Thursday, April 12, 2012

Five short years

Many times I've heard people say, "If you would have told me __ years ago that I would be doing _________ I never would have believed you." I easily can say that of my life just five short years ago. I would not have believed it if someone had said to me:

1. You will have a four year old daughter.

2. You will have a daughter.

3. You will have labored at home, birthed in your SUV, nursed her till she was nearly three, carried her in sling nearly everywhere, and used cloth diapers!

4. You will not have a bachelors degree.

5. You will embrace a life as a wife, mom, homemaker, and afternoon baby care provider.

6. You will bake your own bread.

7. You will grow your own garden.

8. You will make your own laundry soap.

9. You will enjoy jogging.

10. You will play on a Co-Ed softball team with your husband.

11. You will take Public Transportation and advocate for it.

12. You will bike or walk to the stores you have always driven to --from the same house you've been living in (when you can).

13. You will have a blog. Yes, that blog you always tried not to have.

14. You will actually be somewhat involved in your teens' lives.

15. You will join a Moms' group and be an active part of it for four years.

16. Your deeply knitted church family will shift, people will move, and it will alter and restructure almost completely.

17.  YOU will change a lot in five short years.

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Where I've discovered

I am here in Mountain Home (Arkansas) where part of my earthly roots extend from and go deep.  Deeper than I may ever know.  I love the mountains here.  They are vast and so soft on my eyes.  They aren't like Nevada, or even the Smokies and that is why they are sometimes referred to as hills.  But I call them mountains because they were.  They are.  My mom and I were driving to my favorite store around these parts and I realized that having grown up here I thought this was what the Earth looked like. 
Natural.  Beautiful.  Mountains.  Lakes.  Rivers.  Crystal clear waters.  Bluest sky.  Fresh air.
And just like that I took the seven years I lived here completely for granted.  I thought I was just passing through, as it could not be my destination. 
So, even though I canoed these waters and jumped off boats and bluffs in these coves.  Even though I sat on these rocks looking out at lake and sky and mountain hills, I did not know the deep deep beauty of it all.  The way my roots run deep here.  The roots that follow streams in bare feet and gather berries and grow gardens and bear babies and wipe the sweat off of the brow again and again.  The cool breeze.  The one that only day of saturated sweat can close the eyes and lean back the head and feel and appreciate. 
But now when I come back I can feel it.  These hills moan and call and beckon.  These waters rush and invite and I hear them.  Like the ocean once pulled me and I did not make it quite there, I feel drawn.  Not to stake new claims, but to enjoy, to appreciate.  To know.  This is where I came into the earth.  This is where I returned for my coming of age.  This is now where I hear the lost heartbeats of ancestors and feel the presence of God through His amazing and glorious creation of Earth and Sky.  He knows where I am.
He knows where I've been.
He know where this is going.
And I'm so small in it all.  But I'm here.  And I'm trying to pay attention and listen. 
These earthly roots.  My unearthed roots.  My roots in Him.  My home with Him.  This all a journey passing through.  All.  But not a second that isn't to be recorded or lived fully present, because this journey matters.  It matters so much!  It matters because it is a journey to Him, a journey with Him, the reason we were created.
I follow the sky and the horizon and feel my roots spread out wide and flow over this land and these mountains and rivers and lakes.  And like a tree stretching up to sky, branches, limbs, and leaves all lifted in highest adoration to the One who I sink my roots into deep now. 
To grow.  To unearth.  To discover who I am and where I am from.

For discovering all that it means on this journey...