Hope hurts

Sitting here in the quiet morning sunshine, and my heart feels at peace. 

Not everything is set right, not everything is flawlessly lovely, but enough things are good that I can have hope again. 

Enough things are good that my heart can dare to entertain ideas of sheer goodness and gladness.

I couldn't before. I couldn't bear the weight of the possibility of joy, last year. It hurt my heart to reach that far. Our contractor had left our house ruined, but more than that, he had punched me right in the bright hope, right in the joy, and left it shattered.

I didn't realize how healing it would be, to move away from the space where that happened, and set our hearts free to remember that good things can happen and good dreams can come true.

It was a hard and humbling lesson, but a good one, I think, for a christian to learn. Sometimes hope is out of reach. Sometimes there is no strength to even lift my eyes to the hills. 

I can believe that God intends good toward me and at the same time, be utterly unable to feel it, let alone rest in it. Despair isn't a matter of not having the will or desire to see the goodness of God in the land of the living. 

I hadn't felt that for so long before. I didn't know it could last and last and leave me flat for weeks and months and years. I didn't know.

I didn't know it could be painful to hope.

If your loved ones are unable to reach out and take hold of hope, it is not because they don't want to. It isn't necessarily because their hearts are stubborn or hard. 

It just might be because hope can hurt too much.

(I read this verse this morning and my heart sang with the joy of hope. I was able to bear the weight of it again, the weight of yearning for things to be that good and true -

Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead.

Isaiah 26:19 ESV

And it felt so nice to hold it in my heart. ❤️)

A Lovestorm

Mom and Dad and Laurie have been working hard to make Vava's fairytale bedroom dreams come true.
She just came to me crying.
"I love it so much. I don't know how to thank them enough."
I feel the same.
Dad built us a fence, cut down dangerous branches, fixed a wonderful recycling bin in place under my sink, brought up this bed (and painted it) and repaired our bikes.

Mom baked bagels, cookies, and muffins, made lunches, cleaned the kitchen, did laundry, transplanted all the beautiful plants that were growing in Eevee's enclosure, and planted my herb garden.

Laurie played with the kids, took them biking and shopping, created art, and helped Vava beautify her room.

I feel like we've been showered in a lovestorm.

I don't know how to thank them enough.

To those kids in last place ...

I got to attend the kids' Track and Field day today. It was amazing and so much fun. Sam surprised everyone by being an absolute powerhouse runner. He used to hide his athletic ability because he didn't like being watched - this is one kid who does not enjoy being the centre of attention. But the boy can run.

But the kids who touched my heart the most were the kids coming in dead last. Why didn't they give up? Once they realized they were truly last, why didn't they just sit down on the grass and catch their breath? But they didn't.

Heat after heat, they persisted - making their way to the finish line long after the first runners had arrived.

I think they probably gained the most valuable exercise today. Fast runners have a golden gift that everyone cheers for. But the slowest kids? The practice of persisting works out a muscle that they'll use their whole lives long.

Persistence is power. 

To the slowest kids: I'm so proud of you.

Already Loved

I saw a rabbit on the road.

Dead;

Flattened against the asphalt 

With only

Two fuzzy ears

Perked straight up

As if, in his final moment,

He threw all of his might earward

Straining for one last word from God.

I, too, listen with all my might

And in the end

When I am dust

Perhaps my words will be left

Poking up for all the world like two ears

Listening and listening still 

For one more word from God.

(It will be what it always is:

You are already loved, already loved, already loved.)

Good Morning

I woke up.

I reached up to heaven.

God said good morning.

And I tumbled out of bed into his hammock

Into his arms

Into the eternal assurance 

That I am already loved.

How do words stick?

Stentorian: here's a thing I know

(When a voice is big and booming) So

How came I by this knowledge? Show 

Me where and when it came to grow.

Was it in a book I read and read

Until the phrase grooved in my head

And though I'd never heard it said

Or looked it up, it stayed. Or did

It filter in from magazines

A Reader's Digest, or Seventeen,

Or from the paper, smudging ink,

Or a cut-out pinned by the kitchen sink?

Words on words erumpent burst

From screens and passersby; at first

They flow and fill some inner thirst

And lie, dormant, for better or worse

Until circumstance calls one word 

The setting right, it must be heard

Vocabulary blooming, thick and fast

With words that stay, and stick, and last.

Something Just Like This

This morning, Pascal woke me up. I scooted over so he could crawl into our warm bed for a cuddle. "Snuggles with my precious mama!" he whispered in delight, "this is the best!"

When I came downstairs, Kachi called me over to tell me his dreams from last night. "Sometimes I know I'm dreaming because my brain is big enough to have the dream and know it too."

Sam interrupted then, eager to show me a funny reel he thought I'd laugh at, because his joys are always bigger when he sees them reflected in someone else's eyes.

As Vava came downstairs, she called out, "Janelle Labelle! I love you!"

Then Patrick came downstairs, ready to leave for work, but took a few minutes to smooch and hold me first.

And then I put on my headphones asked the internet for music while I made the kids breakfast, and this song came on:

Something Just Like This (click for a listen if you haven't heard it yet)

It couldn't have been more perfect.

