Boat Boy Sunset (Cambodia) by nabilkannan

I am worthless.

Thirty six years into days given as free opportunities and I’m still tripping over clumsy steps, breaking promises faster than they have room to actually settle in place, speaking dishonest words, doing dishonorable things and managing to mess up with fervent regularity.  Left to myself, my actions and intentions cannibalize my heart into fragmented pieces consuming life selfishly, reducing me valueless in those moments to anything but my own desire.

Like a moth to flame do my actions draw to mistake.

I am weak.

One would think that after 432 months survived, strength would be an aged virtue.  There’s no virtue in these bones.  Strength invades in losing moments when unfortunate circumstance boasts victory, but I don’t really know strength any better than I know magic.  I am not strong.

Like a treeling bent in howling winds does my heart run ground low in adversity.

I am not good.

After 13,148 days deep into the life given me, I am no more good than the babe I started as.  In fact, maybe I’m worse the older I get, tangled in what I think wise and noble.  My heart breeds contempt for all holy.  It doesn’t fit naturally.  My heart is incompatible with the good illusion I project which reveals just how undermining it really is.

Like a peddler selling something his hands didn’t create nor own, I hang my life in the day hoping to convince onlookers and passerby’s.

And here is mystery softly rebirthing me in moments broken and fractured by my own worthlessness, weakness and badness – love.  In each creaking day leading me to 36 years old, I am loved completely.  Never can I outrun it; no where can I go to escape its reach; nothing I can ever do to cancel it.  God’s incalculable, immeasurable, confusing love inverts the reality of what I know to be true in my heart – the worthless, weak, bad – to hold and own a new value to the measure of exact opposite.  He loves me to worthy, to strong and to good.  His love regenerates me leaving me someone new …again.

I stand readied for all ahead by God’s love that only consumes the evil of my heart in all of its brooding and repetitive evil.  More than these 3 ways in which I know myself so well, I’m learning one, God’s love, which masters them all in my receding and allowance of that Love owning me.

Another year.  Amen.

[meditate::John 3.16-21]

I don’t think of myself as an artist.

I should say, I don’t always think of myself as an artist, but I am accepting of myself as an artist more and more these days.

I think it’s because I haven’t always thought of myself as a real writer.  Maybe a hobbyist at best, a pretender at worst.  Even half way through writing my first book, I’d tell others at art events, those who’d ask what I did, that I was in sales.  My response was a downplay, a deflect of attention.  After all, who wants to fail or come up short despite all effort given?  So I’d work tirelessly, part privately, on the manuscript of my first book while not admitting to being a writer – an artist.

Realizing (and admitting to) the value in my art and dream of being a writer began to surface after introduced to Art House Dallas.  Suddenly, I felt connected to plenty of other artsy folk who learned to not merely hear the echo of dreams within, but learned to esteem creative dreams within and wield creativity realized for a greater purpose.

A forged statement repeated often in the community of Art House captures its heart and meaning: “Cultivating creative community for the common good — encouraging everyone to live imaginative and meaningful lives.”

I’m both thankful to be part of that community and honored to be this month’s Featured Artist.  Read the Featured Artist interview below where I discuss my creative process, habits and upcoming book, “Earth & Sky.”

:::::::

What is “Earth & Sky: a beautiful collision of grace and grief,” all about?  What inspired you to write it?

In a word: life.  The book is a memoir recounting the sudden, unexpected death of my wife nearly 3 years ago.  Far more than a somber story remembering a life passed in the wake of inexplicable tragedy, Earth & Sky journeys into the heart of grief, grace guiding into a new day.  The correlation of earth and sky lies in the connection between and interaction of human frailty (us – earth) with faith (God – sky).  Sinking in deep loss, God pursued me into the darkened depths of my heart wasting away in grief.

This story is not mine alone.  It belongs to my three little daughters as well.  One life that we knew together suddenly ended with no warning and left us dislodged from any sense of familiar belonging.  I was widowed and they were motherless and half-orphaned.  Both the story and journey belong to all four of us as we learned to live life anew and rediscover happiness, joy, meaning and reason. The inspiration to write Earth & Sky sprung up in desire to chronicle our path together through grief.

Writing about loss is obviously challenging.  C.S. Lewis’, “A Grief Observed,” is a sometimes excruciating classic in the genre.  Were you influenced by any such works? Did you even plan to write a book at the start?

