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“We both believe, and disbelieve a hundred times an hour,
which keeps believing nimble.” – Emily Dickinson

i’m probably the last person you should come to for hope.  i mean i had an entire year i devoted to learning to hope again, and after 366 days of trying to do so i arrive at today and i still struggle with hope and i still struggle with trust and i still struggle with dreams and i still struggle with wishing.

but the fact of the matter is that we all do.  even the best of us find it difficult to trust over something.  we all face fears and resistance.  we all at one time or another want to give up.  we’ve all had a dream dashed to the ground and some of us still live with the fall out years later of hope deferred.  not that we’re dwelling there, but there is pain when our dreams don’t come true and there are some of those dreams that we will always feel pain over not seeing them come to fruition.

i once wrote about a definition of hope being a small haven.  i still love that definition because when my doubts become larger than my hopes i need some place i can feel safe in.  hope doesn’t always feel safe though.  sometimes we need to feel brave and courageous just to have a little hope.  but hope is still a place, even in our doubts, where we can abide.

so, maybe the only encouragement i can offer you in your doubts is that you’re not alone.  your mother, your father, your wife, your husband, your child, the lady in the cubicle next to you, the guy in the $70k car next to you at the stop light.  they’ve all known doubt.  they’ve all had dreams & hopes broken like fragile, priceless glass.

…and maybe that’s the only way you can see hope as a haven right now.  that you’re not alone.  and that’s perfectly acceptable.  and maybe you need to sit with your doubts for a spell.  and that’s also perfectly acceptable.  and one day after that season your hope and your faith will be a little stronger.  and that will be absolutely fantastic.

“And yet when I wish to explore how faith works, I usually sneak in by the back door of doubt, for I best learn about my own need for faith during its absence. God’s invisibility guarantees I will experience times of doubt. Everyone dangles on a pendulum that swings from belief to unbelief, back to belief, and ends – where?” – Philip Yancy

GIVEAWAY!!

it’s been a while since i’ve had a giveaway and i’m feeling rather giveraway-ish.  to enter to win this original art piece (by me) simply follow the rafflecopter’s friendly questions.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

today’s post is part of story 101.

These past few weeks have been very difficult ones.  Wrenching of my soul difficult.  Anger, wanting to find comfort in hiding in a dark closet difficult.

Not in the hoping, trusting ways though those have certainly played their role.

While it seems this week I’m slowly breaking out of the cloud I’ve been in, the effervescence still leaves me winded and tied down.

I’ve noticed more than ever this week flight.  Contrails, birds, airplanes.  This morning I even saw birds flying in a perfect V pattern.  Everywhere I look, it seems I’m seeing or hearing flight.  And weekend before last I had an image of sailing through the clouds.

These last few weeks I’ve felt that I’ve been grounded, tied down, shoved in a dark cave that at times caved in and I found myself under a pile of rocks and tree roots and dirt.  But this week, it feels as though the dawn is coming and hope is once again finding her feathers.

We recently made a huge decision that is going to require steps of faith and trust and patience and believing when there is nothing to see to believe in.  This decision has left me estatic and scared.  And I know I’ll question our timing of making this decision and wondering how just how and if it’s going to come to light, and at the same time feel peace that we’re taking this step right now because we need to.

Because it’s right.

It’s going to be probably a couple months {at least} before I’m able to share with you this decision we’ve made, but I covet your prayers.  And I’m certain the Hearer will discern your words with our situation.

I’d love to have a garden.  A small patch of earth glorying with heirloom tomatoes, green beans, butter lettuce, cucumbers, broccoli & cauliflower, maybe some beets that in my spare time I’d learn to pickle and in the same process dye my hands a beautiful hue of purple.  Oh and there’s flowers too.  Ranunculus and Sunflowers and Snap Dragons and Irises and Daffodils.  I’d love to have all these and more.  To have a cactus garden with succulents and prickly little cacti that bloom with resplendent flowers.

I’d love to have earth in my back yard that would allow such things to grow instead of clay and desperately dry earth because HELLO I live in Phoenix where rain is so rare it’s a magical thing.  I’d love to be able to keep plants alive…because Lord knows I can’t even keep cactus and succulents alive.

There’s been a theme of garden since I came back from Moldova.  The Art Journaler is focusing on secret gardens this month.  My anthem from coming back from Moldova has been Beautiful Things by Gungor.  I’ve listened to very little music since I got back from Moldova.  My heart and soul have longed for silence and I’ve given them that gift.  Yet, when they need to hear melodies they long for this song and this song alone.