I struggle with depression and often miss the deep goodness blooming wildly all around me. I know I am so lucky, and so loved, and I thank God for these goons every day. But some days the fog of constant demand is thick on my heart and I just can't feel it. 

Today I felt it.

Wishing you a free and fogless Wednesday with your eyes wide open to the love, dear friends.

Xo.

A Mostly-Silly Psalm

I wonder if

-when in possession of a tongue

That sings a glory note 

Upon tasting a nacho chip

Tangy with lime and cilantro-

Might it be a sin

To diet?

Maybe you feel God's pleasure when you run

And I feel His pleasure when

Butter meets fresh bread

And melts into alleluia.

Taste and see

Oh taste! Oh see!

That the Lord is good.

a soft ode to the snooze button

The long night's silence breaks with your alarm,

And the shifting of sky from black to navy

Lightens the edges of furniture in our room.

Today, we are tired.

We will take turns pressing snooze for another hour

Folded together like two pages of a love letter

Drifting in and out of mailboxes and carrier bags

Dreams and dreams opening up without

End or beginning.

I feel lucky

 Today was a busy day at school. On one of my trips whizzing through the hallways I glanced up and saw the kindergartners' St. Patrick's Day art on the walls. 

Each student had coloured in a poster with a shamrock in the centre, and the title read "I feel lucky!" The students had finished the sentences themselves.

"I feel lucky ... when my dad plays with me!"

"I feel lucky ... because I have food!"

"I feel lucky ... because I get hugs!"

"I feel lucky ... to have friends!"

"I feel lucky ... whenever I see my mom!"

And I had to stop reading because I was on my way back to class and did not want to arrive with a face full of tears. 

But my heart was split wide open.

And when I was zooming past that bulletin board, all the moms from the kinder class flashed through my head. Moms who seem to have it all together, and moms who seem a little more like me. Thin moms and fat moms, moms with chronic illnesses, addictions. Moms who roll up to the door in their pyjamas, still zipping up lunchbags. Moms with messy cars, moms with creaky strollers, moms with wagons, moms in boots. None of them are on the covers of magazines, none of them would make you look twice.

The kid who wrote "whenever I see my mom" isn't glad because their mom is perfect, flawless, radiant. They're glad because they love her. And they love their dad, and their friends, and food.

They count themselves lucky because they have eyes open to see their well-loved, delicious, ordinary luckynesses. 

Tonight I looked around. 

Yeah. I feel lucky too.

Erumpent

This morning, I learned that cattails have a gel inside them like aloe, and that their fluff was once used to prevent diaper rash, and that they can be turned into flour. Scraggly, ditchy cattails! I'd had no idea.

After work this afternoon I took Eevee for a walk. The sun was shining on snow, and the morning's sharp wind had died down. We were walking along a snow-covered pathway when she suddenly pounced, and nuzzled her long snout into a snow bank, then poked out one of her long paws and produced a mitten from deep down. She shook it back and forth, and then, distracted from her treasure by a chipmunk, pelted off down the path again.

Pigeons caught her attention next, swooping low over the water and flapping their wings loudly. Then a poodle on the far side of the river, and then the absolute delight of a freshly thawed and trickling stream. I wouldn't let her bound in, and after a while she let me draw her further up the path. She pawed at some old cattail husks, which sprang free of the snow and then lifted away altogether to reveal a strong and bright spring-green shoot. The yellowed stalk, papery and crumpled, had been hiding and protecting all that fresh, irresistible life.

It's minus sixteen with the windchill, and yet even here, hidden within the shell of last year's cattails, tender and strong plants are growing.

And in my heart an Easter spirit whispers, "life stepping out of death - fingerprint of God!"

And in my mind I'm listening again to an old podcast and hear Susie Dent explain erumpent (bursting forth, burgeoning with life).

The bright green stalk lies brilliantly against the snow.

And in my head Jeff Goldblum twinkles handsomely, "life, uh, finds a way."

A storm is coming tonight and I don't care. Winter might roar and shake his mane, but I saw spring today, and the ground is erumpent.

(Yes, I know silver doesn't turn into gold)

Gold

Sometimes when I see you bringing someone through the fire
Like, I mean really giving it to them -
Burdens and exhaustion and a really hard road
Without a single wheelbarrow in sight

I cry out
Dear Lord please stop their suffering --

And you say
No; I'm bringing them forth as gold.

And I ask
Can't they just be silver, God? Silver's nice. 

And you just keep working.
And you keep saying -
Gold.

And they grow rich and deep, warm and kind
Ready to listen, and quick to have compassion,
Slow to judge.

And they are beautiful.

Gold.

***

I was thinking about my friend Andrew tonight. He really went through the fire of suffering in the last few years of his life. It was amazing to watch him transform from an ordinary guy into a tender, compassionate man. I know he wasn't perfect - but I was so moved by the beautiful man he became as he carried the heavy burdens God put into his life. 

From the book of Job, chapter 23, verse 10 - [God] knows where I am going. And when he tests me, I will come out as pure as gold.