Lewis’ words echoed a strong sense of familiarity in the writing of my book.  Regarding pain, Lewis poignantly wrote, “It removes the veil; it plants the flag of truth within the fortress of a rebel soul.”  His words had a way of speaking life into my soul in the words giving witness to the dark treading through his own rebel heart.

I wrote as a means of bleeding out restless emotions swirling about my heart and head.  Initially, I captured raw emotions in poetry which gave me generous boundary lines to explore and confess darker fears, thoughts and prayers without worry of much sensible literary structure.  Many of these poems are built into the prose of the book.  The poetic spillings served as a cathartic exercise so I continued to write as I began to shape the content into story arch.

The most helpful influence in not only writing the book, but in healing and moving forward revealed itself in Kubler-Ross‘ book, “On Grief and Grieving.”  I found purpose in crafting my story after spending time in this particular book where she and David Kessler expand on her model of the 5 stages of grief.

// CONTINUE READING AT ART HOUSE DALLAS

We were later than we wanted to be and rushed to capture the night earlier lost to slower moving crowds and tourists like us staring at all the lights and glamour that New York City boasts.  This weekend was to unfold perfectly.  Just the two of us trapped in time and space by our own accord and agreement.  

We happily wanted to be there together but had different ideas of what being there was all about.  Plans were set months before for us to set out on our own for the first time.  A new family tradition set in place with full eager agreement as she approached her 10th birthday.  I proposed we escape to an adventure of her choosing, just the two of us.  I did it for memory’s sake, but more so as one of the wisest investments I’ll ever make.

More than her never forgetting this adventure, she will always remember it.  After all, that’s really what parenting is all about, isn’t it?

. . . helping them to remember who they should be and not forget.

Every time we tossed around ideas and plans for our trip to NYC, a smile graced her growing face and reminded me of her younger.  She was not younger any longer – she is not.

Our weekend planned for just the two of us had to be perfect in my mind.  Never before had I been so careful to organize a trip.  We made a list of all she wanted to do and set a plan on how to get it all done.  I’ll be honest and say that I felt like quite the parent in the days leading up to our daddy-daughter trip.  In being further honest, I should also say that the idea is not mine originally.  In the book “Love Does,” I read about a simple, astounding father in Bob Goff as he wrote about this approach with his own kids.  Still I staked claim in my parenting genius until we actually set foot in NYC.

We landed a bit later, the cab ride from the terminal took a bit longer and our room was a bit further from our first stop had to be made prior to dinner at the enchanting place of her choosing.  After 14 city blocks and hundreds of slow moving tourists, I noticed a silence hanging between us.  I checked in with her a few times asking if she was okay.  She met my concern with a simple and unconcerned, “yeah, I’m okay.”

The distance sensed between us began to set uneasily in me.  I had envisioned long walks to magical places enveloped by deep conversation welling from her heart.  Silence wasn’t anticipated.  Block after block, 5 to be exact; I kept count, I wondered exactly how she hurts, what thoughts plague her in the aloneness of her mental space – the feelings she doesn’t always know how to put words to – how those thoughts resolve, if they resolve or just keep ringing with no clear space to land and so on into and through meandering thoughts about her thoughts held to herself.

She just hoped for a weekend to explore a city bigger than she’s ever known with her dad who is often busy with all 3 to afford this much time to only 1, her.

And so, again, the student becomes teacher or maybe more precisely, the teacher learns to be a better student.

My daughters don’t need a father constantly looking and finding ready set to rescue them from anything and everything.  They need a dad who knows them because of days and time actually lived together – there in the moment, learning who they are stride by stride.

Parenting is living today in spite of and because of fears presently founded in tomorrow.

boys, dating – mistakes,
driving – misuse,
college – goodbyes,
career – security, purpose – meaning and belonging,
family – heritage, God – wholeness

Leading children into tomorrow is a daunting task unfit for those unwilling to learn better.

This is the lesson I learned better walking down Park Avenue her hurried stride matching my longer one: she wants to be known more than found.

The little girl, Elizabeth, I’ve come to know as Lizzie – remade in the months and years following her mother’s death into a young girl transcending tragedy with a learned lean on God’s mysterious grace – walked more than spoke and with every step I knew her more.

An hour later than I planned for, we sat at our little window table surrounded by more pink and frilly things than I’d like to recall.  Her little face flashed a smile as she took it all in, the glory of her moment together with me living a dream playing in her mind.  We talked about all sorts of things serious and simple and ridiculous.  Mostly the ridiculous won out though in snippets of jokes traded and adopted.

