The History of a Family Love

Love the picture; love the stairs.  These were stairs much older than me, photographed at the Atlanta History Museum near Buckhead.  The home so beautiful was literally full to the brim with life once lived.

Generations ago, children ran up and down these stairs.  A Grandmother watched them from the windows, being too refined to join in their play but not too stoic that she felt any need to stop them.

I wonder if the home I am thinking of this morning will be looked at with as much awe as I stared at stairs, at doors, at stone work - wondering and imagining the lives that so haphazardly were lived here.  I know these lives were lived, as if unaffected by what happens to others as human beings would ever happen to them. 

When you live life, you don't think of the days when you won't.  You don't think of the stairs you will never climb again.  The water fountains you will never swim in again.  The floors you will never click and clack across with heels on.

The people who lived here don't anymore.

But when they did...

THEY DID.

That's what I want to happen after December 2012 has passed...when we are busy building a life combined and conjoined. 

I want my home to be the place where he and I will be so intertwined with the art cabana, the blue music room, the knotted pine library, the kitchen of many meals cooked, the fire pit outside, the well-used fireplace inside - that when our great, great, great grandchildren receive it in inheritance, they will know we loved.  We loved and lived here.  That will be felt and remembered long after our practiced wealth will transfer into the eternal gain of living in God's rich Presence.

That will be their history...their historical society..their history museum.  That will be their inheritance.

When I remember my grandparents, I don't think of the house that doesn't exist anymore on Thomas Street in Grand Rapids.  I don't consider where everything used to be.  It was not as beauteous as this home my friend and I toured a warm day in July.  But it was home.

It is remembered.  Never forgotten.

Like cemented history and blue doors...

I remember the inheritance of love.

If life is nothing else, that is the definitive purpose of breathing.

Happiness, Simply Put

He laughs, though not audibly.  Such a tiny little dog, his silent laughter rings truer than anything I have ever known.  How can he be so happy?  I can ask the question, but I already know the answer.

Nothing is better than simply being alive.

And my Barklee's smile is what lets me know that, there is absolutely no excuse to be frowning.  It does it to me every time.

Watching the Sunrise

I didn't realize until a few months ago that the best way to greet the day, at least for me, is to greet the sun as it rises in the Eastern sky. It is a brief moment in time that if you are not looking carefully, you can miss. You can miss the sweet instant when new bright sun rays kiss sky and a day never before seen begins on earth. It is not just another day.

Like God's grace and mercy being new every morning, the sun slowly creeping up from the horizon, is significant because the way it arrives has never been seen in quite that way. Yes, it is the same sun as yesterday. Yes it will shine down and warm the skin. Yes, it will be the light to the day, so that we do not have to live in darkness.

Like the grace we take for granted sometimes, that sun is ever present. But what is not is the awareness that eyes are seeing it new again for another day. The sun is being born right before our eyes. If we pay attention, we will remember that the same God that made the same sun that gave the same grace as yesterday will keep us today and the acknowledgement we would do well to give makes everything more bearable.

Rain will come.

Mercy will be needed.

Grace will need to be extended for those who fail us and for each of us when we fail, at even the simplest tasks.

But behind the clouds is the sun that always comes back. Behind the issues that cloud our human nature and our restrictive view, grace and mercy always come back.

This day is a God-given day with blessings, challenges, heartache, love, pain, worries, and release. We rejoice in it when we know, first, that we were blessed to see it. And second, we rejoice because the old shines new.

I sit here now, every morning racing to beat the sun-streaks across the sky that signal that the fire ball in the sky is about to be reborn; it is about to make a grand appearance in a brief moment that can easily be missed. I don't want to miss anymore moments.

And I begin my day determined not to.

Showing Grace

One of the lessons that God has been teaching me this year, especially since Whitney Houston died and everyone started speculating and gesticulating on her last days on earth, is that grace is something none of us deserve but because out Creator loves us, He freely gives it. I wondered where was the grace for her, despite the issues she dealt with in her life. I wanted there to be some justification for what appeared to be so much unfairness in her daughter being left behind. What was the point of this girl losing her mother at just the time when she needed her most? What was the real lesson there?

The real lesson...the real intangible...the real beyond the obvious...

My best friend reminded me of the answer to that question today. She told the story of a young lady that was hired to watch her children this summer. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, this young lady decided to steal from my friend and her husband by changing the amount of her pay on a check.

Lots of people had a lot of responses to this action and the decision that my friends made. Some understood my friends' showing of grace rather than pursuing prosecution. Some felt that the only recourse was to enter the court of law - dragging her in there to teach her a lesson about being sneaky, being a thief, being dishonest.

I wanted to say something equally as biting, that she will only learn not to steal when she is prosecuted. She has to learn her lesson or she may do something far worse. She needs to be judged for her decision to make such a stupid mistake. But then I remembered something that God told me back in February at three in the morning.

"Stop looking for life to be fair; start looking for my grace."

I am looking for grace everywhere now, like a hidden jewel. I am looking for it, not just for me, but for others. I am seeking it out like a bloodhound on a scent, sniffing it out, wanting to see it manifested in this earth. Where grace is found, the Grace Giver is somewhere behind the scenes. I am not looking for fairness because although we'd like to think so God is a just God but what happens on this earth is not often fair. A just God allows unfairness.

God demands that we sometimes do what is not customary or according to the laws of this earth to teach a much bigger lesson. He wants us to live a life that isn't always easy, isn't always cut and dry, isn't always as simple as 1-2-3. He wants those of us that have found grace and been found by grace (when the lights get turned on and we are caught red-handed doing something we KNOW we had NO business doing) to show the same measure of grace on an individual basis.

"What was the lesson?" Jason, a friend, asked.

Maybe it wasn't what others would have done but I believe that my friends showing of grace to this young lady was the lesson. It wasn't what happens after; it is the showing of that thing that matters most of all. What the young lady does with it is entirely up to her, but what my friends do with the showing of grace points back to God. They showed what God shows us all and for me, I saw His face in their action. For me, my heart started beating double time, because yet again I sensed Him in the room just over my shoulder, reminding me that His grace is the perfume saturating my life.

