For When Sorrow Settles

She started hearing voices across the property line just after the chill of Spring lifted and the evenings turned warm enough to open up the windows.

Two voices wafting out from behind boarded up windows and then the sound of muted music coming from some device...

She mentioned it to me at breakfast one morning a couple of days later.


This house that has stood empty for two decades has stood for over a century beside my own, silent and dark and ugly.


While other homes on our street have stood filled with life, this one was grey with rot and age and dirt while rumors swirled of all the evil that happened inside.

Hope feels fleeting and it seems to have flown away. The lift that met me when I woke on my birthday is gone and a heaviness has reappeared.


The bulky frame of that house cast a shadow over my own and I became used to the shadowy dark and this sadness is no different. A noticeable pall over a life surrounded by life.


No one warned me that ministry would be lonely.

So brutally lonely.


There are days I feel as though I can hardly breathe and I sometimes wonder what Jesus is doing.

What we are doing.

Because all I  seem to be doing is flailing and failing.


The house beside mine was boarded up 15 years before we came to Madison House. And I think back to where I was 15 years ago. Married for almost a year and turning to my husband and whispering, We need to go. We can't stay. And the process of slowly beginning to end my time as a citizen of my own country and becoming a stranger in the one of my husband.


The thing is, with that house, with all that was wrong with it and within it, life still grew around it. It wasn't beautiful, it wasn't pretty, but still, life couldn't be stopped.

When we first moved in and I began putting our belongings away, a landscaping company came in and cleared out all the underbrush around that house, anything that could catch fire was carried away and the grass left behind scorched yellow in the heat of the August sun.

But that following Spring, shoots began appearing all up and down the property line and 24 months later, the tallest of the trees reaches past our first story and brushes against the second when the wind blows just right.

Life can't be stopped.


Neither can change.

Late last week, I was called outside onto the front steps of Madison House by the words I received in a text. I stood there and watched as the bucket from a large yellow digger tore into the roof of the house that has stood watch beside my own for over 100 years, and I couldn't keep the tears from coming.

There was joy, because that meant the danger that the house represented would soon be gone.

But there was a deep grief that caught hold and I ran down the street because I didn't want to ever forget what was there before it wasn't anymore.

I don't know when this season of sorrow will be over. I don't know if there will ever come a point again where I think, Here. We all belong.  All six of us belong here.

Because, if I am to be honest, it is easy to focus on times that it is obvious that we don't, and when it begins to affect my little ones, that's when I dare to question the plan and intention of my Heavenly Father.

Why would He call us here to die?


But there is this thought that wraps around my heart and won't let go,

But why wouldn't He?


Didn't Jesus Himself say ( And didn't I even quote this when I stood in front of a church to share about this ministry given to us?),

The one who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me;

the one who loves a son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And

whoever doesn't take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. Anyone

who finds his life will lose it, and anyone who loses his life because

of Me will find it.  Matthew 10:37-39

There is a saying that has become popular in Christian circles, especially in women's ministry that has never sat quite right; it feels more than a tad off. It is this mantra that is repeated in conferences and bible studies and best selling books, as though whispering it enough will convince me it is true:

I am enough.

And I have failed enough in these last few years to know that this is a lie. I am not enough. I will never be enough. 

On my own, I stand broken and rotten and decaying like that house that stands on my street no longer.

On my own, death is not defeated, but it grows in reach and stench and decay.

On my own, I am easily torn down, broken, defeated and completely ruined.


We are never enough.

Only Jesus.

Only Jesus.

The One Who spoke to Moses out of a burning bush, the One who declared His Name to the broken, sandal-less man bowed low before Him, He alone has the authority to say,

I AM enough.

He alone is enough in the season of sorrow,

in the barren desert of loneliness.

He alone is enough when I walk up our front steps feeling defeated and broken.

He alone is enough when He brings me to the end of myself so that I see clearly that He alone brings life in the dead places.

He alone is enough to lead me to 1 Peter 2 when the pain of rejection stings:

Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy and

all slander. Like new born infants, desire the pure milk of the word,

so that you may grow up into your salvation, if you have tasted that the Lord

is good. As you come to Him, a living stone - rejected by people but

chosen and honored by God - you yourselves, as living stones,

a spiritual house, are being built to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual

sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ...

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a

people for His possession, so that you may proclaim the praises

of the one who called you out of darkness into His marvelous Light.

Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; you had not

received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

The house that stood beside my own, long before I was born now lays in a heap outside my kitchen window, the shadow it cast no longer there.


I walk into my kitchen to pour myself a mug of coffee and I stand completely bathed in light.