Gratitude and humility found me warmly there.  It was I who needed to be found most, and found I was by God’s simple goodness.

Give sorrow words;
the grief that does not speak
knits up the o-er wrought heart and bids it break.
- William Shakespeare, Macbeth

Maybe, William, but maybe a heart broken isn’t all bad.

I’m one of three given to my parents.  Two of us remain and one lives forever.

Today, here, he would have aged to 39.  I was 5 years old when he left this life, three years his younger.  I often speculate life uninterrupted; to be fully sandwiched between siblings, not just in thought, dream and memory but in aging days shared.  Heated arguments burning selfish, fights against each other proving strength and stubbornness, fights alongside each other ending those set to prove themselves against one of us, long days lost in the woods, dares given and challenges accepted, our younger sister’s boyfriends enduring the intimidation of both not one of us; in life together, pocketed and adorned jointly.

A sadness crawls still aging in his stead.  Hearts broken, mended and torn open again in days aging.

I know my family still grieves today in every one of its passings.
And now so do my daughters in their own terrible way of losing their mother.

continue reading my monthly feature at A Deeper Story . . .

when will the day rest
and settle soft, one day quietly leaning into another

fear
forgotten  …love remembered

words spoken gentle and without pay

lunatics, come home to a place forgotten in flames of somewhere once over-trodden
set still, cease picking at scabs inherited
leave dreams burning mad, and only you

    judgers listen to the sound of more than seen
    Otherworld melody disturbing our peace carry lyrics that read like prayers of         repentance …for both us and them
    something so wrong, so horrid, so haunting, so hateful and treacherous
    owning those to be brothers and fathers sold by fathers

sorrow whispers, all is not well
Otherworld lowers itself more into our world bleeding out of control.
on lonely streets crowded all remember at the hand of hatred,
    no, all is not well.

. . . and the future cringes at today fast approaching;
a Son bends low yesterday, spits in blinded eyes wanting to see
yes son, the blind can still see.

:::::::

“There’s so much wrong in the world today.”  

It seems each generation says this with more emphasis and groan.  I listened to my grandparents talk about evil in the form of wars and armies fighting wicked men starved for control.  Men demonized because of their lust for power and domination stopping at nothing to reach for it.  I heard my parents talk about some of the same, but the enemy became some of them turned inward.  Wanting all they could get in independence and personal freedom, homes eroded to kingdoms abandoned by those who should have been kings.  Divorce rose common giving way for children devaluing home altogether while longing for what they never could have or keep.

One generation echoes the one before: so much wrong present today.

Quickly, we rally to hurt with those in Boston and pray for healing and safety reset again.  We ring bells of alarm, disapproval and judgement in the Gosnell trial screaming, “monster” of man’s damnable, predatory and atrocious acts against humanity.

And rightfully so, on both accounts.

I simply stand in your crowd, shoulder to shoulder together, but what’s on our collective mind connects us familial.  There’s so much wrong swirling.  When will it end?  Does it end?  If it doesn’t, how deep will it go and how close can it reach?

Friends, that is what frightens me and strips any apathy right off of my warm back.  Evil’s reach right into my world and closer – right into the world of those names I know, those necks I hug and hearts I love.  I pray for people I never knew compassionately and with a lonely pity, but fear and evil continue to billow out there in the distance away from those I love most.  It can be a fearful thing to raise a child in today’s savage context.  Evil lurks, broods and advances close seemingly with no fear of repercussion or boundary to stay it away leaving little safety or sacred in our lives.

Today a city wakes to a new day bathed in grief and unanswered questions.  Within its borders, right near its center, bombs exploded ripping not only through life and limb, but tomorrow.  And today a nation watches horror continue to unfold in the trial of a doctor who severed the heads of babies and performed late term abortions quietly for years.

I contemplate my position, pray for mercy and grace and gather myself to stand correctly.  If judgement be my only response, then evil possibly only begets evil.  The atrocious and ugly, the unholy and unjust, the wrong and evil – as a whole is much too large for me.  My responsibility is not to right wrong, but to hurt with those hurting, plead for safety and justice with those needing it and sow love, goodness and beauty in every opportunity given.

