Conrad

Darling, dear One, don't you know,
my heart, it bled and beat like yours?
but all too soon you took the fall
and I never knew what lay behind that smile.

There's empty words and worthless lies
they speak of you and of your life,
Oh, if they knew the sacrifice
and the treasure that lay behind your smile.

You knew what it was like to fight out on the battlefield
to see your soul be crushed
like a faithful son, you carried on,
until it was too much

My fellowman, my confidant,
was there something I could have done?
all that I had to give was what I had,
a guarded, broken heart.

We shuffle on, we find our way
through bitter truths and brighter days
And through it all, I'll think of you,
and the truth that lay beyond that tired smile.

To Conrad, Died October 19th, 2016. You will never be forgotten.

The Rains

The rains have come.

They've come hard, plunging the world around me into a windblown gray frenzy of water. The summer is gone, as swiftly as it came, but I'm ready for fall. The fall has always brought me peace as my soul returns to a simpler place, cleansed by the water that it desperately needs and the cold that forces it to freeze or burn hotter. The way the season changes makes me feel like I could too, like I don't have to spend forever in a drunken-staggering through life.

And if I'm honest, it has been a rather-drunken stagger. The days have been long and dark, and getting darker as they grow shorter. I wake up, drive the long commute to school, sit in class and mindlessly cram my mind with information day after day, go to the hospital and come home and try desperately to study, try to see the people that I care about on a regular basis, try to deal with the emotion of seeing deeply sick and hurting people and what to feel and do about it, and then I'm going to bed and I find I haven't stopped all day just to... breathe. I feel most days as if I'm stumbling through life, not even normally walking through it. It's gonna be ok, I tell my heart. Soon, I will learn how to hear you again. 

But I realized today that I've forgotten how to be still. I am aching for a simplifying, a newness in my heart.

See, I used to know. I remember feeling able to slow my mind down long enough to realize where my thoughts were coming from, and why I was feeling the way I was feeling the moment. I remember what it was like to be in the moment, a breathtaking peace that surpasses all the moments that came before. But now, I am mostly conscious of fending off the feeling of panic that too soon will cause everything to fall apart... Or I am conscious of a numbness that feels more like a forgetting of something-- or of someone.

But you've forgotten, my heart cries. Somewhere along the way of living, you've forgotten to live. You have forgotten yourself, how to remember the truth. You have forgotten Me. 


Please God, my timid soul whispers, almost silently-- I want to live again.

I am learning to allow my soul to receive the newness it needs, even when it is scary. We must allow ourselves the grace to be cleansed in the times when we desperately need change. We must stay connected to our Source, we must be honest with ourselves about how we are really feeling, not suppressing emotion to please any person, not making ourselves into something we're not to please the world. We must give ourselves time. We must give ourselves honesty. We must give ourselves love.

May the change of the season bring a newness to your heart that you desperately need. Where you felt like you were at the end, may this time bring you a new hope that you have never known before, one that will whisper to you,

Better things are ahead than any we leave behind.

May you have peace.

All my love,

B

The Fall of Me

The way the sun looked at me had changed.

Almost overnight, it seemed. She sunk below the mountains that were gray and golden all at once, mourning the summer that was already gone. The evenings brought glorious freedom and light like I had never seen before. The mornings were cold, but the fog hung over the fields as I drove to school and I found myself wanting to eat it, to somehow capture it in a way that would sink into my consciousness and never let me forget its beauty.

I have been here before, I thought to myself, walking on the road.

These moments seemed to catch me again and again, the moments that seemed to whisper that not was all as it was, that there was another place that called to me from beyond the borders of what I knew was real. That reality was not at all what we thought it was. That if only I could open my eyes, really open my eyes, then I could really see the truth.

The more I thought about these moments of mystery, the more I felt the unknown places calling me, I wanted to go there. I sometimes didn't know how, but I wanted to go there--so desperately. More than I wanted to breathe, for to know the unknown is what I longed for as the epitome of my life, what I was made for. What I longed for amidst the mundane, scholastic, dull, intellectual moments of my life. It was what I wanted before money, before love, before fame. My heart beat with it.

And I think that's why people around here in these parts love the Oregon fall... it makes them realize that they, too, will fade in the end, but that in that dying, in that beautiful moment when the seed hits the ground and breaks open on the dirt, that something else more beautiful will emerge. They know when they see the browning of the earth and feel the chill that there are wilder things than summer to be had for man. There are lands to be discovered, mountains to be climbed, oceans to cross, rivers to ford, and lands to explore. There is more to live for for us than just this in and out, in and out breathing that we lose ourselves in as we go to work, come home, play with our phones, take the dog for a walk, kiss our lovers, kiss our kids, go to bed, forget to look up, forget to know that we were made to run free...