I don't know when this season of sadness will end, but I choose to trust in the goodness of my Savior. What weighs heavily on my heart can never separate me from His love.

So I will wait and in the waiting I will fight to proclaim His praise.

For He is good. And His mercy is never ending.

And life continues to grow...

The Year the Gifts Were Stolen {A Letter to My Four}

The snow started falling last Monday.

The flakes were small, hardly noticeable.

Really, it was barely a scattering compared to the heavy fall of Thursday.

But as your faces were lifted up in wonder in the parking lot of that church, trying to catch bits of white on your tongue,

your Christmas presents were being lifted out of their hiding place, unbeknownst to us, and the gifts we had purchased for you were now in the hands and homes that they were never intended for, security cameras capturing it all.

I remember telling a Sunday School teacher once how much I loved the nighttime, how my soul felt like it was reviving when the days started growing shorter and dark would settle earlier.

He didn't give me any time to explain why before he told me he questioned my faith. Questioned whether or not I had given my life to Jesus. Encouraged me to question my eternal state.


Only two of you have faint memories of living in the places where I spent my years growing up. You only remember the flatness of the Albertan prairies from pictures I show you. You have no concept of a town of less than 2000 people, of the nearest major stores being over an hour away, of an Arctic wind blowing from the north and freezing your skin in less than 30 seconds if you weren't properly covered.

Your memories of those things come from my own.

You don't remember the long drives from a trip in to the main cities in the black of night that had settled in just after 4pm on a highway that seemed to go on endlessly while a moon reflected off of the fields covered in a hard packing of snow.

But I do.


I loved those drives, not just for the quiet hush with only an occasional lone car passing us, lighting up the spaces around us for just a brief moment,


I loved it for the way light became a beacon.


Dotting the empty vastness of space around us, light would flicker bravely from farms and homesteads planted firmly in their places reminding us in our state of motion that we were not alone in our traveling.


I found that when the moon was new and gave no light, when the air dropped to -40 C and the cold around us was bitter, light would appear to be shooting straight up in to the dark whether it was from an approaching car or a single bulb hanging over the door of a barn.

The colder and darker the air, the straighter and bolder the light would appear.

I never got to tell my Sunday School Teacher that,

but I am telling it to you now.



Because last Thursday, when we had discovered your presents had been stolen, I tried to be brave and have hope.

But on Friday, once names and faces were known, I crumbled and felt like all I was doing was failing in this place where we live and work.


Failure can make air around one's soul grow dark and cold.


The four of you don't even know of this space that I sit down to write in yet. None of you are aware that I am trying to preserve memories for you in pictures and prose. None of you will know until you come across this specific post of this year: the year that your Christmas gifts were stolen.

I want to keep it that way.


Because tonight in the quiet hush of the dark, we will light the third candle for Advent and the space above our mantle will grow brighter, the other candles that I've placed around them waiting for the celebration of the day of Christ's birth, heightening our anticipation.

The name of this candle is Joy.

I want this to fill your memories of this season.

Yes. You saw me grieve on Friday, cry out my anger and my hurt and frustration. You saw loss in my tears without knowing the why behind them.

You bear witness to my wrestling, yes, but you will also bear witness to Christ's Joy ringing triumphant.


I know this.



In the moments before we discovered the theft and the loss of the things we had purchased and hidden away for you, we opened an envelope passed to us across a table at a dinner we had attended that same night.

Tucked in the folded crease of a Christmas card full of cheer was a reminder that God knew long before we did of the things that would be taken and had provided enough to cover what we had lost to the greed of another.


I love the dark and the cold of the winter because it is a continual reminder, every year, of the truth of who Christ is.


You who were so small and filled my arms now stretch tall and only the smallest of you can still curl up on my lap and I know that the days are coming when you will begin to know more fully the dark and the cold of the world around you.

The darkest days can seem like the most endless. And when it can't seem to get any darker, the fiercest winds can pick up and freeze you in your place.

But you must keep your eyes open.

You must wrap yourself in the truth of Who Jesus is.


Because Jesus, Emmanuel, He came into the darkness of our world.

Because Jesus, Light of the World, pierced the darkness of the world in the piercing of His own flesh.

Because Jesus, Risen and Conquering King, fills us with His light who believe in His name and place our faith in Him.


I long for the dark roads some days, my heart longing to see the flame of light stretching straight and true up through the dark.


But then I look at you, the four who love and laugh and live loud, and I can see it beginning, that flame flickering within you.

And should the sky grow darker around us as time spins with chaos all around us, I'll keep my eyes open and look,

Christ's Light is all around and within us, guiding like a beacon, pointing us Home.