Perhaps it’s the blooming of life after living as if I were dead for so long.  Perhaps it’s the revelation of hope and of flight, but these lyrics that speak of life out of dust is what my inner being is meditating on.

“All this pain
I wonder if I’ll ever find my way
I wonder if my life could really change at all
All this earth
Could all that is lost ever be found
Could a garden come up from this ground at all”

Maybe it’s that I need to see the beautiful things of my life because they are sometimes hard to see.  Maybe it’s allowing myself to believe that a garden truly could bloom in this desert.

“All around
Hope is springing up from this old ground
Out of chaos life is being found in You”

Even though I’m starting to hope & trust again, and slowly building my wings, it’s difficult at times.  It isn’t that I doubt God’s faithfulness and goodness because I see it in the lives of others.  It’s believing that He is faithful & good in my life.

When I was in a kid I entered the science fair at our school.  My experiment was planting seeds to see how they grew under different environments.  The only one that survived was one that was in a dark closet with a pair of nylons over the Tupperware container.  (See even back then I couldn’t keep plants alive….I may worry for our children.)  Sometimes it is out of the darkness of our lives that we see growth.  We are stretched and seeds are planted, and in the darkness the beauty begins to take root and a garden is created.

- lyrics by Gungor, Beautiful Things

It’s Sunday night and we’ve just had our last full day in Moldova.  It was, like the ones before it, full.  Leaving no time to process.

I’ve reached the “I’m ready to go home” point despite the fact that my heart is breaking about leaving.  If only I could teleport Shawn, our Chihuahuas, and our bed to Moldova I’d be good.

This morning day was hard.  The ugly cry I expected to happen every day broke through on multiple occasions.  There is so much about this city and country that rips my heart out and tears it into a billion tiny shreds.  I look out at her through the windows of our shuttle and like Jesus cried out to Jerusalem that He wanted to gather them under His wings, so that is my heart too.

I want to whisper to her people that there is hope, there is identity, there is future.  She doesn’t see it, she doesn’t feel it.  I am taken aback that it would be me that would long to hold each person’s hand and say hope is there, as I’m the one still struggling with the concept of hope.

I don’t know what my purpose has been, with my coming here.  I didn’t have any special skills to share, and in fact more times than not I was the quiet one observing everything.  Taking in the girls we met, the city, the history.  Falling in love.

Last night I point blank asked our host, Vladimir, what specific ways I can be praying for Beginning of Life and for Moldova.  I can’t tell you how heart broken I am for this city.  I’m moved by his, and his team’s passion for the people.  For their hearts to live, and serve the people here missionally.

Below are the specific areas of prayer that Vladimir asked for prayer in:

Beginning of Life

To move all of their student & youth projects to the building where their church is located.  They are currently doing all these projects that aren’t in the schools in their office.  It is a small space, and the church building would give them one floor plus a basement.

Turn the upstairs portion of their office into an art center.  For two purposes:  art therapy; and an art studio where children & teens whose parents can not afford art lessons can come and learn to paint, draw, etc.

Funds for all the projects and they currently have – which includes a teen print magazine & the student training projects; and all that they are longing to do.

Team & vision.  I will say right now that Vladimir and his wife Julia have a fantastic team at BoL.  They all have servant’s hearts, and do so selflessly.  We were around his core team the entire week and not only do the love Jesus, they have serious love & passion for Moldova.  They are the individuals that are igniting a fire in the young people that will change the country.  Vladimir asked that we pray for the team and the vision.  That they would be united.

Moldova

When I asked how I can pray specifically for Moldova – besides the expected prayer requests, his immediate response was corruption, corruption, corruption.  I can’t share details but some of the things he shared with the few of us that ate dinner with him last night, makes me seriously want to spew really bad words and punch some people in the face, and even then I’m not sure I’d be done.  All that to say – please pray that God would raise up righteous men and women in the government.  Pray that the corruption that is literally dissolving the country would be eradicated.

On a personal note – early in our trip I made a note in my phone to ask Vladimir about the need for a second Restoration Home.  When we talked he said, yes of course.  There are thousands of girls here that they can serve.  I am praying that God will provide a second house for them by the year’s end.

