———————————————————————-

Some days, I want to stand up in church and declare, “My name is Kristin. I am a doubter. I have been clean for ten years now.”

I imagine that everyone would clap and cheer and be excited that I’d lasted so long. I think that it would be so terribly freeing. 

At least we would all know where I stand.

——————————————————————

There wasn’t a magic moment when things began getting better. Truth is, there was a hell of a lot of wrestling, and it hurt. A lot.

As I was experiencing such intense periods of doubt and angst, I cried out for God to take them away. I thought that was what such a problem required—deliverance. And perhaps God did just take the doubts away. I’m not really sure. But it felt more like a gradual healing and binding back up than it did a deliverance. The doubts—I don’t think they were demons. I think they were wounds. And all that time I’d been pretending they weren’t there, they’d been bleeding out all over the place.

Healing came as wonderful people treated me gently. As I was given space to process but freedom to be in pain. As God came and met me in the form of conversations and books and beauty and honesty. 

There were wonderful moments along the way when I could look back and say, “Wow. Things are so much better than they used to be.” These times gave me courage to press ahead, to know that I was strong enough to handle the rest of the journey.

One day, I realized that I believed there was a possibility of being free. Of someday being someone besides a doubter.

———————————————————————

When I was in the middle of the wrestling, I heard someone say (tritely, I’m sure), “Whatever your biggest weakness is, it may actually be the area where God has gifted you the most.”

Now, I’m not sure of all of the theological underpinnings of that statement, but nonetheless, it gave me hope at the time.

My favorite parts of the Bible are those about the People With Great Faith. I would read these stories and feel something. There was life there—I would feel a burst of energy and sit a little taller and think that maybe God was trying to tell me something. But when I became bogged in the doubts, I stopped imagining that I would ever be strong enough to be an Elijah. Or a Mary. Or a Peter.

But as I emerged from the doubts and took stock of who I was (really), I began to notice that all of these people were just like me. Not like me because I was so great, but like me because they were so broken. So fearful. Such doubters. 

It’s like faith and doubt are two sides of the same coin, just like I imagine strength and weakness are, and death and life. All of us sinners, we are all stuck on the bad side of the coin. We are all faithless, weak people who are slaves to death. And it is only when we own this side of the coin that God, in his mercy, flips it. And let us never forget that it has to be God who does it.

—————————————————————————-

Over the last ten years, I have come to own the doubts as part of my story. God has worked mightily with them, around them, in them, and in spite of them. And while I am happy that they are quiet at this point in my life, I am grateful for the way they pushed me toward God in a relentless, tireless pursuit.

I know this (if nothing else): He will be found. 

If you struggle with doubts, if you feel like your faith is pretend and you fear that everyone around you is in on some big secret that you were left out of, the only (very humble) advice I have is this: just keep going.

It probably won’t be pretty. But keep going anyway.

Find someone who you can be honest with. Who won’t judge. Who won’t rush you. And keep going.

He will. He absolutely, positively, will be found. 

He will be found.

Of this, I have no doubt.

He will be found.

You, vulture, flying high aloft, wings spread, riding 
air currents in wide circles above my head. You cut 
your swirling path, a stretching orbit 
pushing out and pulling back 
long with the gravity you know well; 
an invisible wave you have learned to ride.

Every now and then your circle tightens. You look 
down, squinting, and lean in a 
little nearer. The knotted tree you flew around one 
circle ago, you fly inside of it; 
a bit closer now, yet 
your destination remains unknown.

I see myself in you, vulture. I watch 
your radius lengthen and I know what that is like—
to push the bounds out before pulling them in. To live 
in wide circles. And I surf the currents 
as you, seeing where they go, never ruling 
out an insignificant corner; 
allowing for raw possibility.

And, vulture, I am not afraid to 
tighten my circle. Like you, I recall 
the goal, and I know that to live, 
even vultures must eat. 
Even the flowers of the field and the birds of the air must ingest 
that which the Creator provides. 