It's not just the Fall I love. It's that it brings to my mind the fall of me. The fact that I am mortal. The fact that I am neither robot nor heavenly being, but flesh and blood and bones that can hurt and bleed and cry. The fact that I only have so much breath to live, but there is one who lives in me that roars with passion and life and I do not have to live a boring life... in fact, I am called out of that and into the Light.

Oh, you precious dreamers, don't give up. Without dreams, we will lose the bliss of romance and the love of the wild places, and that must never happen. It is our lifeblood. It is our purpose.

 

 

Believing In Jesus (Gospel Style)

It's only when I start to tell someone about Him when I realize how much I don't know Him at all.

It's a sobering thought.

Because, you see, if we really were to recall the things that He said regarding Himself, we would realize that we have become far removed from the words of our Jesus.

"You believe in God, believe also in me.
"I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
"My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow me."
"I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live."
"I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture."
"He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water."
"This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent."

All these things confound me as I read them, for I realize that so quickly I begin to view my life as lived by a set of beliefs, rather than a total sacrifice to one man... the Holy man Jesus. So easily, I take my eyes off of the infinite and eternal eyes and person of Jesus, and instead become obsessed with the things that He said and the things that He did. I take what others say about Him as truth, even above what He says about Himself. I don't really go against the mold at all, I just follow the status quo, even though I swore I wouldn't. I even build routine around my life to keep myself safe and comfortable, using the way things should be done as a measure of my life, instead of "leaving my ways, my objects, myself, and taking his and Him."

And eventually, I lose my connection with Him, the raw and real faith of doing what He says because I have built my life around THIS ONE MAN, this Jesus that said over and over to believe IN Him, to follow Him, to obey Him out of love and gratitude for sacrifice. But when I read what He says, I am astonished and always convicted. Jesus seems to say while He walked the earth, "Believe in ME. Not only in my works. Not only in my deeds. Not only in the salvation that God wrought through me on the cross. Not only in the atonement and the fact that you'll be with me when you die. But believe in ME. In my entire essence of being. In my personhood, in my own self."

George Macdonald says, "No opinon, I repeat, is Christianity, and no preaching of any plan of salvation is the preaching of the glorious gospel of the living God. Even if your plan, your theories, were absolutely true, the holding of them with sincerety, the trusting in this or that about Christ, or in anything he did or could do-- the trusting in anything but Himself, His own living self-- is still a delusion."

We have spent much of our time and effort in believing about Him, instead of really believing in Him.

This is troubling to me. I want to believe in Him. I want to be able to partake of what He lived and what he embodied when He walked here. I want to obey Him without question and leave anything and everything to do what He said and believe! I want to move past my mind and intellect and opinions and theories and know Jesus as a person that lives and moves and breathes in my spirit! To know Him as he yearns to be known.

Just a little something to make you think.

B

I feel the weight of everything today.

Of the entire Kingdom.

Of the love of Jesus and the power of simply believing in Him.

Believe in Him!

Believe IN HIM!

In the man Jesus.

That's it.

That's the gospel.

He will set you free.

He is the way.

He is the truth.

He is the life.

He unites everything.

He removes all barriers.

He will heal your heart.

He will make you perfect in Him.

He is the Only One.

He is Love.

He is God.

To The One Who Has Been Crushed by Depression

Five o'clock brought my clanging alarm and the misty, dark early hours. I stumbled out of bed. The cat rubbed against my leg as I put the tea kettle on. Too early, Soxy. I wiped the mascara out from under my eyes from the night before.

The mountain loomed gray against the narrow strip of pink light in the east. I drove to school as the light slowly emerged, flooding the gray world in pink light. Here, the rain misted softly against the windshield and the wipers on my new car no longer squeaked. They slid silently as the morning hung there in expectation, waiting for the sun.

I thought about a year ago, about when my world seemed to be ripping apart at the seams. About when my heart seemed to die and its life sink into the soil, never to be re-won. I thought about the voices I heard in my head and the crushing weight of despair that some days wouldn't let me out of my bed, that took away my will to live and my motivation to love and be myself. The knowledge that I was an abomination, a horrible person, that I was guilty. I remember feeling separated from everyone around me, despite their efforts to understand and help me. I remember feeling that there was no way out.