Our God is a might God.  I’ve been moved so by His grace and redemption while on this trip.  I am expecting big things for BoL and Moldova.  I would love it if you would join our team in praying for these things.

From the bottom of my heart, thanks to everyone who was praying back at home.  Your prayers were felt and we saw God move in fantastic ways.  Please continue to pray as we all head towards home tomorrow, and in the days and weeks and months that follow.  Thank you again.  Much love….

He is jealous for me, Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree, Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.  When all of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory, And I realise just how beautiful You are, And how great Your affections are for me.  And oh, how He loves us oh, Oh how He loves us, How He loves us all.

-

You’re the God of this City You’re the King of these people You’re the Lord of this nation You are.  You’re the Light in this darkness You’re the Hope to the hopeless You’re the Peace to the restless You are.  There is no one like our God   There is no one like our God.  For greater things have yet to come And greater things are still to be done in this City Greater thing have yet to come And greater things are still to be done in this City.

-

We drove through Chișinău tonight with the these words on our lips.  Tears streamed heavily down my cheeks, my hand raised, sobs suppressed.

This afternoon as we made our way from lunch to the BoL office I watched the city passing by me.  I watched the people, I took in the crumbling buildings that house flats that are available to rent starting at $250 a month*.  I took in the gorgeous architecture.  The elements that the designer added to give depth to concrete buildings.

It’s been only 20 years since the fall of the Soviet Union.  One of our translators, Ben, is 27.  Old enough to have known Communism and to have seen it fall.  So many of who we are working with at BoL would have lived in Communist Russia.  Chișinău is a dark city, Moldova is in a country forgotten, living in the shadows of the Ukraine and Romania.

Yesterday we spent our mornings in schools working with the teenagers of Chișinău – literally the next generation of leaders who can determine where Moldova goes.  One of our teams reported back to us how so many of the youth here only want to leave.  They have have no hope for Moldova.  It is equivalent to kids in a small town wanting to move to the big city where opportunity is more than just what their parents did or at the Piggly Wiggly.

Tonight we met a group of about 25 15-21 year olds.  Every week BoL has youth clubs for the teenagers in Chișinău to learn skills useful for adulthood.  These young people have vision.  They have passion.  Not only for Moldova but for the world.

I met Anastasia tonight.  She is a 21 years and is studying tourism in University.  She is a vibrant young woman.  We learned more about her from Vladimir (co-founder of BoL and our host) after the youth club ended.  I won’t share her story as I don’t have permission, but I can tell you that where there was once no hope, there is hope.

During our conversation with her, she emphatically stated that she will change the world.  Not just Moldova, but the world.  I saw hope, purpose, passion, drive in her eyes.

On our drive after lunch I was broken for this country.  While you don’t see the poverty in the city, you do see the brokenness.  But tonight I saw a glimmer of light.  All it takes is one person to say, “I’m going to be the change.”  Imagine what happens when 25 young people whose parents lived under Communism, say they’re going to be the change.  The world better watch out.

Just because the world has forgotten this country of 350,000, a country where most people say, “where?” when you tell them you’re going to Moldova, doesn’t mean God has.  He holds each of these citizens in His hand.  He cradles the country against His chest and says, “I am not done with you.  I never was.  And your best, Moldova, your best is coming.”

Tonight I experienced God’s grace for this people and I am completely overwhelmed.

Greater things have yet to come, greater things are still to be done in this city.  Greater things have yet to come, greater things are still to be done here.

*The poor in Chișinău earn at most $7000 a year.

.

(ps..i apologize for the bad photos, the room is poorly lit)

This book…this book holds the last 10 1/2 months of my life.  It tells my story.

The one of finding hope, courage, bravery, my roar.  It holds secrets I’ve never shared with anyone.  Not even my husband or best friend.

At the end of 2012 there are few things that are more precious to me then this book.  I can’t explain it to you.  It’s just the way it is.

When I started art journaling in February I didn’t know what it would do to or for me.  The gliding on of paint, spreading of Gesso, lettering of my heart upon pages has been instrumental in my healing in the last year.

My art journal was is a place I can be perfectly honest with myself.  Honest in a way that I don’t seem to be when I write in my writing journal.

Some times my pages were merely creating poetry out of the original author’s words.  Phrases highlighted to speak my present being at the time.  At other times, they were just a letter to myself on the back of an envelope.  Each page meaning.  My journal has been to the ocean and baptized with salty waters.  It’s received rain upon it’s pages.  It speaks of the hope in my future.