Yep, I Know You're Going to Delete Me

So, here's the thing I didn't want to say. I haven't said much to anyone about wedding colors or bridesmaids or flowers (mainly because there actually aren't any). At first I had made the lists and started stressing over music and venues and caterers and dates. I thumbed through the bridal magazines (mostly out of obligation) and felt my stomach churn over all the things the articles said I was supposed to be doing right now.

But then I figured out that there was something of more importance than all that. It was actually speaking vows and not being put on display while I did that with the one that preferred privacy and intimacy. These actions are preferred over making our day about everyone else, keeping up appearances, hooplah, gray hairs (as if I didn't already have some I'm trying to cover up).

With that being said there are three reasons a lot of friends and associates are going to delete me off their Facebook and possibly out of their lives (but if they love me as much as they should, they will not even consider it):

(1) They won't have time to book an airplane flight, take time off from work, buy gifts, pick out outfits or make any other plans surrounding my wedding. The wedding is a lot sooner than people know. And due to fiance' privacy laws, I cannot say when or where or how or why (and no, I'm not expecting a tiny person in nine months before people start speculating).

(2) The invitees are on a very small list. Those whom have spoken to me within the last few weeks about this are on that list. Those others that have not called me, have not spoken to me lately, or had pointed discussions with me about my future can best presume they are NOT on the list. I love you all anyway, no matter what group you belong to. Hopefully there will be no hard feelings. But if there are, I apologize in advance, and maybe next summer you all can party with us when we continue to celebrate life, as we all should.

(3) The life I have dreamed off sincze I was a little girl did not actually start with a wedding dress or all the details of weddings. I have such a hard time with overwhelming events and moments in life that I never even considered the prospect of a wedding. I was more interested in the marriage itself, so my focus is on the preparation of being a wife and not just being a bride.

The rest of the world will be able to live vicariously through pictures after the unnamed date. I promise not to keep those secret. But, for now, despite the trepidation of hurting people's feelings, I am breathing a sigh of relief.

THESE DAYS, BEFORE VOWS...

And these are the days that I have waited my whole life for. Days when I can see a future that is much better than the days when life hurt too hard to breathe. These days we can be distracted by the lie that our lives would be better if we just didn't disagree about the small things, if there had never been a disagreement in the first place if the introduction to a possible love had never happened.

It would not be easier.

It would not be easier without him here.

I think now that is the point of love, that when raw life tries to intercept the healing, we realize we are so much better together than apart. We learn to love more when our presence in the lives of those we cannot live without makes them want to be whole and healed by the love flowing through unseen veins.

He and I are about to do the unthinkable. And I have never felt the reality of being so crazy obedient as I am today...we have seemingly thrown convention right out the window. We are about to intertwine lives separate for now one day soon, although I have watched the cleaving apart of marriages around me. Are we nuts?

Probably.

But would I be crazier or lonelier or sadder or angrier without him?

Absolutely. Nonplussed.

If I wasn't able to answer this so truly, so definitively, then I am nowhere near ready. Other tangible issues, other carnal realities, may demand years of waiting. But this love demands that we embrace it. NOW. Can loving another ever be a mistake taken? I know some that are asking this when the cleaving apart happens.

But because free will to do foolish things are evident, the foolish decisions do not undo the essence of love. They do not undo what the heart speaks and what those blood-words, those covenant words do to us. They make us become better, even if circumstances get worse. If one loves and the other does not, there is no pretense that love changed somebody - most likely the one that gave it their all.

I am not better without this one, this man being right here - willing to do the most foolish thing in the world: throwing caution to the wind and becoming physical covenant on earth, giving all, no apologies. My world demands this covenant, so those who are watching my life from afar can be challenged to love again and again and again.

So we will stand there, face to face, with all our imperfections and say yes to a perfect love that will undo everything we thought - everything that almost destroyed the hungry hearts beating beneath breast-bone. We take that healed heart and hand it over to the other across sand, the expanse of time, the eraseable past that we were once ashamed of.

And I know now, before it ever happens, that I cannot live without doing this.

These days this is what I think of.

Myama Boone's Last Day On Earth

The original birth records will be sealed as if they never were.

The identity that was presupposed for most of my existence will no longer be.

The name of a man that I never knew will not be attached to the me that I have grown to know and accept. Finally.

The end of the one me that wrestled with legitimacy in an unsafe world will be the beginning of the one me that doesn't know what it means not to belong to a safe Kingdom. She does belong there. She has worth. She has not been forgotten. She is her own, that belongs to the One that has called her His Own. She sings softly:

"And He walks with me and He talks with me and He tells me that I am His Own..."

I am Myowne.

God made me His Own, so I could embrace Myowne. How beautiful His love and saving power is.

And today is the last day that I must legally answer to an illegitmate name, at least in spirit. Though the name I will use after tomorrow will return to its original position as simply the one in the middle in about four months,I am most proud that I will be the me God knew before I was formed in my mother's womb during this time of preparation.

There is something to a name given...there is something even more majestic about being given an identity hidden in the Name which is above every Name. On it's own Myama Myowne has no significance but when He whom became insignificant for me over 2000 years ago calls me by it, I know that He is intimately connected with me and knows my beginning and my end. I may have been given the wrong name at birth, but in my life, I am now surnamed by the name of the One and Only God who legitimizes and brings worth to my life, my survival, my existence.

And I am grateful...like the little girl I am on the inside taught to say thank you in appreciation of good gifts...I am in awe that I am here and God is with me. Immanuel...He is with me. I make it personal. Because it is. Because He is and has always been with me...even when I was just a microscopic cell dividing in my mother's womb, He was with me, knitting me together gently with materials built to stand and last the test of time, materials hardened through difficulties but softened by Love.

So on my last day as the old me, known by the wrong name, misread and misunderstood by many, what will I do in remembrance of the life I have lived for 34 years with it? I will thank God for His grace, for I am truly named by it - the grace of Blood shed for me and the mercy that has kept me here, favored by God. I do not despise the day of small beginnings. I thank God that His infinitesmal reach touches me here and covers me under the shadow of His Wings. I am safe here. I am Loved here. I am His Own Myowne here.