Within my family, I can fight to eradicate the generational echo of so much wrong in the world today.  Though I fear the world my daughters will stand to face and raise their kids in one day soon, I must remember that this day is theirs and trust that good will continue to buffet evil no matter how dark its clouds.  Above all and in the end, good will swallow evil and God will redemptively make all things new and somehow right.

The big struggle is His to manage and bandage for now.  Mine is to live these days given; to trust and live in response to trust in Him.

Much work needs to be done in each day grooming my daughters for all ahead.  How they see me respond to my days, the good, the bad and the ugly, will largely influence the days belonging to them and how they live them.

As evil distorts and dismantles future’s still waiting day, I affect culture as a parent living and building little lives now; speaking into days ahead, “there will be those who stand ready to love in darkness growing until all returns to rest and peace.”

Most days lived under our shared roof sprawl out without much difficulty.  Comfort and security exists again.  I remember the days burning hot and dry when we lived a million miles from one another exiled to our own island on fire.  How unending those days felt!  How unrelenting those waves beat against our shore while offering no respite.

The days, weeks and months following their mother’s death, my wife then, will forever be immortalized as a graceful metamorphosis on the timeline of our family, the grand redesign of us now, then and ahead.  For nearly 3 years now, we have been learning life again, finding joy in mundane free from extraordinary ordeal.  Finding joy in day unfolding with boring, unassuming regularity; that’s how you know your heart is beating alive and not a shell of yesteryear.

To be clear,
happiness is what we pull from the sky,
the smiles we try to wear as long as we can bare,
but joy
…joy finds us
as the sky falls
to find us.

Joy swells in white flags waving and in the end of the pursuit of happiness.  It glimmers rebelliously amidst darker days blanketed by fear, worry, doubt and is the praise of screw ups who know better than to trust the feeble strength of their own hand.

The light in each of their eyes dims, their faces hang in heavier moments, and I’m reminded again close to my chest I have no guarantees.  Nothing promised apart from the breath drawn right now; not even the next day as I once believed.

Belief, that’s all we have and the only choice ever really needed to be made.

And that’s what fuels joy: belief.

The folly of the proud is self-reliance, but the triumph of the humble is joy despite all things, anything, independent of day, night, struggle, ease and especially fairness.

Maybe you’re like me in that I worry often as a parent.  I push hard into most days and try to squeeze as much as I can out of it because there are no absolutes or guarantees that my effort put into my children will produce well – adjusted, loving people whose hearts belong to God and affections to the life given soon to them.  I know as many parents who do everything as right as one can do who sit up late at night wondering what went wrong as the others who stumbled about aimlessly trampling inconsistently in selfish and ignorant circles whose kids end up running an honorable bid for sainthood.

There are simply no guarantees in life as there are in parenting.  “Train up a child in the way he should go”* . . . and he may in fact stray.  He may return one day to God’s grace and goodness, but maybe he won’t.  No one saves, save for God.  That’s why we must only believe.

Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?”  Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”**

And so in our quest and effort as parents, we must courageously believe in God’s love and plan more than our pocketed strategies and parenting techniques said to tame the heart of the unruliest, liveliest little child.  For when we trust in God’s ability in their lives and despite our parenting, we transcend human effort of dust trying to cover dust and allow Eternity to shape, form and guide into all ahead.

As a dad to three little beautiful girls, my heart winces a little more with each increasingly complex conversation.  I do good in my own effort as their dad, but soon we’ll travel hand in hand to an impasse where my foot will slip and my hand not able to hold.

Right there my heart better be ready to let go and grab hold of God’s grace and ability.  Right then, my heart must be able to believe or all that I’ve done is try diligently to look capable for as long as I could until my hand could hold no longer.

:::::::

“The law says, ‘do this,’ and it is never done.  Grace says, ‘believe in this,’ and everything is already done.”
-Martin Luther

Believe in the future already owned by the One who purchased a day unable to be bought by impoverished hearts.  Be free.  Belong.  Trust.

image found @ www.ronitbaras.com  ||  *Proverbs 22:6  ||  **John 6:28-29

When I set out to write a book, I didn’t fully know what to expect or even how to exactly think through a book from initial thought to published product.  Maybe if I did know I’d still be standing there at the beginning dismissing the journey of writing, rewriting, editing and so much more editing, as one of those insurmountable heights in life climbed and conquered by few.  Namely, not me.

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step,” may certainly be quite accurate of a statement, but it is with each subsequent step slipping, falling and rising again, where the journey becomes more than just a walk from somewhere.

