thank you, dear friend

My dear friend,

Watching the sun rise this morning over my sleeping husband's shoulder, I realized part of the reason words that wanted to flow would not. I often feel this gratefulness wash over me, and this desire to express it. From time to time, I have said thank you to individuals walking this earth, breathing the air I breathe; people that have laughed and cried with me, offered advice, answered questions, or asked them with me. 

On Christmas morning, I was once again overwhelmed with thankfulness, and wanted more than anything to express it. Immediately, I thought of one person, then another. Then yet one more. The list kept growing. How best to thank them for the guidance, the friendship, the prayers they have offered for and with me? How best to tell them that their example both challenges and comforts me? How best to say that without them, I may not be where I am right now, today? 

There was a song running through my head that morning, as I considered and debated composing a letter. Matt Redman's "Your Grace Finds Me" touches me often: "[Forever I'll be] / Breathing in Your grace / And I'm breathing out Your praise." Heart swelling with emotion, I could think of no way to put the words in order, and say what I really needed to say. In the end, I was left somewhat befuddled, but also knowing that when the words were right, when the emotions were right, when the time was right, they would flow, freely and easily. 

Then the sun appeared this morning, between two trees on the horizon, and I realized I was headed in the wrong direction. My dear friend, I've never written to you of thankfulness. I've written down my concerns, my hopes, even my anger and frustration. But never a letter of simple thanks. You are the one who has brought me here, with the help of others who have come to mean a great deal to me. You have taught me about myself, about my family, my faith, my world. You have been there no matter how I've behaved, reacted, resisted. The reason I was having trouble putting the words in place is that I was going to misdirect them. 

It is You I wish to thank. I thank you every day, at some point, but more often than not, the thanks are for blessings I've seen or heard; things that are fairly obvious to me. This thanks is for what is in my heart. Deep, deep in my heart. I am thankful for the place that is there for You. 

For your grace, I thank you, on the day we celebrate Christ's birth, and every day. 

Warmly,

Stephanie

elusive expression

Yesterday, Christmas morning, I awoke with some thoughts in my heart and in my bones that made me want to write. They weren't exactly words, though, and I decided to think on them a bit first. By late morning I thought what I really wanted to write was a letter to a friend; along the lines of a thank you, but a little more related to one of those Christmas letters that get included in cards (of which I am not very fond). Still. Considering the points to include, the realization came that I could reasonably include a number of friends, but realizing that I had no idea how to create a list of "undisclosed recipients," I started to consider a blog post, and just hope that the right people saw it. 

Then it got loud, we went to the beach, I had to start dinner, and my fingers did not find the keyboard; the thoughts did not crystalize into words on a page. 

At long last I sat with the keyboard on my lap, and all of it was gone. 

Not the intent, or the feeling of thankfulness, or the desire to share it all. Not the slight feeling that I had more than one person I wanted to address. What was gone was the tangible feeling of words flowing through my fingertips. Normally, now for instance, I can quite perceptibly feel the words moving through my head, behind my eyes, going directly to my fingertips as they touch the keys. The hardest to write, to release, are the words that make their way to my heart from that space behind my eyes. Those are the words that I fear will take a piece of me with them, leaving my far too vulnerable to the reader. Those are the words that mean the most to me, and that I am usually fairly certain sound like gibberish to anyone but me. Those are the type of words I had playing around inside yesterday.

Until the keyboard sat in front of me. 

There were plenty of other distractions. I knew I was not in the space I needed to be in to write. Truthfully, although I sort of hoped I could lose myself in the blank screen in front of me, I knew there was no way I'd be able to express myself well 'on paper' in the middle of a living room full of people with the television on. In some ways, by then, I wondered if it was too late to share the words. If it would come across as an afterthought, or worse--an obligation. 

Instead, I read old posts: advice I'd been given, but had avoided, and then circumvented. Turns out I may not have seen what I needed to see. Either that, or what I saw with thankfulness in my heart is different from what I may have needed to see at the time. It's funny, because I know that what is taken from the written word is intrinsically related to the reader, and at times I wonder if perhaps that is even stronger than the relationship to the author. I think of my brother who says he used to ask his English teachers if they had spoken to the poet; if they really could say "this is what he meant" without that personal discourse. 

An then I realize that there are times when I finish one of those heart-word posts, and it looks like gibberish to me, but I post it anyway, and someone comes back and says they saw something they needed, or a memory was triggered. Sometimes the words just need to get out. And it doesn't always make sense to me. Yesterday the words decided to stay in to make me think and feel just a little bit more. Indeed, the thankfulness, and the desire to share it is as strong today, as real. 

yes, me

There are some things lately that I have been realizing that I miss. Quite a bit. Soul searching has become something that I am no longer afraid of, partly because it happens in bits and pieces. Increments I can almost handle. There are still overwhelming moments, but for the most part, each 'episode' has left me in a better place.

So, some of the things I miss in my every day, in no real particular order:

~Drinking milk with lunch, and it's corollary: having a bowl of cereal for breakfast

~Physical labor (moving stuff around; standing up; walking distances)

~Interacting with strangers, or the 'outside' (this one surprised me! But it's true. I hate small talk in conversation, but the niceties of greeting and directing are fun, in moderation!)

~Laughing at nonsense, all by myself

~Being in charge of something that I can leave behind once in a while

~Not wanting to leave things behind once in a while (okay, so this one is in order after the last one, but only because I really do miss not wanting to leave the things I'm in charge of behind)

~Creating--with color, with words, with my body in tune with music, with fabric, with paint--with anything!

I'm coming to realize these are all more than just parts of things I've done in the past; they are important to me being me, to me fulfilling my purpose, whatever that might be. That part I'm still searching for, patiently and diligently. 

And I won't give up, no matter how many obstacles I may encounter.

lunchtime

"Mozzarella balls always seem a better idea before I eat them."

"Yeah. It's almost like my memory of them is better than they are. And cheese sticks are just bad when they get cold."

"Exactly.....Pretty much they are bad unless they are burning everything--the plate, your fingers, your tongue. If they are not too hot to taste, they really aren't all that great. Maybe I just don't really like mozzarella, and just never realized it."

"Ha! Maybe. But string cheese is good. Maybe it's the breading that's bad. "

"Yeah. String cheese is good stuff. It's mostly just raw cheese sticks."

Something to think about.

sparrow

Where once I thought
The wall was built of brick and stone,
Mortared and fast,
I now see
An eggshell quality:

Sturdy for a time
But ready to give
At just the right pressure,
With just the right point.
Breakable.

You are breaking through
From the outside.
But from the inside
I must do my part,
With courage.

Praying for strength
Has not been the key.
What I need is courage
To face to light that until now
Has been diffused.

Guide my hand and my heart,
That I might strike through,
Stretch my wings,
And fly.
A sparrow.