Carrot-Hating, Vanilla-Ice Cream Loving Chihuahua

I adopted my five-pound chihuahua/son about two months ago from a great event the Michigan Humane Society puts on annually at the Detroit Zoo.  The "Meet Your New Friend" gave me the opportunity to find "Five Pounds" as Mr. so affectionately has nicknamed him.  His weight has very little to do with how grandiose his attitude and his disposition is; it, in fact, enhances how huge he thinks he is.  Since his larger-than-life arrival into my home, he has gained a definite place in my life.

His name is Barklee.  He has the biggest brown eyes and this tiny whine that can make you give up all the meat on your plate if you didn't have the inner strength and will-power to fight off his Jedi mind-tricks.  He also has the fastest little legs of any Chihuahua ever seen. Just ask Mr., whom, had the lovely opportunity to learn this one afternoon when he thought going to the park WITHOUT his leash was a great idea.  He has cute little clothes that he wears when it is too cold for him outside.  I honestly look forward to the brisk November air when he can wear either his "church coat" (which is tweed with fur around the collar with gold buttons) or his red, faux-down coat with the hood.

Basically, he has taken over my house and my life.

And I suspect that he is a little bit human...or at least has the same taste buds as my oldest nephew.

This is how the story goes with the nephew and how it interplays into Barklee's tale (no pun intended).

At 10 years old, the nephew decided that he was allergic to cooked carrots, or at least hated them enough to make himself throw them up.  Hence, a food allergy with a reaction that is best avoided.  He proceeded to inform me that he was allergic to the little round discs on his plate, which is why he didn't need to eat them.  I laughingly told him, as I recalled his babyhood and toddler years when he pretty much ate everything, including cooked carrots (and displayed no allergic reactions after eating them whatsoever), that he probably just didn't like them.  I even called the Queen that birthed him and she laughingly told me that I was correct.  He stated that I couldn't possibly tell him anything about his body since he lived in it, with his eyebrows furrowed and his hands on his hips after I reiterated that he was being melodramatic.  Amazing that his dessert was totally okay to eat, even though he avoided his veggies that night like the Black Plague.

Fast forward to last night's doggy chow down.

The first time I fed Barklee this particular dog food with peas and carrots and beef, I thought he was eating every bite.  That is, until I spied a row of orange discs lying neatly in front of his food bowl.  Barklee had long since returned to his bed, licking his chops.  I got up and walked over to his eating area and saw that every single carrot from his dinner was lying on the floor in a single file line.  I called him over and pointed at the little abandoned carrots that had not made it into his belly.  He bent his little head, looked down at them as if it were his first time seeing them, looked up at me, and returned to his lounge.

Last night I tried feeding him the same meal again with cuts of beef with gravy.  Looking at the picture, at least he didn't line up the carrots on the floor.  And is it any wonder, that like the nephew, my chihuahua has absolutely no aversion to dessert.

Appreciating His Music

I am a lover of words, of stories, of hearing about the journeys that have brought people to the present.  This man that I have fallen love with steadily every day since I met him has shown me who he is, where his journey had brought him, and I know that he is the man he is today because of the God that has kept him (even when he didn't want to be kept).  His story is like the music he is playing on his keyboard right now, multi-layered and multi-faceted.

The part of the story he is living now is the one that is uncovering his creative gifts that have up until now have remained hidden.  He is a creative genius in my eyes, but my hope is that one day he will see himself as he is.  Especially with music...he lives, eats, breathes it.  I know like writing and art is for me, he cannot exist on this earth without it.  He has to have it; it is an addiction to let his fingers press those keys into submission.

I am sitting here, being healed as his soul finds itself in true expression.  This is the place where my life creatively becomes intertwined with his.  True marriage....

Observations From an Unimpressed Bride-to-Be

If anyone can answer the questions I have about what the heck I am supposed to be doing right now in terms of the actual ceremony planning, the world of weddings would be a whole lot easier to navigate.  I was never the little girl who planned my dream wedding: imagining a princess bridal gown with a cathedral train, the types of flowers, the food for the reception, and the exact color my bridesmaids would wear.  If you look at me today, you would probably think the complete opposite since I am so eccentric and adore fashion and have been known to color my hair red, then blue, then black, and now considering a little splash of unconventional color (not telling what it is) randomly placed. 

The truth is I don't care about any of the hooplah associated with weddings.  We could have eloped, and I would be way happier. 

I guess I shouldn't have passed up the huge bridal magazine section in Barnes and Noble, for more important reads.  I should have had the intent to get prepared if some guy happened to pop the question and slip a ring on my finger.  I was more interested in reading magazines about music or art or writing or the next big hair color that I should bribe Mr. Jackson (my hairdresser) to put in my hair. Just wasn't too impressed with the whole thing at all and in fact, kind of had an attitude about the traditions and rites of passage that every bride-to-be apparently has to go through so everyone that shows up gift-less at the reception can approve of.

So here are my observations.  The truth is, the wedding will be quiet and small so I hope no one is offended.  The reception will be full of soul food and R&B music that me and Mr. will be breaking it down to because OUR nuptials have taken so long people wrote us off and assumed that we would die alone in a nursing home somewhere and a party with lots of dancing is definitely in order.  The only thing I have decided on for sure is that the invites to the reception will have the disclaimer that while the music will be tasteful, guests are absolutely NOT allowed to sit down.  I am planning to have security and bouncers in place that will escort guests out if they stand against the wall too long.  I mean, if it is a dance party reception, why in the world would anyone stand there like they have no clue what they should be doing.

I'm the bride and I pull rank, so on that day...NO ONE CAN TELL ME NO.

I digress.  Sorry.  Got a little too hype on that issue.

Back to my observations:

(1) I bet the lady at David's Bridal hates my guts right now because I cancelled my appointment to buy that fabulous $550 wedding dress that I must admit I looked HOT!!! HOT!!! HOT!!! in.  But really...Why, on God's green earth, would I (Mildred Bracy Jones' only granddaughter whom proudly picked up her frugal a.k.a. cheap demeanor) ever buy something I will only wear ONE TIME for $550?!?!?!  Nothing in my closet ever cost that much. And if anything ever did cost that much, there are two things I can guarantee you:  (a) I didn't buy it and (b) I have it encased in bulletproof glass with a death ray alarm system that would be set off the moment someone even stood near it.  I'm sorry but I wear my $5 Dots tee-shirts until the thread begins to unravel and the material loses its shape.  I am NOT buying that dress.  Nope, sorry.  No huge commission for you, Madam.