Why Are You There?

On this street that we live on we hear the rumors,

the whisperings of the ones who carry danger with them everywhere they go.

It's said quietly and hushed,

Avoid them, at all costs. Stay away if you see him (or her) coming.

Tony, he drives home in our car that is blue in a territory that is clearly marked red and he drives towards this one man as the sun is setting in the late haze of a summer evening; while the setting sun is blinding the other man's eyes who hesitates because he can't see clearly who is driving.

I was standing on the front porch spray painting desks when I watch his hand reach under his shirt into the back waistband of his jeans...while he begins to walk slowly towards the car my husband is in.

Tony, calm and sure, reaches his hand out of the rolled down window and calls out his name, says hi as though it's no big deal and diffuses a tense situation.

But it confirmed in my heart that truth we had been told,

This man is dangerous. Stay away.

October passed in a whirlwind of days of anniversary, ocean, birthday, and visiting.  We come home from the beach and I turn and prepare for 2 weeks of company and finally tackle the leaves that are building a fortress on our front steps.

There is that pile of dirt, stubborn and resilient that I can't quite get to budge out of the corner of the third step up and I'm more focused on that then I am on the street behind me. Barney, our dog, makes an odd sound as Tony steps out onto the porch and I turn and look toward the sidewalk and pause.


He is slowly approaching us on the other side of the fence, his eyes locked on mine while he asks if our dog will bite.

I don't know how to answer...mostly because I don't know how Barney will react. But I don't know why he's asking and so I say so,

I don't really know.

I turn to look at Tony because I know we are to avoid this man, and he whispers quietly, urgently,
Get. In. The. House.

Not fully comprehending, I tried to finish up what I was doing, not wanting to look panicked or make the wrong move when I realize this man has lifted up the gate latch and is walking up the front walk towards us.  As Tony steps around me, whispering again for me to get in the house, I quietly slipped in through the front door and sat down and began to pray.


There is always the possibility, no matter how small, when we have a member of a gang come by and sit on our porch with us, that an opposing gang could drive by and open fire.  For the most part, I have come to peace with this. And while I know how foolish this may sound to those around us, I firmly believe God has His hand on us and He will protect us. After all, as I was told before, we are bulletproof until God calls us home.

But there was something in the air that afternoon that had me shaken, and I didn't know what it was. So I prayed. And then I was able to listen.

I'm not sure how much alcohol this man had consumed, but it was enough to slur his words and open up his heart.

I have heard brokenness before - I've felt deep brokenness in my own life before, but I have never, in all my life, heard such all-consuming hopelessness in the voice of another.


Alcohol was making his mind wander, but Tony kept drawing him back to Jesus in the most tender and gentle of ways.

I'm too far gone.

I can never come back.

When he called Tony "good", Tony would quickly and confidently say,

No. I am a horrible man without Jesus. He makes me good. Without Him I would do horrible things.


I sat there as I listened to his words and thought of the apostle Paul - murderer, persecutor, cruel...

No one is ever too far gone when Jesus enters a life.

He stayed and listened while Tony presented the gospel to him and he didn't say much, but as soon as Tony started to read the words of Romans 6:23, he got up, shook Tony's hand and wandered away.

I felt torn over the next few days. He had shared much with my husband and I wrestled between the fear of, what happens if he thinks he said too much and tries to hurt Tony?, and He heard the gospel, please Jesus, let the seeds planted take root.

I'm grateful for the prayers of those around us, who were aware and prayed for peace and protection because the fear I felt lifted and my prayers for him have become stronger.

But it begs me to ask the question of myself,

Why are we here?

And by here, I mean here, in this house, in this neighbourhood.

I keep hearing the cliches, the prettied up sayings,

Just Free-fall into Faith.

Jump and the Lord will catch you.

And I get it, because I believe that the sentiment behind these sayings is true - but am I doing it?

Am I trusting the Lord so much that I will share the truth and beauty of the gospel with those around me, no matter what I have heard of them?

Now, I know that there is wisdom in listening to the counsel of those that Christ has placed in my life to guide me and who know this area and gang culture better than I do...

but,

I almost allowed fear of man to close my mind to the possibility of the salvation of another.


And that's why I have to ask myself,

Why am I here?

Do I believe that the most difficult child in my classroom can be redeemed, or will I just roll my eyes and pray their 20 minutes in tutoring will pass quickly,

or will I come near and pray that the Holy Spirit will make Himself known to this restless child who experiences more horror at home than I will ever know, grateful that I can used by God in this moment?


Why are you where you are?