 While I am in Moldova, a friend and I will have the opportunity to share art journaling with the girls living the BOL home.  We’ll get to share what the process has been for us.  And hopefully for these 12 girls it will be a process of healing as well.

Today I’ll make a last entry in this art journal, and tomorrow will dawn with a new word and new journals for a new year.

To view more of my art journal pages you can see them on my Flickr page.

If you want to learn more about art journaling check out The Art Journaler!!

When January 1st dawned and 2011 became 2012 I had no expectations for the new year.  I had no idea how this year of hope would play out.  During my year of grace I had this expectation that I’d be taught to have grace and compassion, but things went completely in a direction I hadn’t expected.  Yes, I learned these things but during those 365 days so much of what I was learning was God’s grace for me.  It was – in a way – a crushed, tattered, bow that would be placed over my broken heart.

So, I started 2012 with no expectations.  Not only because I had no idea what to expect, but primarily because in the heart there is so much equality with expectation and hope.  If I couldn’t dare to hope, I couldn’t dare to expect.  So I started walking fearful of the waves that were calling me.

This year has been one of learning courage, of learning to trust.  And this hope and this courage and this trust hasn’t been easy.  I know I’ve grown but there are moments when I still feel so broken.  I still struggle to trust God.  To give myself over to Him fully again.

But learning to walk takes time.  We stumble.  We fall on our butts.  We walk into walls.  We trip.

But we get up and try again.  That’s what this year has been for me.  Learning to walk, falling, and getting back up again.

I’m excited for 2013 and my Word for the year.  There is also trepidation as it is calling for a choice to act.  I’m excited to share it with you and will do so soon.

“Listen to the mustn’ts, child. Listen to the don’ts.  Listen to the shouldn’ts, the impossibles, the won’ts.  List the the never haves, then listen close to me… Anything can happen child. Anything can be.” – Shel Sliverstein

“The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for.  And the most you can do is live inside that hope.  Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.” – Barbara Kingsolver

“Hope Smiles from the threshold of the year to come, Whispering ‘it will be happier’…”- Alfred Tennyson

Happy New Year Dear Friends!

“Oh come thou Dayspring come and cheer our spirits by Thine advent here, disperse the gloomy clouds of night and death’s dark shadows put to flight.”

It’s the 26th of November and Christmas music streams in my ear buds.  Songs of Noel and Emmanuel’s coming.

My perspective on Christmas is so different than last year.  I wonder how I’ve made it through these last 11 months.  Through learning to hope again, through slipping on courage, and finding my roar.

Last year, Christmas for me was experiencing God with us.  A concept I knew so well but at the time felt more foreign than anything I knew.

And I’m struck again this year by God with us.  Where last year was the taking of my hands by Godly ones and being told, “I’m here Prudence.  I’ve not abandoned you.  I’ve not left you.  That ocean that you feel you’re a castaway in…you’re not drifting alone”, this year it’s more an indwelling deep within me.

A reassurance.

A peace.

My our circumstances haven’t changed.  Magical, holy fingers haven’t snapped and made all things better.  We’re still sitting in the circumstances of a year ago.  Yes, some of this is just plain our own fault because of our own fears, reluctance, sign expecting, etc.

______________________

Tomorrow we celebrate Christmas.  The birth of our Savior.  We’re not simply celebrating a birth, but God who meets us where we’re at.  In Hebrew the word Emmanuel means God with us.  With us in our unbelief.  With us in our hurt.  With us in our broken hearts.  With us in our anger.  It’s easy for us to think of God with us in our joy, but how much more comforting to think of Him with us in our darkest moments.

I could not have come through a couple very dark months when curse replaced praise.  I could not have made it though these last 11 months of literally learning to walk again if it were not for Emmanuel.

“Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel has come for thee…”

she stretches her fingers
brush of air across my cheek
a burgeoning in soul

when all seems lost
she is there

her feathers dance upon my skin
light upon my face
she renews me

she is grace
when i am lost

hope sings my name
she whispers words i’m parched for
and doesn’t let me go

hope is the light i need to see
hope is the light i need i need to feel

The breaking of a wave cannot explain the whole of the sea. – Vladimir Nebokor

I look back over these last several months.  From when hope became the banner I tried to once again get a grasp on.