(2) Tell me this:  Who needs to have a reception at a golf course/country club?  I don't know anyone that plays golf and paying $15 a head for nasty food that absolutely does not compare to Miss Lena's cornbread dressing and Miss Gladys' fried chicken makes absolutely, positively NO SENSE.  And as stated before in describing the plan for the reception, all I need is a nice venue with a big dance floor.  I could care less about round or square tables or linen table cloths with matching chair covers.  Ain't nobody gonna be sitting down that long because they will need to dance off all the calories from Mr. Jackson's rainbow pound cake (that he doesn't know he's making yet unless he reads this).

(3) I would love to have blue flowers - like dark blue flowers - at the wedding and during the reception because blue is Mr.'s favorite color.  But I have a sneaking suspicion that navy blue calla lilies or roses are only a little hard to come by.  And if I am not buying a $550 dollar wedding dress, I am for sure not shipping in blue flowers only native to Timbuktu.  Silk it is.

(4) I don't want to have a bridal party because I'm afraid of turning into one of those crazy women from the "Bridezillas" show.  I don't EVEN want to go there, giving myself the chance to ruin friendships for life and promote sibling warfare, more or less have the unfortunate chance of getting on his family's nerves (so much so that they pull him to the side and berate him for being blinded by my good looks when it came down to choosing a life partner or whatever it was that made him overlook my tendency to swing from the lights when I can't have my way.)  Yea, I don't want to be the one his cousins whisper about at the family get togethers, that turn a pitying eye on my dear husband because he really did choose a HOT one (HOT-tempered, that is...).

(5)  I want to wear crispy white Air Force Ones customized with lace and rhinestones under my dress at the reception because that would be so ME, but convincing Mr. that I can still make that look classy is proving to be a hard endeavor.  But I am pretty sure I can pull it off.  And if not, hey, he won't notice until it doesn't matter anyway, right?

Why An Engagement Cannot Lose Its Beauty

Holding hands through the Detroit Institute of Art, people seemed to turn and look at us as if we were like those mementos of great art lining the walls, like the huge mural painted in the atrium of the great hall.  I caught eyes with one woman who looked first at him and then gave a soft smile at me, as if in the middle of her day, we had reminded her of something.  I wondered if we reminded her that true love has little to do with the element of feigned perfection and more to do with the way we walked, talked, laughed, fingers intertwined.

Maybe it was just me, paying attention to how his handsome face and beautiful smile that brings me back to the center, to the reality, to the promise that God made me when I lost love before, has that same impact on anyone that sees him.  He doesn't really believe any of this.  And that's okay because I am meant to spend the rest of my life with him helping him see his own brilliance.

That is my mission, anyway.

When the ring is slipped on the finger, the stars glitter in the eyes, and the fairytale infiltrates a cold world, there has to be beauty.  There has to be violins and angels and love songs.  There has to be the hatred of being alone at night wishing for the shared bedroom and pajamas (maybe). There has to be the daydreams. After the browsing through bridal books and thoughts of a shared existence and after the chosen attire, flowers, and festive decor of a reception is long over, there has to be the understanding that love is still very much there.  It exists with the frou-frou beginnings into the supposed mundane nature of everyday life - what all this is really for.

That is what I think about now.  We are engaged.  We are together when before being singly focused on life had been an accustomed state of mind.  And here we are...fingers intertwined, his laughter at something silly I've done or said and my gaze on his profile when he doesn't know that I am looking.  He has me - hook, line, and sinker.

I gaze at the ring on my finger everyday...cannot leave the house without it now.  And that is a gorgeous change for a person that never wears rings and always said she would only wear her wedding ring, should she ever be given one.  I notice people looking at it, especially other women, and I think haughtily that their engagement or wedding bands are much plainer than mine.  Mine sparkles in the sun like I'm the Queen of England.

The beginning of this thing was strange because, quite frankly, we had no idea what being really engaged looked like.  There had been others in and out of our worlds that I think we knew at those times would never share our entire lives when the game-playing ended.  But, now?  We had rings, a date, a venue for a dance-off reception.  We had ideas about a house and three bedrooms/two bathrooms and a fenced in backyard for our five-pound dog.  We had meetings and conversations and phone calls with our parents that probably deep down (excuse the French) wondered what the hell we were doing, moving so fast.  And then there was us, staring each other down when the raw-ugly humanity surfaced and we realized we hadn't actually met the quintessential perfect partner.

I refused to lose my grip on my umbrella while all this change rained down on our heads.  I told him to duck under and ride it out.  Because no matter what, after life's raw beauty, there is still beauty - after all.

This is why the engagement cannot lose the romantic.  It cannot be shelved so we can treat all this like a contractual agreement.  It is why we cannot trade the God designed intent for the humanistic rationalization that downgrades what we and a lot of others are doing and still want to do into a piece of paper with signatures that actually doesn't mean that much. 

"A piece of paper doesn't mean that much," I have heard some say.  Maybe not, I want to tell them.  But what about when you've been co-habitating with someone forever but have no legal justification or standing when something serious happens...or when you think your personal definition of marriage equates to a glorified "friendship with benefits" but still no legal merit (and likely never will be)...or when one of you gets sick and the other just stands back, crying from a hospital corner, left out of decision-making if death is standing in the other corner, inching closer.

On July 24th, while sitting outside at 6 a.m. watching the sunrise in communion with God, I wrote these words:

"The thing that has made this relationship so important in the whole scheme of things, but also so strange, is the need to do what we are both meant to do.  We cannot escape what God is mandating.  We have approached it wrong...from the side instead of dead on...from the side of the flesh, from the place that cannot enter into a spiritual union.  What is it we want from this?  Do we want the beautiful, exquisite, unconventional; or do we want the hybrid, the dangerous,the alternative?"

When a thing that is meant to be beautiful, like the paintings in the DIA that are worth more than the building itself, is reduced to simply the human compostion of that thing...broken down into mere brush strokes, grid lines, representations only...the beauty is lost.  But when people turn and look, smiling softly, reminded of the grip of love between intertwined fingers, life returns to what it is meant to be.

The artistic touch of a loving and creative God...

We are engaged.  Loved.  Beautiful.  Ready.

