through His lens - week 3

Here continues the capturing of life through His lens- the messy, quiet, full, sweet, and all the little moments in-between. This week held over 600 miles traveled, 4 musicians met, 19 cups of coffee chugged & sipped, and countless memories whose beauty continues to unfold. 

Thankful that life is more than numbers counted and hours past, that it is full with the Fullness of Christ!

Hope y'all have a super rad & restful Sunday!

through His lens - week 2

Began this new series last week, after a late night of dreamer talk with my wonderful friend Jordan. So here continues the capturing of life through His lens- the messy, quiet, full, sweet, and all the little moments in-between.

Here's to learning that Life is more journey than destination.
Happy Sunday folks!

     

        

soundtrack

Need a good soundtrack for your weekend? Here are a few of my long-time and recent favorites.

Old Pine by Ben Howard

We Don't Eat by James Vincent McMorrow

Brothers by Penny & Sparrow

Pilot Me by Josh Garrels 

Dust We are and Shall Return by The Brilliance

Hope that gives y'all a little something to have as the background to your weekend roadtrip. 

Have a happy Friday my friends!

through His lens - week 1

I'm thankful Jesus is as big a fan as I am of car rides. While sometimes I don't look forward to those long four hour drives home, He always comes along for the ride. He comes along for those long hauls and for the little runs from home to store, down the street, and He sits in the parking lot as conversation ebbs and flows between sisters. The clock telling our eyes to close for sleep, but our dreamer hearts awakened by the Truth spoken in to the dark. Here we spoke of Him, with Him.

Jordan is my fellow dreamer. We sit for hours in coffee shops, plan trips we may never take, laugh deep and long, talk for too long, listen even more, and seek to know the heart of our Artist Father. Seven days ago, today; perhaps six by the hour of the night, we sat and spoke of a lens we desired. A view of the world we wanted so badly to adopt. Admitting our own selfish eyes that focused so often on the mishap and bland, we knew there was something more. So we sat in quiet, and He spoke. Calling us to see through His lens.

Here is the start of that. We decided a picture a day or two perhaps, ushered first by the prayer to have His eyes to see. See the beauty all around - the simple, exquisite, deep, distracting, hopeful, desperate, unnoticed, and bright. A necessary honesty - I struggled with this. Though so often capturing an image is worship, the recognition of Beauty Divine. As the week flooded in, my attentions were pulled and pushed in every direction. I am humbled, and thankful. He is not finished with me yet. As I fight for the decision to see beauty in mess and joy in all circumstances, He is riding with me. Over every road, every mile, beside and inside - He is calling me deeper, and He is beckoning me to look at life through His lens.

hues & shades

Hours pass that turn to days and years and decades.
They call them seasons.
Placing labels upon each as it comes:
"childhood", "young married", "adolescence", "single", "married", "retired"

Each sounding like the classrooms in a large church.
For each stage there is a class.
Somewhere to belong with those walking in that same Season.
Fellowship which is an oft brushed by gift.

Enter.....Texas.
Texas does not follow pattern in season.
One week - three seasons, wardrobes, menus.
Seeing breath in cold on Monday - losing breath in heat on Thursday.

Watch out.....hyperbolic metaphor.
Life is more like Texas than the days I spent in the predictable North.
At least you knew just like it's shape, mittens were a staple from November to April.
Suffocation from stifling heat may occur if no weather check is made in the Lone Star State.

So here I go.
Canvas stretched, now leaning on easel.
Paintbrush lifted.
Hues & Shades enter.

Boldly I have come to say:
Life is not Seasons.
While largely it may appear so
I'm choosing macro over panoramic as my lens.

Experience teaches
though I, young in days and years
I have begun to see
the reality of this metaphor come to be.

Hues of learning & Shades of life
conversations ebb and flow with peers
lessons in Love Divine and experience earthly
one which I humbly bask in the reality of, the latter a hue not on life's canvas presently

Shades of loss
a life lived deep and wide
those once held close are gone
the breadth and width I desire, the reality of memories being all that is left, I don't yet know

As I walk and see
these Hues & Shades on each canvas
the painting speaks of A Life
one lived with One that is also Artist

an Artist that boasts of chaos
Divinely organized messes
fractals that will only be beheld in their full Glory
on the other side of Eternity

as He paints
lifting each brush
delight in eyes that have seen all Hues & Shades
bringing each to canvas in perfect time

the One not bound by hands on clock
reminds us of the hope of Eternity
of the Truth there isn't a rush
and He never has to run to catch up.

Ever-present fellow Journey-man
traveling beside with canvas, easel, & brushes packed
brushing in the hue of the moment
of the lesson in Love to be revealed

We live in the Hues & Shades of life
painted by the Master of True Life itself
brushed on canvas thick with Love Real
and delight in bringing revelation of the already present realities of Eternity

I am learning

I am learning. This is truly becoming my daily mantra. It breathes deep of grace, exhales growth - all founded in Truth.

And it isn't glamorous. It's an uphill, sweaty, sore, hot, exhausting climb. The steps of learning are marked by hurt sometimes; other times my own pride. Each step though is not taken singularly.
There is an Us to this journey. That, I am learning too. What is Union? What is this Divine Union with the Spirit, that daily is the reality, but so often is not what I choose to live in the reality of?

"Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we also live with Him." [Romans 6:5-11]
What does that look like? What does a Life marked by Union exhale?
Daily I am learning this. Baby steps, that's where I'm at for sure. I'm beginning to delve deep in to the Truth-reality of Union with the Creator of the universe.

And that's beautiful.
In a violently intimate, gently exposing way. Because that is the way of my Savior, the Truth spoken by His lips "sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart" [Hebrews 4:11-13]

So here's to Union and the Journey, to having questions and the exposing Truth that gently answers.

Happy Monday, fellow adventurers!

in the rain

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

 • Matthew 7:24-27

I want to be so grounded on Truth alone that when the rain comes I get to take the hand of my Beloved and dance in joy. Secure in His loving grip, without fear of the winds blowing through. Abiding in His strength and security that never fails, not depending upon my own sand-strength that washes away at the first gust of wind. I want to dance. Dance with Him in the rain, in the beautiful, kaleidoscopic, stormy vibrant mess of Abundant Adventure-Life.