I still wear the silver band of hope on my right hand.  It catches my eye sometimes.  A quick reminder.  I rub left thumb over the etched letters that at times serve as a talisman.

I’m coming up on a year since everything broke.  When my hope was ground up like worthless chaff.  It scares me.  This anniversary of sorts.  I still vividly remember standing in our bedroom yelling at God in the midst of a heated talk with Shawn about it all.  I remember the sleepless nights where I yelled at Him even more.

A year ago a wave broke.  It crashed against my heart and everything within me shattered as the wave retreated and became nothing more then effervescence touching every part of my life. Yet, I’m being taught that these incidents don’t tell my whole story.  They don’t tell of the scared girl teetering on falling back into hope & dreaming.  They don’t tell how these anguished wrenchings drew me back to creating art.  They don’t tell of the who I will be.  How one day, hope will be renewed fully and not only fully but stronger.

They simply tell of a season in the life of a girl.

Sometimes you get to the end of the week and wonder how you got there.  How you made it without punching anything.  Without falling apart.

It finds you breathless.  Weary & spent.

The arguments.  The frustrations.  The need to please all.

You feel the tears threaten your eyelids, and the anger rising….

……again.

Because you can’t help but wonder if God has you on mute because others similar requests seem to be more important to Him than yours as you see theirs answered and yours……

And so you stuff it all down.

the frustrations
the anger
the bitterness
the confusion
the questions

…………………….the everything

Because your burdens are your burdens and your fellow man has enough of their own.

You look at the faded words of life on your hand, and wonder where it all went.  That hope and excitement that was percolating a few weeks ago.

And you find yourself here, comparing the ratio of weekend to work days and wonder when things will go your way.

When hope won’t be so hard.

When faith is just a tad bit easier.

When I finished reading Come Alive one of my first thoughts was that I didn’t want you to read it.  Not because it’s not good, it’s really good.  I didn’t want you to read it because it was one of the most difficult books I’ve read.  But I want you to read it.  I want you to know this story.

Especially the ugly parts.

Come Alive is Stephanie’s story.  A teen age girl who on a good day is only verbally abused by her father.  The ones who should have cherished her and protected her instead are the ones who abuse her.  Who rape her.

But Stephanie’s story isn’t just about the ugly parts of her life.  It is more about the redemption of her heart and body.  It’s the story of a young girl finding hope and freedom.

In her debut novel, Elora reaches into some of the ugliest parts of life (and family) and lights a candle.  A faint light for those with no light and no hope.

In ways, this story will break you.  I cried though much of it, and at other times felt bile rising up in my throat.  It will hopefully open your eyes, not only to the atrocities that are one of the central themes in the book, but that even in your darkness there is hope & there is a light…..even if it is only a flickering candle.

Come Alive challenges you to see yourself as that:  ALIVE!  To see the grace that has brought you to where you’re at.

So, I invite you to delve into Stephanie’s story.  To see your story and the hope and the grace in both.

You can buy the book direct through Amazon:  Come Alive by Elora Ramirez

I am giving away ONE copy of Come Alive.  To be entered please leave a comment below finishing this sentence:  “I’m alive because…”

For additional entries:
→ Tweet: #ComeAliveBook by @eloranicole releases today. @PrudyChick is giving away a copy: http://bit.ly/RYgsNJ. Or buy here: http://amzn.to/RYgwgq
→ Like the NEW PrudyChick.com Facebook Page
→ Join the I’m Alive movement by Instagramming or posting to Twitter a photo of the phrase “I’m Alive” written on your hand & sharing what makes you alive in the comments.  Use the hashtag #ComeAliveBook & be sure to tag me (@PrudyChick for both Twitter & Instagram)

**Leave a second comment here if you’ve entered for additional entries.**

Again…I hope you’ll pick up this book.  Allow Elora’s words to break your heart and remind you redemption awaits.

Where you can find Elora online:

Twitter:  @EloraNicole
EloraNicole.com

I haven’t been around much this week.  I’ve been silent here, been fairly quiet on Twitter, and haven’t even been reading blogs.  In fact I marked quite a few as read just because I don’t have it in me right now.  Those left unread will wait for me.  Their #secretmessages will be right when I need them.  I believe this.

Remember those emotions?  Still battling them.  Yesterday I wrote in my journal it’s like my heart is speaking a language I don’t know and is getting tongue tied at that.