At Lan Ta

28th Floor, the highest floor available at the Omni Hotel at CNN Center....Quiet times to collect thoughts and hand them all over to God...  This, my first vacation, was simply divine, a place where I could meet God in the rest.  And rest was exactly what I needed.  Sometimes, like the awareness of all else brings you right back to the Center, the place where we are free to rest in God.  We cannot battle always.

As I gazed out of the window at the world going on far below, I was given clarity about some matters.  I stood away fronm the heat and the crowds.  This is exactly where I needed to be - not touched by the chaos going on below.  Instead I lifted my eyes and looked up.  As high up as I appeared to be, I knew that spiritually and natural the view from here is simply a foretaste of the place God has for me to be.

Positioned in a place, at a new position unrecognizable, moving forward into another dimension in God...Higher and higher and higher still...in this location, At Lan Ta, where others have misread its intention, I see from a higher place in God and have learned that His perspective has to be brighter than mine....

In Love Finally

I am not wondering now if prayers have been answered.  The problem as a human is that we take pleasure in talking to God, having access to His throne.  But as I have said many times before, what will we do when the answer is yes and we are granted what we have asked Him for.  Are we expecting a "No"?  We are not really prepared for yes, I think, and when we get a yes, we don't really always have a clue how to respond.

I am guilty.

I know this now.

God said "Yes" and here is love.  Love bright and brilliant shining in my eyes and blinding me.  I am prepared for gray clouds, for rain, for the deluge of disappointment carrying an umbrella and wearing rain gear on a day that calls for something I have not grown accustomed to - not because I don't ask for realistic things but sometimes I ask too small, too tiny, too minute, and not at all in the midst of specifics.  The bigger picture is much grander when we actually look at it from God's perspective.

I must admit, sadly, that at times I frame myself and try to sabotage my own blessings.  I am guilty of this too.  But for some reason or another, God shakes His head and keeps 'em coming.  He brought love this time.  After prayer for love, love landed in my life. 

The man that embodies God's love holds me close and I do not see him as he supposes that I should...like all the others that weren't me.  He did not believe at first that God would answer in such a precise manner as He has done.  With me.  Crazy that you never realize that you can be an answer to someone's prayer.  I am an answer to a prayer that was prayed when I was not even considering love at all except in R&B terms, ghetto living realities, observations of hood life love.  And here he was praying for me...not knowing that he was praying for me to show up and love him.

That is what you will have missed in the instructions class if you grew up where I grew up.  I have a feeling that it is worse now for the young people coming in the generation behind mine.  It is worse because we didn't know and now they know even less than that, if that is even remotely possible to be ignorant of ignorance.  But then, if you did grow up knowing that love finds you in the most unexpected ways and it doesn't hurt and it doesn't destroy the heart.  It finds you, yes.  It hunts you down with the motivation of fulfilling God's Word not to return void. 

A deep voice on the other end of the phone, assuring love.

A brown-eyed stare with an unspoken inclination for love.

A hug.

A love.

It is love finding me.

It will find you.

There is no wonder that Jesus said to believe...to believe you will receive what you ask for.  It is hard to believe because we think we aren't worth getting what we have asked.  We almost can't believe we are able to be loved by the ones that God sends.  God loves us but can the ones we ask to be here right now, healing us through touch, healing us in the physical because God's intangible finger cannot touch our tangible just yet, healing what we cannot know is broken.

Myowne is His Own

On May 22, I wrote this journal entry after my morning devotion and prayer time.  I had been reading a book during that time called Born to Create by Theresa Dedmon.  I also had been thinking about the pending last name change that I have finally decided to go through with within the next month or so.

"The Scripture verse today is Isaiah 43:1 - 4.  The verse that really caught my heart was the first one, and specifically when God says '...I have called you by your name: you are Mine.' When someone calls you by name, they have gotten past the formalities of introductions; they are comfortable with who you are and can call your name with clarity and purpose.  So for God to call me by name means that He knows who I am; I am not a stranger to Him.  I matter.  My presence has a name, just like His has a Name - the Name above every name. 

It is wonderful that I can call Him by name and He heeds my call.  But to me, what is more wonderful to me is that He calls me by my name, and I am able to say like the boy Samuel in 1 Samuel: 'Here I am...I'm listening.' (1 Samuel 3:4 - 10)

The other powerful thing about the Isaiah verse is that the Lord called His people by their forefathers' original name, the one given at birth (creation) and then called them by a new name - the name of their redemption (Israel).  He knows who they could have been; He knows who they will ultimately be.

He knows Myama Boone.
He also knows Myama Myowne.
He knows who I ultimately will be; He knows my destiny.

Myama Myowne means 'Essence of Spirit that is My Own' - the name my mother was inspired to give me, I believe, by God because it does point toward a sure destiny - a sure destiny that says I belong to God.  He says I am His own.

That reminds me of a hymn I loved growing up:

'I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses.  And the voice I hear falling on my ear, the Son of God discloses.  And He walks with me, and He talks with me; And He tells me I am His Own; And the joy we share as we tarry there - None other has ever known.'

God says to me now, 'You are My Own.'"

FLOATING STEEL: OXYMORONIC UNCONVENTIONALITY

Ship in water, slowly-swiftly moving through the deepest waters,
In this we are changed, rearranged, as we recognize that we are made for this...
Formed like the steel floating through what would cause the unprepared to drown...
Formed by the Creator of our lives, shaped through grace, encountering risk...

Horn alerting to the presence of ship en route to next assignment, reminds my ears
Of the shofar blown in tabernacle as the God of Omnipresence enters in...
Alerting the God-lovers and God-worshippers that stand still knowing God,
Not afraid that He will reach into their lives bringing life, love to begin....

The new book...memento of love...

www.abbreviatedlove.com

FINDING FRIENDSHIP

The love of a near stranger makes him no longer unknown.

He looks into my eyes, reaches forward, truly listens, makes me talk. I haven't always done this, but I don't know that this matters anymore. All he knows is that I have something to say and he wants to engage me, my mind being his treasure box. He makes me wonder if God is like this, leaning forward, as I move closer to put my ear closer to hear His sweet voice, telling me secrets, not thinking of yesterday. And I am grateful that this man, made by this same God, can listen with the deepest part of him. I have long waited for this.