Have you thought of this?

I guess this isn't the normal blog post, because there isn't a neatly wrapped up bow in the end. We haven't seen this man since that windy afternoon last month. I don't know if or what he remembers, I don't know if he is still alive or not.


That little one in my tutoring room is still just as disruptive, still refuses to listen and sit still.

But my heart is changing as I ask for new eyes to see.


And you, the one reading this, may the Lord bless and keep you;
{may} the Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; 
the Lord lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.

And may you come to know deeply why Jesus has placed you in this place where you sit, and may He open your eyes to the deep need around you and strengthen you to act.

Written Into Dust and Grime

I hold the smallest one in my arms as she lifts her little shirt to find her small tummy button again. She doesn't seem to lose the wonder over this discovery and she is determined to find the same wonder in my eyes as well.

I repeat it over and over again, as often as she wants until the dog catches her attention, 

Where's your button, Zee? Where's Zee-Zee's button?

She giggles hard and pulls back the cloth and points triumphantly, pride at having caught the hidden again.

Her laughter stands in contrast to my grief.

I think back to that moment when I tried to grip the dark to snuff out my shame - tuck the edges in neat so that the choices I had made would suffocate and rot into forgetfulness.

I wish I could take back the moment and rip back the dark so that His Light could have purified what shame had poisoned.

Instead, I waited. For years I waited for it all to decay into ash so that the winds of time would somehow blow it all away into oblivion and I could breathe deeply again.

There is Grace I don't understand and Mercy that surrounded my days, even as I walked with the stench of death permeating everything I did. 

I want to take back all those years, all those joy-filled years that were touched with the putrid, and redo them all. 

I want to point to the festering wound that marked me and say, Here! Here it is!! Here I am, here is what I have done. Forgive me.

The peeling back came, but not triumphantly. There was no joy in those moments. 

Or was there?

He sits with me on a park bench under a shade tree this morning around 10. His arm surrounded me and we've just come through a weekend marked with the wounds of two people fighting for their marriage - our words clashed strong against each other first before we dropped verbal weapons and our against you stance to stand shoulder to shoulder and protect the other.

I have not been a safe place for his heart these last several weeks - and I see that clearly now. In peeling back what all I had hidden, in those places that felt vulnerable and weak, I started to build walls. Seeing his hurt and knowing that it was me who carved those wounds there was too much. I had set about safe-guarding my soul with those stupid walls while I tried to figure out how to pay him back for all the years I had hidden the truth from him.  Once that was accomplished, I'd take down the walls.

So this morning, as I sat in the circle of his arms, walls down and desperate to be a safe place for his words, he brought his face close to mine and spoke into the hurt,

You can't pay it back. You can't undo what you have done. There is nothing you can do to balance out the scales. But Kimberley, what you can do? You can trust that you are forgiven. You can believe that I forgive and love you. You can believe that Jesus Christ sees you as forgiven and loved and move forward on from this with me. 

In the early hours of this morning, before the park bench with him, I unfolded the pages of Galatians and held that hot coffee in my hands and before the words of my husband ever reached my ears, the Truth of my Father softened the walls I had tried to build between Him and me as well. 

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you.  I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law.  You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified[a] by the law; you have fallen away from grace.  For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.  For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. Galatians 5:1-6

These believers were facing men who were teaching them that in order to be truly saved, they had to be circumcised. These believers knew the truth of the gospel - Paul had preached it clear: Christ paid the penalty in full, they just had to accept it by faith. From that moment on it would be their hearts that bore the marks of Jesus - not their bodies.  But sometimes, we, definitely I, feel the need to do more. To prove that I am worthy and so willing to make up for all the sin that has been done.

But clinging to the law, to the outward actions that I am convinced make me more genuine actually sever me from the grace of Christ. The very Grace that carried me while I was dying inside holds me close to Him when I offer Him nothing else than a life of faith that works out the beauty of love.

And I saw that most clearly in the love of this husband of mine. This husband I wounded. This man who holds fast to the same Jesus we both love and who is being made more and more into the image of Christ - The Ultimate Bridegroom Who chooses to love a Bride marked with grime and failings and secrets hidden and shameful.

As we left to pick up our four, he mentioned that we should take the car through the car wash for our son who loves nothing more than watching the scrubbing and whirring machines, him all smiling at the thought of Elias' joy.

But I stopped first to snap a picture before it was washed away - the message he had written into dust and mud weeks ago for me to see as I followed him home...

For When I Feel Behind

We leave just before the highest point of the heat wave last week. While the chickens are panting and the dog lays lazy on his side and sweat collects at the nape of my neck.