And so I lost everything. I lost my job, I lost my motivation for school and quit. I didn't know how to cope with things that had never caused me stress before. I knew, somehow, that this resistance could turn out for my good, that I was made for greatness someday, but I didn't know how any part of this could possibly turn out for my good. I didn't even know what to call it, how to label it.

It took me the good part of a year to figure out how to recover, to create an atmosphere for myself that was safe and allowed me to live without the anxiety and fear that had crept in seemingly unawares. I had heard so many responses from so many people in regard to my "depression." I had heard, "You are seeking attention," to "You need to get on your face before God and ask Him to heal you, and He will," to "What did you do to allow this thing in?" I felt what it was like to cry out for empathy and compassion for someone, anyone that would just tell me that I was accepted for who I was, even with the things that I was experiencing.

The fact was, the word depression did no justice to the crushing weight of death I felt threatening me constantly, in the morning when I woke up to the sweet surrender of sleep at night. The voices that I heard in that season, both in my head and from almost everyone around me, reinforced my belief that I was guilty, deep down to my very soul. I deserved nothing. I was nothing.

And here I am, a year later, and I am healed. I have felt depression flee from me so far I know that it is never coming back. I have seen my heart change from being broken and full of fear that I would never be able to be normal again to fully alive and functioning the way it was supposed to. I have felt the Lord's mercy both in the midst of my fear and on the other side of my fear, where only joy lives. And I stand here, fully knowing that there is a place where depression is no more. There is freedom from the constant stream of fear that so easily overwhelms us. There comes a moment when all the lies that have plagued you-- sometimes for your whole life-- are revealed and you see the truth about yourself-- that you are made strong and powerful.

If you only knew how powerful you were... You would be unstoppable.

The truth is... nobody really has it right. Some say that depression is normal and is just a part of life. Other say that it is an illusion or that it is because of something you've done wrong to deserve it, Some say you should just get yourself out of it.

But the truth is not any of those things. The truth is that you are SO loved right in the place where you are. On your bed, unable to get up to go to work. In your living room, watching TV while every fiber of your being hurts with a pain that is so much deeper than your skin and bones. When you're unable to explain to your friends why you don't want to spend time around people, why you can't see them right now. When you are totally unable to see yourself or anything in your life in a positive way. When you look at yourself in the mirror and see worthlessness. When you self-medicate with alcohol, TV, anything to numb the crushing weight on your chest that threatens to crush your very soul.

The truth is that you've been misunderstood and judged for something that isn't your fault by people who are ignorant and don't know the effect of their attitudes and words.

And it's that you're beautiful, Beloved one, even in the midst of the bloody battle that you're fighting.

I just thought you should know.

The Mountain

I had a dream about the mountain last night.

 

Everyone saw the cloud that had crashed into the summit like a white train wreck. It hovered there, mysterious and beautifully fearful. I didn't feel fear when I looked at it, at least not the kind of fear that paralyzes your breath and reminds you that you're nothing. It was the kind of fear that made you feel very small indeed, but as if that meant something, to be small.

 

They were saying all around me, "Don't go up there, you'll surely die from the storm," and, "It's unpredictable and you don't know what you'll encounter up there." "It's dangerous."

 

But I knew, compellingly and assuredly, that I had to go.

 

North and Middle Sisters (Faith and Hope) from the Summit

 

 

I thought, as I drove up the pass, that if I hadn't met the man Jesus and become so compelled by Him that I gave Him all my dreams, I would have probably ended up spending a majority of my life on a mountain. It was something with which I could become obsessed with little to no effort. It made me feel alive.

 

The last 1500 feet of the climb, from the false summit was as steep as you could get without having to technical climb. It was all tallis, and while the dog sprang up the incline with ease, I was stopping every ten sliding steps and trying to get some oxygen into my body. I looked up at the summit, her massive form red and I felt my own weakness speak against me. "You don't have enough strength." But I had waited too long to stop this close to conquering her. This wasn't just a climb to test my strength of body or will... this was hand-to-hand combat with my fear.

 

Broken Top from the Summit

 

 

I knew now that all my longing for the mountains, all my reaching for wildness and freedom that I found in the high places, they were just shadows of the longing that I had for Him. And really, I could spend all my life, all my passion and energy trying to conquer the mighty ones of the earth, to try and get a little bit closer to the heavens, to really feel something in my chest other than the numbness that the world is so familiar with. But I knew now, somehow, that if I pursued my love of the wild, if I gave myself to pursuing the beauty of the earth and of my God manifested in His creation, then in the end I would come up short. I would have lost it all, but for nothing.

