When Peace Floods Your Soul

Toes digging through grains of sand.
Ears tuned to the lullaby rhythms of the East Coast waves.
Thunder rumbles in the distance threatening to release its pent up aggression...
And somehow I find complete peace in the moment.

These two play with their dog.

A man and woman sit reading in quiet companionship.

A 4 year old laughter & curiosity pull her mother along as they walk the beach.

Wave artists face the potential storm with dogged determination.

My love flies his kite in spite of the winds fickle temperament.

Rain drops fall on me now,
steadier by the moment,
blurring ink on the pages of my old leather-bound journal.

Yet somehow I feel calm, still in the recesses of my soul.

The rain comes harder now, so I tuck fragile belongings and myself under a twin fitted sheet grabbed last minute seemingly at random. Now the action makes me smile with contentment, as I curl up with book-for-review in hand, listening to the rain beat down like the sound of distant drumbeats echoing across the African plains.

Buried under my self-made mountain, the heaven-sent moisture begins to cling, and slowly, I become one with my safe haven. Cocooned from the world around me and cut off from sight of any impending change to my environment, I lose myself in the world of story & make believe on the mountains of Alaska over 150 years ago.

Thirty minutes pass, and the sky begins to clear. I emerge from my private little world, and the changes in the landscape around me hit my senses immediately. The once busy beach, is now barren with all but die-hard enthusiasts like us, determined to hold out against mother nature's downpour. Other shifts are subtle in nature. New discoveries unearthed by the movement of the sands and winds.

I have spent years in a love affair with the mountains.
Their majesty.
Their strength.
Their fortitude.
Their certitude.
Their dependability.

But the older I get, I find peace flooding my soul when I slow my being to the pace of the wind and waves at the ocean's shores. Oxygen fills my lungs as I close my eyes, breathe deep, soak in the rays on my face, and let the wind flow sweetly through my hair.

I am undone in all the right ways. My soul finds oneness with His creation. I sense Him expanding my artist's lung to breath deep of the art He longs for me to see, to experience, and to create.

To live purposefully
Intentionally.

I stop.
I reevaluate.
I listen.
I breathe deeper still.

Floating in a place of stillness that is foreign
to a normally-anxious soul such as mine,
the enticement of this peace draws me in close.

I long to find the magical GPS of grace to help me navigate permanently on this road of inner rest, even in the days of chaos and uneasy acceptance.

But my longing to know, to understand, to figure it all out, quiets, as I simply close my eyes again, lift my chin to the sky, and inhale deeply, feeling chest and abdomen rise and fall as His peace gently washes over my soul.

There is nothing new about my story.
Nothing magical or earth shattering or especially amazing.

Except maybe there is.

When peace can flood an anxious soul, stilling the activity, accessing grace by the gallon-ful, there is a mystery there too beautiful for words.

Linking up with:

Project 365 :: Day 246-252

This week was filled with a lot of normal, 

yet beautiful,

 days of life and love and laughter.

The older I get, "normal" becomes oh-so-AMAZING

....here's my week in pictures....

Day 246 :: Morris found a new sleeping corner - in an empty water box.

Most days he is curled up like a shrimp in that space. 

Day 247 :: Hanging out on the beach for our anniversary

Even made a little tent out of sheet to protect myself from

the rainstorm while Arno body surfed the waves. #RelaxingDay 

Day 248 :: Puzzle making with Mom and Sis 

Day 249 :: Chillin' with my Mace girl while her 

Mommy picks up some food for dinner 

Day 250 :: My other homegirl, Olivia, posing with her cat - Orange Kitty 

{oh yes, that is the REAL name!} 

Day 251 :: I still drink my favorite drink every day,

Key Lime Sparkling Water by Clear American,

but sometimes just to add a little kick,

I add fresh lime.... #MhmmmSOOOGood 

Day 252 :: Another day at the beach with my love,

enjoying the last few weeks of the summer sun

I'm on a journey, chronicling my life with a picture a day for a year. I hope to discover the world around me in my day-to-day life in a uniquely different way as well as learn more about my DSLR to better capture those precious moments. 

{Update: Taking a couple of photography classes with my sister this fall 2012...very excited!}

Color Your World :: Teal

My sister and I kind of have a love affair with teal...and yellow and gray...but that's another post. Lately it has been teal. In fact, I am planning to use teal as one of the major accent colors in our great room...eventually! Haha!

So when my friend, Jen and her Color Your World co-hosts challenged us to show our art with the word TEAL, I was excited. But then I thought...I don't know what pics I have taken focused around teal lately, so I checked out my pics over the past 2 months {since the last time I linked up} and came up with a great variety!

Check out how TEAL colors my world......