I had thought the mountains would provide relief - that the air would be cooler, but I was wrong.

The heat was a blanket that pressed in close even there.


The baby, she runs this year.  She runs everywhere and anywhere and the sweat drips off of her little nose too.

It didn't matter though, I would lift her up and place her in the Ergo and she and I, in the shade and light of the forest trails, we would walk.


I am behind in everything it feels like - everything that I had placed before me at the start of the new year. Memory verses, books to read, lessons to plan, posts to post...they all have seemed to slow and the heavy mantle of expectation that I've placed on myself pressed in even closer than the furnace of the air around me.


So as I would walk and she would nod off in the pack on my back I opened up my little booklet that holds the words of that Mountain Sermon - dipped way back into the days of February and tried to start up again, realizing with fresh awe that the very Words of Christ were now on my tongue.

They felt familiar, as they should I guess. From the time I was her size I have heard them in some form or another and I wouldn't be surprised if they were imprinted somehow on the grey matter of my brain.

You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill

cannot be hidden. Matthew 5:14

But this time, the words didn't just thoughtlessly tumble out of my mouth because there was just one little word that stopped me still.

I mother four little ones, I am wife to one amazing man. I am a Canadian from wide open prairies who has fallen in love with the inner city and the people here, but there are times that I still feel adrift...as though I am missing out on the details of the plan.

Three little letters though arrested my footsteps and I stood under towering cedars and received the truth of what He was giving.

Set.

The size of this word belies the riches hidden inside of it - and the Greek unfurls the beauty of it even more.

It speaks of things that quietly cover some spot - of a city that is situated on a hill.

As a metaphor, it is to be (by God's intent) set, destined, appointed.




In the center of His will, I am found in the details of His plans for me...for us. In the middle of the mundane and the chaos with time rushing by on either side, I can easily become distracted, convinced that the movement of the moments is what I'm missing, forgetting that His Hand has set me here in place.

Time will always rush by - to be honest, I may always feel one step behind.

But really, behind who?


Phantom expectations that I have allowed myself to be led astray by,

or resting quietly, trusting by faith in the One Who has placed me here, in this time - this space.


It is in Jesus that I live and move and have my being - in Him I can't be behind or missing out on what He has planned for me. There is a security in knowing that I have been purposefully placed, that His grace anchors me to Himself when it feels as though time is swirling out of of control.

The summer heat pressed in close in those days of last week, but it only served to press me in closer to Jesus and lifting a weight that I never needed to carry.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:1-2

I want to run this race, not because I'm trying to chase some illusive plan I'm convinced Jesus is withholding from me, but because I know this right now is His will and each step is bringing me closer to that moment when my eyes will see His beautiful face.

A Letter to My Four

We've been in this house for 21 days and I think I'm the only one who has dealt with any culture shock.

I wasn't expecting it - I think I was more prepared to walk the four of you through the change, but you made up your beds that first day and you snuggled in for the night and I was the one who sat up in the dark with eyes opened wide wondering about this path that God has led us on.

It wasn't fear that kept me up, but this feeling of being caught. Caught in the middle of two very different communities who both think that your daddy and I are slightly crazy for packing up this family of six and moving us "down here".

There's a woman, she's younger then me...I met her that first day we unloaded those boxes. I was in the backyard talking chickens with Valentina when she stopped at the fence and gave me her name.

She's had a few teeth knocked out by the looks of it.

She walked by the next day too and I waved, because that's what I do, and she approached me slowly and then asked,

Ummm...are you from around here?

I never know how to answer, because when you've moved as many times as we have, I'm not really from around anywhere, but your daddy stepped in because he saw where this was going and he told her why we were here and moving on to this street.

You were all running in the front yard with the dog so I'm pretty sure you didn't hear her response, but she looked at me like I was crazy.

Why would your move down here? You have kids! There are gang shootings and drugs all around you! You have kids! 

And then she said even quieter,

I would give anything to move away from this place...

Last night, an article started circulating around Facebook. I didn't read it, but by the gist of the comments I was reading *about* it, the city that we live in is apparently one of the top ten most terrifying cities to live in the United States.

And we moved right down into the thick of it.

We moved *you* right down into the thick of it.


The week before we moved in while Olivia and your daddy were outside in the playground, 7 shots were fired into the street. Right in front of this very house we now live in.

One bullet flies wrong and my world...

I don't have the words.


And yet...


I think of Jesus. How He left the beauty and the purity and the perfection of Heaven. How He gave up all that He had to come down here - to the brokenness and the the depravity of us. He did it because He loved us. Us? The very people who would insult Him and crucify Him - question His sanity and mock and ridicule Him at the end...He left the glory He had to be covered in our dust.