Your circles now, like a tetherball at the 
end of its rope, are quick and small. Your feet 
emerge and your wings bend; you hone in 
on your prey. The moment arrives and 
you dive headlong toward the ground.

I wonder, vulture, will I be ready? 
Or will I resist the inevitable pull downward for 
the pleasantness of the wide circles and the view from above? 
Can I, with razor eyes, spot the provision 
and leave the circling so that I may, 
once more, reach out my hand and 
take from the tree of life and eat, and live forever?

A meditation on Exodus 40:34-38.

Camping in the barren land
we pause a sudden, fix our eyes,
a shake, a shudder, can it be?
We’re waiting for the cloud to rise.

Years ago it led the way
from slavery, a pillar strong
into this unfamiliar place—
we showered it with freedom song.

But days grow long, our patience thin
we do not want to stop and wait
for promised land adventure lies
before us, but the cloud is staid.

It settles thick upon the Tent
of Meeting, nestles in and dwells.
And though the One is with us now,
the anger of the people swells.

The promised land! we cry aloud
and cling to all that’s ours to hold.
We want to forge ahead and find
the land of milk, of honey gold.

The cloud—it always holds us back
from promises that should be ours!
If only it would rise again 
and lead us out among the stars.

God’s man, Moses, enters in
the place where no one else can go,
and meets with our Creator there.
To our disdain, he hears a no.

He comes out later, face ashine,
And speaks to us with veiled eyes,
It is not time to move just yet.
We will wait for the cloud to rise.

Many cry, but he stands firm
and says I’m sure that it’s not wise
to take the journey up alone.
So we will wait for the cloud to rise.

There are days, bright and sure, when you know for certain why you are here. The sunlight shines through the windows just so, at that angle that makes you think of castles and bravery. The children smile at the right times and cooperate in the right ways, and you begin to think that maybe there is a chance. Maybe you will master this some day. Or, at the least, maybe you won’t screw all of this up as much as you fear.  

There are days, long and hard, when you squabble over making dinner, over who has to put the difficult one to bed, over why your house always looks a wreck. Days when you hold your tongue and call it your greatest victory. Days when you lay your head on the pillow and believe that you aren’t, that you never will be, enough. 

And then there are days.

Days that seem so normal, so harmless, until you find yourself sitting on your couch and all of a sudden you cannot breathe because of the ache, the pain. It is as real as the carpet beneath your toes and the toys that litter the floor. It is as deep and as cutting as the sharp words that have sat there on your heart, cursing you for days and weeks on repeat. It is too much. And you cry loud and long. Hot, wet tears and stomach groans fight to get out. It is the kind of barbaric cry that raises the downy soft hair on chubby little-person arms. Why is mommy so sad? Who will fix mommy?

And you need so much, so, so much, to be carried away. To be lifted out. To be saved.

He comes over and he scoops you up in the midst of a long howl. The contact, skin to skin, intensifies the pain even as it is healing. And he carries you, in all of your sobbing, howling, grown-up mess, back to the bedroom, and he lets you cry.

You cry and cry and cry and cry. And you know—you have known it all along—that it will be okay. You know that sometimes, sometimes, the pain has to be loud, has to be raw, has to be real. Has to be coursed through the veins and let out the eyes.

You need to know that he will pick you up. That he will care.

And though you knew it the whole time, were sure of it in fact, the simple act of the scooping and the holding and the carrying is what saves you in the end, over and over again it saves you. This love in the midst of pain. This concern deep and real and patient. 

It is you and he on that day eight and a half years ago and he is pledging to love you in rich and poor and sickness and health. And he is doing it all over again, these days. He is standing there in his ascot and morning coat, looking upon you lovingly like his new bride and he is saying yes, yes. Even still. Yes.

Tonight,
there are few words,
but these:
“You will be my people
I will be your God”
are the carrot,
I, the stubborn mule,
realizing ever so slowly
that while I may never
arrive
it is most certainly
worth the chase.