Long loneliness makes us excited to speak words that are no longer merely thoughts rehearsed in quiet rooms where we live. I find myself wanting to touch his soul with my words. How often have women wanted to do just this? We, the breathing sensitive to the muscled strength, are just profound people simply wanting love. Simple. Wanting love to wrap us up in the physical as God (if we are opened to our Creator) wraps us in His arms. Wanting to be listened to. There is always silence when only the physical body, that one day will return to dust, is the only desired thing. The people must search deeper, the Holy God whispers. The deep calleth unto the deep. The box the deep is treasured in must be opened and laid aside. Then love.

We talk and my soul breathes a sigh of relief. I am not alone. He is not a figment of imagination as he speaks words I have long imagined would be spoken. I have written of moments like this. And he is fulfilling it.

Does friendship turn to love turn to the demand for an eternal response? The desire sparks the romance of the infinitesmal...words spoken in a bookstore cafe...in a gold car...at water's edge...all turn my heart from stone to flesh. This is what God promised. He said that He would change my heart of stone to a heart of flesh. He did not imply that it would be the unseen spiritual only. He can use what and who he will to push the blood through this temporary body, housing spirit ("a spiritual being having a natural experience," the man sitting across from me sings in his beautiful, jazz voice declaring what I have long believed). It happened this way: I felt it beating inside my chest again, once stilled when death stole. Here, I am awaking from loneliness' hibernation, because he - the sent one, apostle of my heart - has learned to listen when he was not heard.

I cannot believe that he does not want to lift that voice in front of others, but I do believe that there is no need for the diamond sitting before me to be broken in pieces and sold. He has been broken enough. He wants only to write. To write the new song of the Lord. To give those vocalized harmonies of Heaven away so others can tap into the unseen spiritual and be healed; I want him to. I desperately need him to write worship with a pen of iron drilling the words eternal into stone - the Ten Commandments, the King's Decree, Jesus finger writing in the dirt as prideful men try to kill sin's victim. I am desperate for his song. He only sings briefly, this song not his, and I close my eyes - forgetting where I am - pretending that he is crooning his own worship.

How beautiful the thought is that his healed heart would sing gratitude to his Healer.

My spirit reaches for his, saying softly feminine: "Write here." Take this moment and write down what you hear for you do hear. You do.

Maybe that is why I am here...sitting here...finding friendship as it finds me, as God finds me, loves me through this experience too. I think of him who I lost, this time last year, weeping for his return that will never happen here. I wonder if he prayed for this when he stared into my eyes before saying goodbye. I felt him praying, hoping for me that I will never be alone again after those final tears were shed. I feel him talking about me in Heaven as I mention his name on earth. Did he pray that I would be found?

You learn more than you think you do when your heart is broken. You learn each part of it, as it is gently put back together by the Creator's hands. Each part is taken gently in universe-holding hands and delicately reformed, transformed. The glue He uses to seal my heart is the revelationd (the light revealing light) that I, once invisible, am seen in illumination, and that quanitfyingly brings me to a place of wanted inspection. I am standing here, nothing to hide, not hidden, revealed again. God uncovers my position to the one sent to find me. And since the last time, I let eyes stare into my soul without turning away from the gaze looking deeper, I want to be found.

I listen, nod, watch his eyes, and see the fire as he says what he has only told God in the quiet. He knows me, though he just learned my name. I am his friend first. I am his friend. How often can this be said?

Looking for Grace

In the midst of starting over, from a place I've been but haven't appreciated, I realized that there is still a lot I don't know. When you close your eyes and mind and soul down because you think you already have all the answers you keep yourself from what God desires for you to have. I have lived many years in this same location, seven to be exact, with my eyes closed and my heart disillusioned to what life really is and what it has to be in order for me to move forward. To live life fully in a place you did not plan to be is only difficult when you refuse to be pliable, to change, to bend with what God is saying for your life.

One of my favorite Christian Declarative songs is by the David Crowder Band. A line in "How He Loves" says this: "And He is jealous for me...Loves like a hurricane and 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 realize just how beautiful You are...And how great are Your affections for me..."

This song has been an anthem of grace for me...as I have been steadily looking for grace in the place where I am...this most unconventional place. You have to change your perspective to truly understand why you are in any given place at any given moment. There is no happenstance; there is no irony in God. He does not perform the miraculous in a haphazard way. Everything He does is deliberate and on purpose. I am learning every day that I too must take every step, appreciate every opportunity to grow, and look into the eyes of the people that cross my path with a God-smile on purpose, purposefully. As I am learning that grace is dangerous and delicious at the same time, that it is not a way to tie a bow on top of the gift that life is, I realize that like the words in this song, these words that are speaking of epiphany and discovery, my life is not meant to be lived in an aura of dissatisfaction with what God has given.

Like a little girl that receives something for Christmas she does not realize is something infinitely more valuable than the candy or toy or temporary distraction she had hoped for, I can hear the voice of my grandmother (whom believed in giving thanks no matter what) insisting: "Say thank you, MyMy."

God has given me His love in a way that says I either must surrender to it or be snapped in half at the weight of it. I have to not only bask in it for my own delight and be changed by it, but in order to get the full effect of it, I must take it in and then pour it out into the life of another. The ready ones have their hands cupped, waiting for me to give uniquely from me what God has prepared. I am learning this in a place God never said I would have to stay in to get the eternal necessities I was missing. He did not tell me all of the story; He just tolerated my anxiety when I realized the bottom was dropping out from under my plans. He did not warn me ahead of time that I better get confortable because my life would be starting over here - not because the life I had back home was so horrible, but because in the place of conformity and comfort I was the all sufficient one in my own mind and God Himself was an afterthought. He had other plans and I had the ones I thought were better.

But now...as I bend and sway to His will and open my eyes to His reality and Who He is, receiving and giving my all now instead of holding back, I know that there is nothing better than NOW and HERE and THIS.

Today is all that there is for me and that is simply enough. My hands do not have the capability to get all I need to have. I was not and will never be the One that blesses me with all these good things that come from the Father of Lights. The ability for an "ex nihilo" creation rests solely in Him. This jealous God who refuses to let me be a victim of my own sinfulness and selfishness and sadness loves me right out of myself. That is grace...real grace that reaches into the monuments I have built out of temporary moments and temporary people and temporary situations, as if He could never meet me here.. as if He could never wrap Himself in flesh again, incarnationally showing up. This too is grace...unconventional and freeing in an unexpected way: finally knowing that He can and He will and He does bless, create out of nothing, rescues, and then finally wraps Himself inside the answers to my needs.