Our house that we left was simple, nothing grand or opulent. Our street was quiet, mostly seniors and maybe 4 other children. But what started out last summer as a quiet pull turned into a determination that could only come from the very Spirit of God. He moved us all out of what is considered safe into a situation that to some appears foolish.

But I want to write this down so that you will see. So that I will see. So that we will know.

Even here, where the world looks and raises eyebrows at our street number, where our sanity is questioned and our motives are scrutinized, even here we are safe.

We are safe, sweet ones, because the Eternal God Who became a man - Who died and rose again, He is our refuge.

Not this house, though at 108 years old, it is solid.

Not the lights I leave on at night, though they give a pretty glow.

Not a dog who growls and barks, because really, he's just a puppy anyways.

Nothing that we surround ourselves with is what keeps us safe.  Our God does that. Because even if a bullet flies wrong and our world is shattered and broken - His Hands surrounds us. He is our shelter. Nothing, nothing can rip us out of His Hands.

Call me crazy - I don't care. We moved because His love has moved in us.

Don't call me brave, because I'm not. I'm just desperate for Jesus, desperate to be in His Will. Desperate for you to see that living for Him is worth it.

You are my treasures, my sweet gifts, and you have been thrown into an adventure that you didn't choose, but the joy, the healing you are finding here in this place is a beautiful gift I didn't expect.

This is all a gift - one I am so grateful to have received.

I love you. So very much.

~Your Mama

The Hand of God

In December, the Hand of God jarred me awake.


I wanted to keep sleeping...sleeping in the dark that I had made with my words and with my own hands, but He wouldn't let me.

It's time, He said.

But I kept begging for Him to leave me alone.


For two and a half months I begged Him to back off. To let sleeping giants lie and to move on.

But He didn't.


His Hand began to press hard and I dreaded the morning, that moment I woke up and He would be there, reminding me that He is God and I am not and that it. was. time.


He began to close doors - that house we were supposed to move into at the beginning of March? Two days before the lease signing a gentlemen walked up the steps of that house and offered to buy it.


And I knew...he came because I wasn't obeying and I had a choice.

So I continued to ignore the God I claimed to love.


Until every word I said burned in my mouth. Until every thought was consumed with all the wrong I had done, until every breath that left my lungs heaved with 15 years worth of regret...

Until I whispered back in complete surrender,

You are right...It's time.

And as I peeled back layers and began to deal with the shame I had hidden, uncovering all the covering up I had done, He was there.

He was there in the forgiveness offered and in the weeping out of the poison I had let in.

He was there in the broken, trembling admittance that I was wrong.



I have been silent - nearly crushed under the weight of my sin.

And then silent again because of undeserved grace.


The God Who names each star and forms each bud has interacted with me - in the most painful and yet beautiful of ways.

His grace carried me when I tried to forget for all those long years and His grace wouldn't let me stay in that dead space and His grace peeled back the curtain and pressed hard against my soul until my heart burned back to life with His words,

Whoever finds his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for 

My sake will find it.

Two days after I submitted to the leading of Jesus? The buyer walked away from the house.

Five days after listing our own home? We found a renter.


We move to the inner city April 1st, but I am no fool anymore.


Jesus is living and real and active and my life is His, no questions asked.

His hesed surrounds my days and I am safe here, in the center of His will.

When Christmas...and Joy...Are Near

It is five days until Christmas and the sun sinks lower and fast. Shadows begin just after noon and I am running low on candles.

They race to plug in the Christmas lights and I race to get everything done and they do what I used to do and they try and wish the days to race faster.

I just want them to slow down.

The youngest, the smallest, the one who this time last year stretched my skin taut, she stands shaky and takes that first step to the cheers of her daddy and braves 5 steps from table to dishwasher to the tears of her mama.

This is our last *first* Christmas.


The Wise Men Three come with me to the espresso machine in the early hours - I assume they must be weary as well. Maybe the aroma of ground coffee beans will be just the kick they need. They started their journey December 1st around our home and soon they'll find rest and the babe and the little ones won't frantically search for the Searchers each morning.

We light candles in the evening as we read of The Word in His Word and we read of the wait for His first coming and my eyes are opened a bit more to the tension as we wait for His second.

Those Three Kings searched with their eyes on the skies and I have found myself searching with eyes on tissue typed words...