Each meandering morning earlier than the sun when a block of 500 words written held more value than sleep, gold or the foolishness of being a published author with book in hand stacked on top of the other.  Before too long, blocks of words did more than float on my computer screen and journal.  They stacked higher and higher still one on the next and the many following the first.  Most days spent writing seemed like I was crafting words and spinning them into a forever stretching horizon ending nowhere but still feeling warm.

Such are dreams too big and unbelonging in our little context of no and can’t and well, maybe.  That is, until we believe, and more importantly, assume beginning with a readiness to just keeping stepping into thin days where dreams quickly vanish into ridiculous.

The completion of my first book should rightly be diminished to just that: a collection of footprints maybe leading somewhere, but at least stepped onto, pressed into and smeared upon the mountain pushing down heavy into each ordinary day.

And so, not only does a completed manuscript exist, but now the wheels are a-turnin’ and the manuscript is being crafted into a real, actual book!

Here are a few updates on my book’s progress despite my lingering unbelief at times:

Final round of editing almost complete!  Editing has been the most uncomfortable element to the process, but by far and wide, the most helpful and guiding.  My editor is simply an amazing mix of strong encouragement and sharp edge slicing through unnecessary.

Book design and artwork!  Hand meets digital expression, illustration meets design.  I have an incredible duo creating the artwork for my book combining hand drawn illustration and artfully brilliant computer design.  I literally sent a few pictorial examples of what I want and excerpts of my manuscript and the design began to lift off the ground.  I can’t wait to show you guys what they come up with!

Book endorsements!  6 published authors have agreed to read my manuscript and endorse my book.  Ridiculous …enough said.

Video shoot!  Somehow I am crossing paths with the right people at the right time (wink).  This month as editing is wrapping, design is coming together and book endorsements are being crafted, all in preparation for printing to begin, I am prepping for a video shoot with an incredibly talented filmmaker.  This video will act as a sort of trailer for the book.  Location in Dallas has been confirmed and the script is done.

KICKSTARTER!  All of this – the writing, painstaking edits, exciting art design, endorsements and video shoot – converge at one moment, the scramble to summit the mountain, if you will.  I need pay for it all.  Rather than going the route of a traditional publisher, I chose to go with a publishing imprint that will allow me to retain rights to the book that I wrote.  This means that I will own my own book instead of a publishing house owning the rights to my book.  To go this route meant me having to pay for the team to bring the book from concept and dream locked in my head to life.

I will write more about my Kickstarter campaign in the next week or so.  Please be on the look out and consider helping me in bringing this book into reality by pre-ordering copies of my book and additional items such as commissioned print copies of the book cover artwork and an exclusive ebook of poetry and thoughts not included in my book.

I cannot express the excitement building in each passing day and the depth of gratitude to you, the community who has surrounded me in support and encouragement.  In large part to each of you who subscribe to my blog, this book is soon to transcend dream!!

Grant, O Lord, that as we are baptized into the death of they blessed Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, so by continual mortifying our corrupt affections we may be buried with him; and that through the grave, and gate of death, we may pass to our joyful resurrection; for his merits, who died, and was buried, and rose again for us, they Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Easter-Even, The Collect.

None of us are good.  No one one is.

As we approached the darkest of this shared season of Lent, we touched the deepest, most intimate wrong buried in of our human hearts.  Good, the lie that we are okay, can make it out on our own and all we need, all we want dwells within us.

The serpent hiss, perverted benevolence ringing in hearts rooted in choice.

We are all okay,
good from beginning,
innocent – a diseasing lie eating us.

Their eyes widened a bit and ears tuned in to words undoing us.  No good in us.  There is brooding wrong within each of us demanding surrender, lording desire; a problem sitting heavy on the chest of mankind.  Sin that won’t leave us alone and a scab that we won’t quit picking at.

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.  (Romans 7:18, ESV)

An illuminated reality in my role as parent has become apparent: just as I accept that there is no good within me, there is no good within them either.  None.  Their hearts live just as displaced as mine always choosing that which the heart wants rather than what it needs.  My daughters lie to protect themselves, hate when their offended and hurt, take what’s not theirs, whine, complain, grumble and ignore others in need for the sake of comfort.  Despicable hearts dirty in sin no matter how we pretty the outer.  We stink the smell of offense.

And this particular realization and confession delivered us properly to the darkness of Lent, the eve of redemption evermore.

