Ὠκεανὸς

cerulean blue and seafoam greens collide
churn and froth into white foam
the salty swell is mesmerizing,
I cannot take my eyes away.

calm, swelling, rushing, crashing-
repeat.

wind whipping hair
unexpected butterflies flutter by
what in the world?
butterflies at the beach.

tousled by wind and waves
I am a child frolicking with a roaring monster
laughing when it knocks me down
forgetting the danger and the strength;
I just want to play.

my weariness is eroding
water washing away the grit from me
salty spray straight in my face
I laugh, silly and girlish and free
it’s me and the water-unimaginably vast.
undertow pulling me in
calling, whispering, urging, I can hear it:
“come, come, come...”
grinning I give in
swim out, out, out....
farther, farther, farther
siren call of the playful surges
salty foam kissing my mouth
if I hadn’t known better I would have swam
straight out until I couldn’t see the shoreline
and there was nothing but water.

Oh, ocean, how I miss you.

Looking.

Today I awoke determined to find joy, determined to notice all of the tiny miracles and blessings around me. 

I looked at my phone. There was a text from a fellow joy-seeker, "Today, look. Just look."

So I tried, looking around my house for beauty, for blessings. Uggh. Yesterday I gave up on trying to keep the house clean, and finding beauty in a house that looks like a seasick yak threw up all over it is, um, hard. 

Aha! I could look outside. There's always beauty outside. 
I walk out of the house and I'm greeted by the scent of Autumn and the warm sun. I squint. It's been far too long since I've looked. 
Walking around to the side of the house, looking for a warm spot of sun in the chilly breeze, I stand and soak up the sun.
Then, whoosh, a wasp lands on my right knee and takes my breath away. I'm standing there, holding my breath, looking. 

This exquisite creature rushes from my knee to the grass, stops there to clean itself. I kneel immediately and just look. How have I never noticed how beautiful wasps are before? 
Because you've never looked before, you blind geezer. 
For minutes straight I look at this tiny monster and grin, and pray. Thanking God for the blessings and the beauty and suddenly overwhelmed by joy. 

I hear noises behind me and hear a door slam. People are coming out of the house next door, done looking it over. Potential neighbors. They all pour out of the house and get into a car, except for one man who looks to be in his mid-fourties. He just stands there with his hands in his pockets, curious about this curly-haired girl kneeling and looking in her front yard. 
"What're you watching?" he asks me, obviously amused.
I spin around and grin. "A wasp." I say, full to the brim with joy I couldn't contain if I tried. 
At least he knows what kind of neighbor he'll be getting if he buys the house, right?
He smiles at me, chuckles. "Oh." he simply says, and walks away laughing as if he expected it to be something actually interesting. I grin harder because I know it seems silly, but I love this silliness and I can't get enough of this childlike wonder, this looking and finding and being filled.

I continue to sit there and grin and cherish my secret- that God is everywhere and joy is everywhere and I can kneel in my front yard estatic with joy, giving thanks to the Creator, while staring at a wasp or a leaf, marveling at the marvelousness that makes up this crazy life. A wide-eyed wonder in God's spoken world.

The wasp flies away, and I lay on my back in the grass and begin to count the different shades of blue in the Autumn sky. And I give thanks for every one of them, overwhelmed with gratitude.

 

The beauty of waiting.

Last weekend, someone I love deeply became engaged to the man of her dreams. I got to be there when it happened; watch him kneel and worry over whether or not the ring would fit, hold her after she grinned and said, “Yes, of course!”

Yes, of course.

This was a moment she had waited for, five long years of longing and waiting and trusting God. Five years of not knowing but loving anyways. Isn’t that what love should be, loving whether or not you get love back? Loving even if you don’t know if you will ever get love back? Love is easy when you are loved back. When you don’t get anything back, it’s significantly harder.

Besides the fact that she just had committed to marry this young man, there was something so beautiful about that moment- that waiting being over.

I’d watched her for five years, love this man, get nothing back. But she loved him anyways, faithfully and unconditionally and selflessly- and then all of a sudden she was rewarded for this long wait, with that man kneeling on a Ferris wheel two hundred and sixteen feet in the air at the State Fair of Texas holding a ring.

Love always makes the wait worth it.

The girl who waited and the man who realized are planning their wedding for March of 2013.  Lizzy, I am so happy for you. God bless you and Daniel, and your future together. Keep loving the people in your life fearlessly. I love you more. {Really.}

"Saudade", a Portuguese word with no immediate English translation, describing a deep emotional state of nostalgic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves. (Wikipedia)

My eyes have been shut so tight
my fists so viciously clenched
I’ve given up in this treacherous fight
my thirsty soul unquenched.

Why do I desire joy,
make an effort to find it
look around every corner as if
joy is hidden behind it?

My eyes are closed,
my search in vain.
I want to feel;
if only pain.

What happens when the scales fall,
and this blind beggar sees?
What happens when my eyes are opened;
all my fears appeased?

I see Your face,
marvel at grace
see that joy was all around
my soul was hardened; tightly bound.

Why was I blind, why was it I supposed
that joy is shy and hiding, concealed and undisclosed
when joy is tangible, graspable, attainable
everywhere cast and implausibly sustainable?

If I would look, if I would see
how joy would consume and encircle me
If I would give thanks, kneel at Your feet
my heart would pump joy in and out with each beat

There is fullness of joy at Your feet, in Your presence
for You are everywhere, Lord- omnipresent
joy is not hiding, and neither are You
this water I seek and this love I pursue

I’m drowning in grace, I’m breathing it in
I am free from the laws of death and of sin.
I am breathing it in, with every breath
I am freed from the law of sin and of death.

Thank you, Father. 

“As long as thanks is possible, then joy is always possible.”

-Ann Voskamp

I am a hysterical mess of feeling,
a whirlwind of sorrow and ache.
My head and heart are reeling,
consumed by pain and heartbreak.

There isn’t Morphine for the bleeding soul
or Ether for the tired mind
There aren’t bandages for this heart-hole
to heal and fix and bind

Indestructible hope, you are keeping me alive.
I know this and I feed you, try to make you thrive
but you are slow to grow; slower still to bloom
still I grasp you, hold on tight-you keep me from my tomb.

Irresistible grace, you are saving me continually
as I struggle, stumble, fail, despair- habitually
When I’m remembering pain and torture reliving

it is grace that makes me kneel in thanksgiving.

Oh butterfly, teach me to dance,
and drown out this earthly noise
instruct me with your wings,
inspire my feet with your poise.

Oh butterfly, teach me to build
a chrysalis, covering me
that I may burst forth
spread out my colors
and fly away, finally, free.

Oh butterfly teach me to drink of God’s love
the way that you drink; from flowers
the sweet nectar from Him is unparallelled
his love, and his mercies, and powers.

Oh butterfly, teach me to see,
and seek out the unnoticed beauty
it’s everywhere hidden and sometimes elusive
but seeking out joy is my duty.

Chrysalis