The weeks of Advent have been intentional this year and as we entered into this week of Joy, I assumed that is what I would easily find - only, before there is to be Joy, there first needs to be a revealing...and as we draw nearer to the solstice, when the day will be shortest and the night longest the contrast between light and dark becomes ever clearer as one wick is ignited and then another into the hungry and surrounding shadows.

And His light - it is what He does - reveals the deepest and the darkest places in us that need examining. Lifts that curtain on hidden sin and pierces deeply.

Then waits expectantly.


Tuesday found me sitting with Nehemiah as he and Ezra and the priests and elders stood before and among the Israelites and read from the Torah - heavy words weighted down with all of the places they had fallen short.

They wept.

They were grieved.

They were failures.

And it is here that I realized that until there is deep and true repentance, Joy remains elusive. Until there is a turning from, there is never a turning up of the corners of a mouth or a lightness in the heart.

Nehemiah, he saw the grief and he knew the solution,

And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, “This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep.” For all the people wept as they heard the words of the Law. Then he said to them, “Go your way. Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” So the Levites calmed all the people, saying, “Be quiet, for this day is holy; do not be grieved.” And all the people went their way to eat and drink and to send portions and to make great rejoicing, because they had understood the words that were declared to them. Nehemiah 8:9-11

I think of Mary, whose skin stretched tight with her Savior and who held His newborn skin close. The mama who clapped for God-in-the-flesh as He took His first wobbly steps across a dusty floor. The mama whose first born Son knew her before she ever was and she cradled Him in her arms and ached for days to slow by.

Ached as He was beaten.

Broke as He was nailed to a tree.

Wept as He died for her,

for me,

for you.


It's five days until Christmas and the One Who came as Mary's Firstborn, God as Babe - He came to be with us. To take on our skin and break the curse that courses through our sin-caked veins.  That tender, fragile Infant, born into the filth of a stable, He took on all our filth and became The Way for us to come Home.

But first, I sit with the Baby. I sit and I wonder at a limitless God Who took on the limitations of our dust and I hold on to the sureness of Him.

And I find Joy is His nearness...

Adoring:

You came as Mary's Firstborn. You came close and You took on the form of a small and helpless Babe.

Thank You. God Who flung the galaxy in space and created silky grass and the blue of the sky, You came near to be born, to fill lungs with our air and Your heart beat in time with our own.

You reveal the dark places in me and You, Light of the world break the curse of sin and darkness and You strengthen me with joy as I turn from and learn in towards You.

Thank you for coming, for coming to rescue us who are desperately lost without You.  

Daily Adoring: God of Heaven Above and the Earth Beneath

She hides them under stalks of flax -

When the threat of danger lies at her door, when her very life and theirs is pressed close to the heat of danger,

she acknowledges Him and her life is saved:

And as soon as we heard it, our hearts melted, and there was no spirit left in any man because of you, for the Lord your God, He is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath.  Joshua 2:11

The men above her on the roof of her house and the guards below her demanding questions at her door and as she stood in between the two, she recognized the truth - He is God of all that is beneath and God of all that is above and He is present with her in the middle of it all.


He still is.


Danger - it can come in all forms and attack from all sides and we can be hidden beneath His Blood and still the enemy prowls around us like a lion.

He is seeking to devour God's children.


And I can sit in a chair and join in on the conversations around me while the air is being pressed out of my lungs by anxiety and when I find my hands trembling and groping for something to hold on to, I reach into my pocket and grab hold of His truth:

You keep him in perfect peace

    whose mind is stayed on You,

    because he trusts in You.

Isaiah 26:3

The moon breaks through the dark above me tonight, I can see parts of that cratered face peeking through. The ground is covered by the yellow of autumn leaves and the odd car or two that Elias has left behind. And in the middle spaces that I walk through, He keeps me steady. When it is hard to breathe, He calls me to bend my will to His.  And His peace begins to replace my fear.

He is God of the heavens and God of the earth and He is the Father Who holds me fast in the in between.



Daily Adoring:
You keep me in perfect peace when I focus my mind on You. When I open my hands in surrender and trust in You, You are glorified.  And in the small spaces and the big places and in the middle ground I find my feet on, You meet me here. You meet me here and You show Yourself trustworthy and mighty to save and my heart and my breath slows. God of heaven above and earth beneath, You fill the air around me and I can find rest for the ache that threatens to break my heart.  You are holy and worthy.  Amen.

Daily Adoring: God Who has the Words of Life

I can still remember the bowl all steamy placed in front of me while I sat at someone else's table.

I was in high school and I sang in a choir that traveled around Western Canada and down into Montana, and it was in this house on the prairies that I had been placed overnight and come morning, we all gathered around that farm table.