Celebrating my best friend's little boy's soon-to-be-entrance
into the world with a circus theme

Encouraging my friend, Chloe {far right} at her 

Mary Kay consultant debut...her director, and my friend/boss,

Emily, showcases her summery teal dress

My love with his current outdoorsy love :: kite surfing.

He is sporting a splash of teal in his plaid board shorts

I absolutely ADORE the Olympics...I mean LOVE!

This pic was snapped about half way through...it is a little more BLUE 

but I'm feeling some shades of teal in the mix. ;-)

My uncle, Ranny, turned 50 last month. My sister {left pic} and I 

helped my aunt set up and decorate. Both Aunt Bonnie and Kasi are 

partying with splashes of teal.

After my parents' 40th marriage & ministry anniversary, 

we got to spend the weekend with our adoptive family,

both boys who grew up in their orphanage

as well as fellow missionaries.

This is Bella with my mom.

Her dad is like a brother to us. 

My mom became a spiritual mother to him after his

mom died when he was 17. 

These are my home skillets whom I nanny 2-4 times a month.

Here they are wrapped up in Dora after a summer fun splash session!

I have been wanting to learn increase my photography abilities 

for AWHILE now.

This fall, my sister and I will be taking our DSLRs to the 

local community college to learn some new skills and tricks.

I LOVE to study and be in a classroom.

Just signing up for the class on campus gave me SUCH a thrill!

This was my view for the afternoon at the beach on anniversary day.

I love that my bokkie and I could spend a day together just enjoying

each other and the things we love to do.

And FINALLY....

...our house was built in 1980 and the upstairs bedroom

are carpeted in memory of that era in hunter green and magenta.

As it is currently not in the budget to change that, 

the "magenta" room is the space we are using for foster children.

So I wanted to try to work with it and recently found the

fun polka dot bedspread that you see above featuring

fuschia/magenta as well as teal among other colors. 

So I have TEAL in my house decor...at last!

I hope you enjoyed a little glimpse 
into how I SEE color in my world.
Would you like to show how TEAL colors your world?

It can be any form of art 
- photography, fashion, crafting, 
music, written word, etc - 

the sky is the limit!

Just click the link below to join in the fun!

The Community I Did Not See Coming

She listens to my heartbreaking rants on the phone about the agony of hard choices in the foster care journey. When do I leap? How deep do I go? Is this feeling fear or the Holy Spirit slipping in that lack of peace to remind me He has a different plan. She reminds me that wisdom and faith might not always wear the same clothes, but work together hand-in-hand. She breathes confidence into my wary soul.

She is my community.

She just had a baby 6 weeks ago. It's her second one and juggling the needs of both an infant and a toddler fight against her normal calm-and-collected sensibilities, yet she grabs precious moments to connect me to her day, invite me into her feelings of chaos and home, and let me know that she misses me.

She is my community.

She blogs. She sews. She mothers 3 kids, 2 of which are twins. She is an entrepreneur. She is filled with never-ending creative ideas. She has energy to be rivaled. She tackles every project with gusto and  vigor, even losing enough weight to fit into her high school prom dress. AND SHE HAS TWINS.  On paper we are so different, but our spirits connect in a language hard to explain. "...I'd love to sit with you in church today..." she writes me late in the wee smas knowing that in the die-hard night owl nature that we share, I'd be awake too.

She is my community.

She shares my personality type. That one champions my love for foster care. Another pulls out and returns back to me words that clears my chaotic soul. They are a safe place for this aspiring artist to breathe.

This is community.

It is not perfect. There is no physical gathering together every day or every week. Most do not know each other by name.

As an extrovert, I miss the parties, the gatherings, the celebrations. But as a wounded soldier, my soul has craved time to heal from the hurts and brokenness that life has wrought. I walk a tightrope of delicate balance between the two, simply hiding from the burning desire to be wanted, to be loved, to be accepted, and most of all, to be understood.

And then, when I take a second to just breathe in His grace, to ponder the healing over the last two years, I see community.

I see it in her laugh.
It jumps off the screen through her generosity.
I feel it in the genuine words wrapping my heart with their warmth.
It bleeds red and precious, like His blood, seeping into the cracks and crannies of this bruised vessel.

I breathe in grace.
I inhale mercy.
I exhale doubts and fears and insecurities and hurts lodged deep.

All because of one.
One with skin on.
One with Savior-love.
One with arms extended, walls down
Being the hands of Jesus to this weary soldier.

In the emptiness, I have found community.
And my cup runneth over.

Five Minute Friday :: Graceful

"You ooze grace," she slips in to me through the Twitter stream...
...and my heart whispers, "Thank you, Jesus."

If she only knew the pathways He has taken me down to bring me to the place where someone could see Him with graceful movements flowing in my being.

I am judgmental.
I am filled with insecurites.
I am jealous and scared and overwhelmed.