 

Mt Bachelor from the False Summit

 

Descending the Mountain (and very tired)

 

 

Really, what I have always been searching for is Him. To seek Him, to give Him my dreams that I hold in my heart, to seek not beauty but the Source of it, that had become everything. Of course I still love the mountains. I love them deeply. But they are now the lower forms of beauty, the higher forms those which can only be touched with an experience of the heart.

 

When my eyes are opened and I am like a blind man seeing men like trees for the first time, I can see that the thing I was searching for in the dark was actually Light. I can see that He becomes everything, higher and wider of a love than I ever knew existed before.

 

Teardrop Lake (The highest lake in Oregon).

 

 

It's true I have longing, dreams, things I want to do while I'm on the earth. I want to make my mark. I want to live breathlessly and without regret. Our dreams aren't worthless. They all cost us something. We spend endless hours thinking about them, pouring over them, loving them, speaking kind words to them.

 

Sometimes, they are the most precious things we dreamers have.

 

But let it cost me something to lay my life at His feet. Let my jar of perfume break over His feet and let the extravagance of my dreams fill the room, not cheap trinkets that I didn't want anyway. Let my sacrifice be left on Him as a fragrance, a reminder of a life broken and poured out, a sacrifice that cost me something.

 

This month I finally climbed my mountain. It's funny, really, because I feel as if it's the start of a time of many more mountains being conquered... not all of them with snow and a 4,600 foot incline.

 

"This is the season," I thought as I stepped onto the crater of the summit, "for courage."

 

At the summit

 

 

 

 

 

Healing

Sometimes life doesn't feel like an exciting adventure. Sometimes it just feels like a bloody battle that you'll be lucky to survive with all your limbs intact.

Sometimes family members aren't perfect. Sometimes they change and aren't able to function like they used to. Sometimes depression and addiction and other not-perfect things show up and we can't ignore them. Sometimes all your fancy spirituality and knowledge about God's love turns into one word: stay.

I knew depression has had some say in my family in the past, but when it struck my father and then tried to wrap it's sticky claws around me, I found my fight and I didn't relent until victory came. I still haven't. There's no other option.

When I leave for work in the wee hours of the morning, I can see them through a crack in their bedroom door. He used to get up before me, in the old days. Now he sleeps longer and longer. I do care, you know. I care too much. Is that allowed? I don't know. Momma says someday that when I have babies, I'll find a new kind of strength. I hope so.

Something happened to me two weeks ago. I don't know what it was, but I felt the heaviness of an orphan lift off my shoulders and a new time come upon me...almost as if I couldn't have helped but step into it.

It's as if the lens flipped and I was staring at everything I once hated as disappointing and bitter as beautiful. I saw the people I once feared as my destiny. I went for a walk yesterday and I could see the sun, like they way you see something and see it with all your senses. I smelled the color on the wheat and I tasted the air that was filled with tangy sweetness. I saw everything, but no fear entered my chest. I looked for signs of my old friend Fear, but all I saw were roses. They tinted the lenses of my eyes so that they saw everything new, and my mind thought only good thoughts, ones that made me feel as if life wasn't only a bloody battle to be fought, but a slow dance to be savored, a rich fullness that demanded to be tasted.

Worship School is finally finished and I have at last returned home from Redding. To be honest, I'm not sure where to start.  How to explain a whole year's worth of pain, years worth of pain erased from my heart as I look into the face of the One who truly knows and loves me. So much torment that has bruised and battered my heart left when God somehow took my old heart and replaced it completely with a new heart. All the things that have been running circles in my mind, things that made me sure I was crippled enough to never walk properly again, they all melted away as I lay in front of the King.

And I'll say it. I'm a believer in healing.

And how could I not? I have seen it. I have beheld things that don't make sense, that didn't make sense to me until they manifested themselves right in front I'd my face. I have seen my prayers happen. I have seen the impossible. I have seen my own heart made new again by the love of my God, who has never left me, not once, not even in the middle of my deepest torment when I couldn't see or feel Him.

So...

Life sometimes feels like a bloody battle. It sometimes feels like there's no way out. But I have seen the eyes of the One who loves me. I have heard His call in my heart. And I know that there is healing for all who are sick. I know that the despair that comes isn't meant to last. I know that He is for me. And I know that He came for me and delivered me from all my enemies.

And whatever your enemy may be, He will do the same for you.

Take courage, dear heart.