And while we began to eat, the father picked up his worn bible and said,

"While you are filling your bodies with physical food, I am going to give you your spiritual food for the day."


I remember trying not to laugh - it sounded so ludicrous, and for how many years, I continued to feel the same way.

But he knew something I obviously didn't, Christian-school bred and all:


The Words of God are Words of Life and the only way to keep a soul from shriveling up and drying out is to fill your life up with them.


His Words are living and active and the more your read, the more your edges are peeled back and you find more broken places exposed and the more you realize how incredibly sinful you really are...


But like Simon Peter, the loud-mouth rock the church would be built on, I don't want to run from His truth. I don't want to run from His Holiness that exposes me, because the depth of His Grace and Love is exposed there too.

And the adoring from the strong-willed fisherman who saw Jesus with his eyes becomes my own by faith,

But Simon Peter answered Him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have

the Words of eternal life. Also, we have come to believe and know that 

You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.   John 6:68-69

To Whom shall I go? To the Only One Who has the Words of Life that have saved me and made me His. 

Mid-afternoon Adoring: #40: The Creator of Me as New

Yesterday, we started school - and in the loss of a relaxed summer schedule and in the gaining of a school schedule, my morning rhythm was thrown a little off-kilter yesterday.

This morning? Started back at 2 AM when a certain baby girl decided to forego any sort of slumber and talk to her feet and squawk at her mother's form for a couple of hours because sometimes a girl just needs to chat and it doesn't matter the time.

My mind was a little fuzzy and any sort of normal routine just crawled right back under the warm covers with me.

So, then I wonder - could my Morning Adoring be moved? Could it turn into an Evening Adoring instead? Maybe... I'm not giving them up, so could they be moved, just slightly, so that my night-owl brain could keep up and my mornings be spent more in quiet closet-prayer and Bible reading?

I think so.

Because, just when everything seems to slow down, when wait seems to be the word on our house and the move and when I take a deep breath and agree and pull out everything and begin to decorate and organize and sort and settle into our home here, Tony gets stopped on a weekend and presented with an option that still holds a tag with a clear "wait", just not as long...and my morning already scrambling and full screams out for a quiet meeting with just my Savior and my journal. So when my mind that has meditated on that one beautiful thing of Jesus all day needs some release with words tapped out onto a blank screen, I can do so in the quiet moments of a day done and over. 

~~~

Paul said in Ephesians 4:24, "...and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness." There is something about Paul that after years and years of despising him, I actually find compelling and maybe it's because I have messed up larger in my adult years then I ever did in my childhood years, but as a respected and devote Pharisee, he didn't outwardly need saving. Maybe that's why he hated Jesus so much - by focusing on getting the outsides right, he could more easily overlook his insides. And what does Jesus specialize in then to transform our dark and sin-full insides into lives that shine brightly with and for His glory?

He knew firsthand his sin - he didn't shrink from it, he didn't cover it in shame, he didn't fight to clear a tarnished reputation because to do so would be to protect his inner man which could only lead into more bondage. This man who hated Jesus and killed His disciples was powerfully transformed by the Transforming Savior and instead of being bogged down by everything he did, he fully embraced the new self he was given in the mercy and grace of what Jesus Christ had done.

So this past Sunday, as I walked through the crowded hallways of church and felt the attack of the Accuser ringing in my ears, when I let who I had been and what I had done wash over me in shame and regret, I wasn't walking in the grace that is already mine - and that's the thing - this new self that Paul talks of, the one created after the Likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness is already mine.  Tuning my ears instead to the lies of satan is like walking around in the finest of jewels claiming that I have nothing valuable on me.

It's ludicrous.

Yes, I have failed - until I face Jesus and no longer breathe earth's air, I will fail. But that's the beauty of it - by embracing the gift He sacrificed everything to give, my life can bring Him glory as I tenaciously cling to The Creator of Me as New and live out my love for Him.

~~~

It is mine, whether I choose to walk in that belief or not. It is mine if I choose to hear Your Voice or not. It is mine if everything and everyone else around me claims that I can never change...because I already have. You have already created me new - and not just a new Kimberley - but You created me new in Your very own likeness. That you would entrust the sacred and holy to a woman who is cracked and broken is a grace that is overwhelming and tender. You are so good  and so loving and so patient with this heart who so often chooses my own way.

Creator of Me as New - thank You. Thank you for the refreshing mercy of new life and salvation and the gift of Your Spirit to enable me to walk in Your ways.  So I cling to You and trust that when the enemy screams out my sins, Your whisper of grace and forgiveness will remind me of Whose I am. Keep me turned to You.  

Amen.