How do you communicate with your heart when you can’t understand it?

Shawn sent me a quote yesterday,

“Bravery is a muscle, like love.  You have to exercise it constantly or it will turn flabby.” – Chris Brogan on depression & bravery

I’ve never thought about bravery this way.  In all my learning that being brave is something you do when you’re afraid I never realized that I have to exercise it the way I exercise love or my legs.  Shawn and I recently got bikes and I’ve been working up my number of miles per ride.  My legs get sore with each rotation of the pedals but they’re slowly getting idea of what they should be doing.  Each ride is going to get easier.

The same is with my bravery.

This week I haven’t felt brave.  In fact I’ve felt pretty low.  There’s no need to worry.  I’m dealing with it.

I’m going to do my best to plump my feathers and allow the wind to carry me where it wants, keeping the smallest amount of bravery I can muster up in my hands.

“sometimes the smallest amount of bravery exudes the most courage.”

I sat on the edge of the world last month.  Right there on the edge watching as the sun drowned herself in the blackness of the Pacific Ocean.

This is humbling.  To watch as sun and earth seem to meld together.  You realize your smallness in the universe, let alone the world itself.  Your heart’s cries seem a little quieter against the waves crashing against the carved out cliffs.  The weights on your mind seem a little lighter as if the Seagulls that dance overhead are helping to carry those burdens.

I have stood at the ocean five times since everything became cataclysmic last November, and each time has been different.  The first trip was a sunset walk as well, but I was still so angry that I couldn’t appreciate the vastness of the ocean and rather was just happy to be at the beach after so long away from it.

When we went to San Diego in May, so much had happened in my heart between November and then that walking overcast beaches was a renewing.  New wineskin forming where the old, bruised, calloused one had been.  I remember standing there holding my shoes and my camera and being in awe.  Feeling the sand between my toes and the cold wind having its way with my hair.  I remember forcing myself to appreciate the magnificence of the ocean and not take for granted my being there.  Being there physically and emotionally and spiritually.

But when I found myself sitting on those cliffs I was moved.  I was reminded of my smallness, that in the grand scheme of things my problems are minuscule.  Especially to someone who can spread water across a globe and keep it in its place, while also keeping my hurts so close to His heart they are impacted by its beating.

As I looked at the waves coming in to marry the shore I kept thinking, “it goes on forever.  There is no end.”

I invite you to stand there, on the edge of the world.  Look across the ocean’s horizon or the summits of mountains that intertwine with the sky.  Be reminded of something bigger than yourself.  To feel the wind whip through your hair.  To feel a little bit more free today.

Faith is not simply a patience that passively suffers until the storm is past. Rather, it is a spirit that bears things – with resignations, yes, but above all, with blazing, serene hope. –  Corazon Aquino

I stood in our driveway watching the late night skies brew overhead.  Wishing I’d walked out into rain, but the wind alone rustled our Palms, the Mesquite across the street, and the city’s Palo Verdes that turn the ground bright yellow during spring.

I rested there in the howling wind and on concrete still hot enough from the day’s sun to burn the bottoms of my feet, and in one deep breath I was overcome with a sense that all was going to be okay.

Not the storm that I wanted to drench us.   Not the wind rattling the foliage, but our lives.  Shawn’s and mine.  All the questions we have, the dreams, the goals, the things we want more than anything may never happen….but it will all be okay.

It’s taken me a while of course to get here.  To begin to accept this, the okayness of the outcome.

If you’ve been knocked down you know it can be difficult to not only stand back up, but not to expect that around every corner you’ll find yourself back down on the ground.

I’ve had a good run of hope lately.  I’ve allowed myself not to get depressed that things in our lives aren’t moving at the pace I’d really really like them to.  And perhaps this is because things have been moving forward.  Even baby steps feel like giant steps when you’ve never taken any.

This week has been one of the harder one’s in the past couple of months.  The anger simmering again.  My hope taking a beating.  I’m not perfect at this.  I’m still learning.  I’m still learning that just because things aren’t going according to my plan, hope isn’t failing.

So I’m trying to hold onto that howling night.  Where the wind whipped my hair a tizzy, where whispered in the currents of the air was a promise that everything would be okay.

note: i started this post about a month ago.  it’s taken some time for me to be able to write out what now needed to be said.  that night was windy and rain seemed promising, but never came.  tonight (08.16.12) as i finished the post, proofed, & got ready to schedule it to publish, i heard the faint tinklings of rain drops meeting up with concrete.  i was over joyed.  i rushed outside just to stand in it.  tonight was a reminder that what was whispered last month still holds true tonight.  i even took my art journal out in the rain and captured some of this promise on her pages.