Sometimes you realize this on the way, on the journey, when life reinvents itself and grace transforms your eyesight and not the thing you are looking at. I have taken the road less traveled this time. I am made new. I am learning to look for the grace in the eyes of others.

I saw grace yesterday. He had the most beautiful eyes and a Southern accent and a peace that drew me in. I saw grace yesterday when he told me about the life he was living, the way it was enough and the way it couldn't be enough forever because he feels the desire for more driving him closer to God. I saw grace when this beautiful man tried to cover up his beauty, until he was comfortable enough to reveal what others do not ordinarily see - his poetic soul. He had the most beautiful smile and the God shining through it reached out and removed the scales from my eyes. I am not caring about the way life can be shaped by the tangible when the intangible is so much more valuable; I am no longer disillusioned by the flesh that we exist in. It's just the fabric the treasure is wrapped in. Yesterday, I saw the diamond shining from within this one God had graced me to meet. God showed me His grace in this one that did not even recognize that the glory of God inside him was blinding me.

I once was blind to my surroundings and what is here that God wants to use to impact me and change me...and also those people and places and things that are to be impacted by me and changed by me, by these hands newly anointed to be like God's but are not God's. I once was blind to grace, but now I see. Now I see more than I ever could before, with God's glory blinding every part of the vision and overtaking it. I looked for grace, not love - as it has always been here. I am no longer looking for the love I think I want and have designed in my own mind as an unholy conglomeration of hodge-podge memories that have nothiong to do with God at all. And really God really is all I am seeking for...looking for...grasping for...and it doesn't matter where I land. I'll still be looking for Him, seeking Him out, delirious for His grace-touch again.

Grace is a discovery that can be found over and over again. There is never enough of it...and the places we think God does not exist or has given up on are most likely overflowing with grace. I cup my hands and try to hold on to it, even as it overflows me. I open my eyes and look for it...and all of a sudden, I am unaware of the afflictions I once believed existed here in this place. I am unaware of anything but the gorgeous freedom of living life with eyes wide open now.

Lessons From Unlikely Places

It is colder outside than it has been in awhile. It is really unbelievable how strange it is to see the weather flip so drastically from 90 degrees Monday, May's Memorial Day, to 60 (maybe) five days later. I am a girl that pays attention to what is going on in the physical and spiritual atmosphere around me, and I really miss very little when change is in the air - even down to the drastic nuances of sky, air, temperature, rain. These nuances and annoyances are in the atmosphere today.

This year has taught me how important it is to pay attention, not to live a blind life,not to live one day without learning the lesson for that day, not to let the people He has brought into our lives pass us by unaffected by us - us, unaffected by them. I can't think I have all the answers; but one of the people that walks quietly past me does, and it is my responsibilty to dig into their hearts, minds, souls until I get from them what I need for my spirit. Then I can give it back. I have to seek out the answers to questions my heart continues to ask from different sources and get out of my own head - even if those answers come from the most unlikely of sources.

Tonight I am going to grab my pen and notebook, asking "life questions" of two of the most phenomenal individuals I have ever met. The one I met at five years old, brilliant and beautiful and briefly confused about what family meant. She knows now, I think, that sometimes (most times) family is built from the brick and mortar of hard, cemented love chiseled open with consistent and deliberate hammering. She also knows that building a life is equally as difficult sometimes, when you don't know what acceptance will do to you or lack of acceptance will do to the other person. But she is building something, and for just tonight I want her to take her hardhat off, turn the jackhammer off, slow her pace for a moment, and show me the blueprint of who she is now - now that she is not 5 anymore and is living every bit of a 19-year-old life.

The second is every bit the baby boy I saw lying on his maternal grandmother's couch, covered in a thin hospital blanket, a week after he entered our world and turned it upside down. But he is also more. It is amazing to me that he can be both a newborn, a three year old, a ten year old, and now...a 17 year old, all at the same time. His perfection lies in his imperfections - the recognition of them, the internal work it takes to see them and use them as life lessons, the maturity it takes to acknowledge need for God when the imperfections threaten to mar one's intrinsic view of self. God never intended that we see ourselves as anything other than loved by Him, so he is learning this, and I want to know how he feels about it so I will know how I should feel about it, too. He has an amazing mind, full of questions and answers, thoughts and ideas about what his manhood will be (is already). I look up to him, in more ways than one. As one of a handful of men in my life, I want to hear his masculine opinion about my feminine reality. It is no matter that I changed his diapers; that he slept many nights as an infant and toddler on my chest listening to heartbeat as the life in my veins coursed through to a peaceful rhythym - a lullaby for him to dream sweet baby dreams to; that his dance, gorgeous toothless smile,and conversation was sadly oft misunderstood. Until I really learned to watch his movements hands lifted and tears streaming down in reckless abandon to God, learned to open my soul and smile in freedom when his face beamed sunshine in my direction, and learned to listen closer to the words that he was learning to speak into the atmosphere of his world so I could speak words of newness into mine).

I got up this morning, at first worried about the weather outside, so cold and gloomy for the drive I must take this afternoon; at first worried that my income tax had not hit my bank account and knowing that I needed to provide these dear ones a good time away for this weekend where money would be no object. I awoke concerned that my dog wouldn't go to the bathroom outside because he hates being cold and wet, both of which were more than likely to happen - as silly as that sounds. I was fretting about whether I should take the little buddy with me today, not thinking that on the way back from picking up my teachers this weekend, none of that will matter. My prince and princess will be riding in that with us car...these ones that will lighten the heaviness of being alone, of having so many questions and no answers, of wishing life were different and I was loved just a little bit more in a tangible way.

These two have been royalty in my eyes for nearly two decades - great big gifts from a great big God, remarkable that He would love me that much to bless me to know them. I have adored them forever, or at least, since the evidence was verified. And today, instead of trying to teach them a little bit more about life, I want what they came here to give me.