By my own pride
and comparisons
and struggles
and desires...

BUT grace...

She appears on the scene clothed in a garment of white, smooth, silky to the touch like ice cream as it floats down your throat.

She is that favorite blanket warm from the dryer.

She is your kitty of a decade snuggled close to your arm.

She is kindness and joy, healing and mercy.

She is graceful...



With a heart full tonight, I write. Spent an hour and a half with kindreds at this amazing little party on the Twitter-verse....and I feel like my cup is overflowing in a way-deep-down-in-my-heart-soulful filling in the cracks and crannies...My words sort of stream tonight in a random melange of chaos...but I pray you find grace FOR YOU, too, in them as you read....

In the Tension of the Waiting

I mean to write more each week.
Like I used to.

I blame it on summer. On foster care prep. On planning fundraising for Haiti. On spending time with my family before they return to their life-long mission home.

Next week will be better...
When things slow down, my heart and soul will spill words out like wet paint from a fresh can's tip....
Once the summer is over, my schedule will get "back to normal"....

And on and on it goes...this big top mental circus filled with merry performances merry vying equally for immediate attention. And somehow my soul shrinks from the cacophony. I need stillness and silence, not in reality per say, but in the recesses of my being.

You know... where deep calls to deep.

But I often fail at allowing my heart and my soul and my mind to halt and to "go there" ....
Because it is scary and it is raw and it needs work.

How do you bare the broken before the healing is complete?
How do you show the scars when tomorrow they might break bloody again?
How do you give of yourself when "getting TO Him" seems a feat equivalent to rescuing the princess from the clutches of the fiery dragon?

Inside I feel small.
Insignificant.
Unimportant in the sea of artists, photographers, designers, administrators, counselors, professors, ministers, pastors, teachers, writers, mothers....

Juxtaposed is the heart of a warrior princess bursting to fly.
Longing to dream big, to follow rainbows to the pot-o-gold end, to dance on clouds Care-Bear-style.

The once-too-broken-to-ever-think-she-could-be-filled-again girl inside of me flaps her wings with impatience while the Great Physician holds still the body of that broken soul, willing strength into the bones for the latter to be greater than the former before letting the full expanse of the newness fill the sky.

And in the waiting, the girl both heart of warrior and heart of a child reaches to her Daddy, whispering words of longing and regret, sorrow and angst, desperation and pleading, forgiveness and surrender.

Where do we go from here?

Will I ever be ready again?

Am I forever to be waiting in the wings?

Where are you in your journey of waiting, of longing, 

of wanting to burst into your dreams, of feeling insignificant? 

What specific Scripture, mantra, prayer, promise 

do you hold onto in those moments? 

If you have none, feel alone, or simply long 

for the extra lift in this moment and space in time, 

would you slip your words into a comment 

or even in a private e-mail in the Contact Me link. 

I would love to share the broken moments with you 

and agree with you that God DOES 

have an answer just for you in the midst of it all.

Project 365 :: Days 239-245

This week is leading up to our 7 year wedding anniversary on Monday, so I had all of these great intentions to do these amazing dates each day, which I did plan.....but one night I had to work late and then family stuff came up and foster care babysitting and we just decided to take the pressure off and enjoy each day and do what we felt to do WHEN we wanted to! We have had some great memories this week and looking forward to a few more fun activities in the next couple of days too...

So here's my week in snapshots....

Day 239 :: Made lots of chocolate chip cookies for the church picnic

but then because of the weather, they had to cancel.

So needless to say....we enjoyed them this week! ;-) 

Day 240 :: The list that kept growing...finally made it to the store

and my love went with me. That always makes is seem a little less

like an errand and little more like a date.

Can you believe I STILL forgot hairspray???

{middle of the list} 

Day 241 :: This kid's imagination always makes me laugh!

Day 242 :: A walk down memory lane...back to the place of the 

very first "I love you!"

Day 243 :: Dinner with the fam AND laughing til our sides hurt

as we shared in my sis & her hubs' Ireland adventure through pics

Day 244 :: The Dollar Menunaire Date inspired by The Dating Divas

{They have SO many great ideas...you just HAVE to check them out!}

Day 245 :: Me and one of the twin foster boys that we babysat 

today for foster parent friends.

2 Dollar Store H2O Blasters = 45 mins of fun for just $2

Awesome, Right?

{Disclaimer :: Maryland child protection/privacy laws prevent

me from showing you his sweet face...but trust me

it is too cute for words!}

I'm on a journey, chronicling my life with a picture a day for a year. I hope to discover the world around me in my day-to-day life in a uniquely different way as well as learn more about my DSLR to better capture those precious moments. {Update: Taking a couple of photography classes with my sister this fall...very excited!}