I sat in my fluorescent lit, beige cubical and I kept thinking I am going to need strength today.

I’ve felt so weak the past few days, and today is no exception.  Getting out of bed has been harder and harder as fatigue from life and/or a bad night’s sleep weigh on me like anchors.  I relate with my friend Willow when she says she wakes up and feels stuck.  Though mine is not as much physical ailments as it is… well…..sometimes I’m not sure.

So I sit here in this cube filled with pieces of me to make it feel a little more like “home”, my red bound journal sits tucked away on my desk ready to receive the stirrings of my heart.  I sip my coffee and tap these keys and whisper my need for strength.

Strength to keep walking & fighting.  Strength to be brave.  Strength to keep hoping.

I’m not asking for a great allotment but enough to get through the hours of this day.

Tomorrow I’ll ask the same.

I’ve needed a change around here for a while.  I mean I still have a theme for autumn/winter.

Skeleton trees don’t exactly sing of spring and summer.

But perhaps there is a deeper meaning here.  Besides a laziness on my part to get it updated to something more summery.  Maybe the strings of last year have been holding onto even this.

There is a new PrudyChick.com coming.  She’s gonna be a little like me.

Okay a lot like me.

Throughout the last seven months there have been so many times I’ve seriously considered shutting down this space.  Of taking off my gloves.  Throwing in the towel.

It is truly because hope has slowly been re-birthing in me that I haven’t.

I can’t wait for you to see her.

We sliced through the air.  The two lane, winding road carrying us from over 4,000 feet to 1,000 in a matter of minutes.  I know this because I tracked our progress when we head up the mountain only three days earlier – purple Sharpie Pen noting the times and the elevations in my journal.

My right foot dancing between the air and the brake pedal.  Caution my middle name.

As we came out of our drastic descent and the speed limit increased I wondered how they set speed limits for roads...I hope not by trial and error.  But in a world before modern computer simulation models that can tell a civil engineer at what speed a car traveling down a curvy, steep mountain will careen off the cliff into a fiery crash, roads were laid.

My thoughts turned to my own life and its own twists and turns and drastic descents.  What rate does God allow me to travel these curves?  At what speed does He allow events in my life that cause me to lean more into Him?

The road from angry and broken to entertaining bravery and hope has its set speed.  When the hits kept coming and my anger kept burning, somewhere deep inside I think I knew it was at a rate in which I’d be forced to lean into Him the way one’s body leans when a car is rounding a turn.  Away from the curve.

During those drastic turns and breath stealing descents I could feel Him there.  Even when I didn’t want Him.  I needed to make them.  He need me to lean into Him, and I needed to.

The road is often treacherous, but this is grace.

I never said it would be easy, in fact I distinctly remember knowing it would be probably one of the hardest things I’ve done.

Re-learning to hope.

Despite our lives not moving forward at the pace I’d like them to, the curtain of despair seems to be shifting.  I can see it blowing in the wind allowing light to enter through its rich thickness.

In spite of a crazy couple of weeks at work and over four hours of overtime this week and looking like more tomorrow, these past few days have been good.

The darkness of fear and abandonment aren’t shadowing like they have recently.

I’m allowing myself, for what seems like the first time in over six months, to feel hope.  Not a shallow hope, but a deep one.  A hope that penetrates my core.

Frustrations and discontentment still lie there because the goal hasn’t yet been reached, but right now ……. right now I’m able to say “okay…I can do this…I can let go and fly”.

I have no way of knowing if this bravery will continue unhindered or if I’ll find myself clinging to my fears again.  Knowing my fickle heart I won’t be surprised if one day in the future I find myself having fallen backwards.

The only course of action I have right now is to walk these steps of hopefulness I’m feeling.  To allow myself to continue letting go and allow the air streams to carry me and be my rescue.

I never knew I could be brave.

I always thought I had to be fearless, not understanding that simply being brave was an option.  I would face circumstances in my life with this attitude that I needed to be without fear and never move forward.

Today, I’m over at Elora’s sharing how I’m learning that I have freedom to simply be brave.

Join us here.

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