The wise men came to Bethlehem to honor baby Jesus at His birth; the great intellectual and spiritual giants in the temple sat at Jesus' 12-year-old feet. When He became an adult, after all that, He told the disciples (us) that when we show compassion and love to the least of these we show that to Him. Sometimes, as I have learned lately, showing love and compassion is not just providing physical provisions, but giving others the permission to be themselves and then honoring them, treating them as experts in the lives they know, in the things they feel most passionate about, and in the lessons they are learning and need to teach others in order to get through completely the dark places, the hard times, the pain that is unescapable.

Jesus expressed that if we accept and open ourselves to the Kingdom of God like a little child, like these that are not often asked opinions about life but actually do have ideas that could be the answers we adults are searching for, we will be ourselves accepted in the Beloved deeply. He blessed and divided the lunch of a child with thousands of people gathered to hear Him; He fed them as He fed others when He was considered insignificant and in need of tutelage. He fed them from the lunch pail of a child that had the sense enough to bring something to eat physically while being fed spiritually. The people, hungry and needing nourishment, did not reject what healed them. When you need to eat, it doesn't matter whose lunch pail your next meal comes from. I would say it is even more delicious when that meal comes from the most unlikely of sources.

How much more, if we read of His impact in that world, will we learn to value the lives of these younger ones - like the two that will grace my home this weekend? The deeper lesson that Jesus was teaching, I think, is the one I learned this morning, as I wrestled with adult issues and trying to figure out how things were going to run smoothly, worried that things would go wrong in my striving to make everything perfect (a fruitless endeavor).

Of course, the people in Jesus' day could legitimately hope to sit at His feet when He was an adult and learn the lessons of life. He had the Bread of Life; He was that Bread, that Wine, that Healing. But there were some who came before it was socially acceptable or expected for the people to learn there - to sit and kneel and learn at His feet when those feet could fit neatly in the palms of worn and long-lived adult hands. He was that fulfillment for men's bodies and souls wrapped in a package that could be easily overlooked because of the unexpected presentation. There were many learned men gathered in the temple sitting at Jesus' 12-year-old feet some years later answering His questions, yes, but learning and listening too. (This would be similar to a child being in the White House or in front of Congressmen today, asking questions and teaching all these learned policymakers and adults holding sway over governmental authority, since the temple was the place of religious and political decision-making for the Jews).

The Lord's sweet epiphany this morning, even as I considered the whys of life during my time with Him, gave revelation that I will need to sit and learn from the ones that have been gifts to my world. He gave them to me, as His Father gave Him to us. I can learn from them, even as in my young adulthood I desired to learn from those older than me in places of leadership and authority that should have given me what was needed and what I was sometimes silently begging for since I knew that period wouldn't last forever. I was and am ultimately left me wanting. This too was one of my wrestlings this morning. Why couldn't those I respected as mentors really and truly mentor me? Why did I feel like I had been cheated, when those lessons needed to be learned, had to be learned, before I had to be the one being asked for direction and now cannot ever be retaught in the same format with the same people? Who was to help me now?

This afternoon, I will be going to pick up those assigned to teach me, the ones that I thought I had taught about life. I must treat them like the professionals, the intellectuals, the skilled ones that they are; yes, they will learn more as life goes on. Yes, I will help them navigate the terrain of adulthood. We will build each other up toward destiny's fulfillment. The problem is, I thought my job was only to teach, lead, guide, direct them so that they will be successful as adults. I thought their only job was to listen to me.

I was so wrong. Thank God that He can change my pliable heart.

But now...today...I realize that there are times when I have questions, and I need to listen to them, too. They are already successful, despite the messy, crazy world they have been born into. They have knowledge of this world that I did not have to know at their age. This is their world, their time, their generation, and I need them to show me how to live in a place, a time, a season made more for them than for me. I want to know how they feel about life now.

I will learn this weekend..."Auntie Mom" fed by her babies...

Abbreviated Love Story: Heart Ponderings of the Year After

My second book was officially published on March 30, 2012 and I have had several awaiting friends and fans requesting copies. This book is a beautiful memento of love, the love I had for the man that stole my heart and took it with him to Heaven. The pictures are phenomenal, taken by two of the most passionate photographers I have had the pleasure of working with. The book is quite expensive to purchase as a coffee table, adult picture book, so I have significantly reduced prices for those who want to order from me. I am hoping that the other online bookstores and book distributors will sell it for a much more reasonable price than what the publisher is proposing. Really, I am praying that the book will reach whoever it is meant to, just like the last one because the writing of it was not about the money I could make off my own misery. If that's the case, there really no point in writing it. I would have much rather have kept my hurt to myself. But the point is that I want the world to know that while I know what it's like to be hurt, I also know what it's like to be healed. Beautiful words should never be expensive. Pictures of my life are a glimpse into my heart. The world me that keeps spinning without him is immersed in grace despite the pain that spins within it. I went to the Calvin College's Festival of Faith and Writing almost two weeks ago. It was not like other years - seemed a lot lonelier in the sense that there were fewer people of color in attendance and fewer presenters of diversity than in previous. I tried not to focus on how isolating it was being in a place that I love to be. Things felt so strange to me...and then, I sat in on Ann Voskamp's presentation. Tears streamed down face as she talked about the prophetic qualities that make poetry so different from traditional prose. When she talked about embracing grace and giving thanks as a way of life, a way of speaking prophetically poetic even when the heart is broken, I knew that this was why I had come. I needed someone to affirm for me the joy in life when the sadness in death is the background of my painting, the hidden themes of my poetry, the echo of the songs playing in my ear when words and pictures are no longer enough. There is always grace to be found and when it is found, it is ENOUGH. I tried to wipe the tears as quickly as they spilled from eyes. While I wiped at them, the salty wetness slipped over my fingers, refusing to absorb into my skin as if they had never been. The tears slipped between my fingers and finally I gave up. These grace tears would not be denied or hidden quality in the palm of my hands. They would drip down like rain. I thought of my book. I thought of the main character of the book - love personified in me, in him that is no longer here. And love leaked out of my eyes, not able to be contained. Tears streaming down. Breathing between the sighs. Sunshine at nighttime, moon peering at me through the curtains that shield the world out. Memories of what can never be. Pages that can only tell my story because he cannot write his part...an unfinished publication.