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.  (Romans 6:3-4, ESV)

My approach as dad now broadened focused on uprooting good from their hearts to give way for grace properly, set but then, that night when our Lenten discussions crescendoed well to redemption, the release held greatest importance.  As our devotional book closed, our hearts opened floating free.  Their little heads bowed as if looking dead into their guilty hearts and with quiet words Grace displaced good.

Like the good thief hanging guilty next to Jesus, grace and forgiveness found them readily and easy.  With gratitude and solemness we looked ahead to the remembrance of Good Friday and the promise forthcoming on Easter morning.

Praise the Lord, grace has come.

We took to the mountains; retreated into snow to forget for a moment and remember all that really matters, what we truly know.

Spring break in Colorado couldn’t have come at a better time.  No infringing schedule or deadlines other than hiking times, a snow tubing appointment, restaurant reservations, movie times, late nights anticipated, later mornings, and of course, naps.

I’ll let my words sink into the photographs and give way for them to tell the stories of our week together well lived.

One last thing, you know vacation is truly good when in the end a smile still stretches across well rested, satisfied faces.

Nothing beats late nights with amazing friends meandering through conversation of all that was, is and hopefully will be.  Of equal irreplaceable delight is waking up late into morning with family and those friends to another day of snowy mountain adventure.

And this is vacation; a definite break from busy, from striving and reaching and worry about not being formidable enough for the dreams swirling inside.

When we leave the Colorado mountains, nights return to earlier endings and my alarm sounds annoyingly before dawn waking me to another day, I will be rested and ready after more than 2 weeks of vacation and time away to reset and heal.  But for now, I write into a quiet morning beside a steaming mug of chai tea awaking me even more, all while lost in the view of snow capped mountains whispering adventure both now and into life ahead.

:::::::

As we continue together into Lent, discussions of the heart deeper unfold.  Words of challenge and grace fill our conversations together throughout our days away in the mountains.  I anticipated a break.  In the weeks leading up to vacation, we followed a pattern of reading and praying together for grace to help us engage in giving up of conveniences to grasp a greater understanding now of God in our day to day.  Instead of our pattern completely vanishing in the snow and easy days, each of the girls asked how and what we would fast and more importantly, when.

In their asking and reflecting of our togetherness in this Lent journey, a conversation from before the mountains, snow and rest, returned to me; a conversation of heart and words with Elizabeth, my eldest daughter.

There we sat.  The two of us words hanging in grace sheltering our weakness and covering our mistakes.  The greatest erasing of wrong leaving no sign except what we redraw in our effort earning unbelief that God could possibly be that good and undeservingly accepting of our human hearts.

She sat in sadness judged by her own heart, tangled in thought.

“Dad, …sometimes I get so angry and frustrated at life.  I feel confused and lost.  Sometimes I say bad words in my head, really, really bad words, Dad.”

I allowed for the pause between us to encapsulate the moment, her helpless sinking knowing that scripture reading, prayer and conversation all shared together had been raking over her heart …and finding her.

“What words do you think when you’re angry?”

“Uhh … really, really bad words.”

“I see.  They must be really bad if you don’t want to say them.”

I sped up our conversation out of her lingering words suspended in guilt with a hopefully lasting image lifting her sinking.  Often I describe our life together in terms of journey, a landscape of rising mountains, descending valleys and sometimes treacherous impasses.  This image lifting her out of guilt and mistakes was one of a towering tree stretching substantially over us.

Grace like a tree shelters us from guilt striking down from darker skies and together we are safe in its impenetrable branches.

“Um, what?”

All three of my daughters deal with my words dragging romantic and descriptive.  They are used to just staring at me until I’m done and I’m used to their blank looks lost in words loaded with meaning.  I like our conversations that way.  Questions are sure to ensue giving way for their ownership pulling understanding into little hearts.

I pulled back the curtain a bit and assured Elizabeth that emotions exist very real in our hearts and our responses, even the bad unrepeatable words, don’t separate us from God’s fierce love.  To her surprise, I told her that often those words, even the worst offenders launch from my heart, too.

“…and that’s okay, Elizabeth.”

Grace’s strong branches will always hold us up and cover us wholly.  As a parent, no greater gift can be given than the assurance that all will be well and all, despite emotion and weakness of heart.

Grace given.
Grace received.

…all in the branches together.

*image copyright inmenlo.com