Every day we’re in the dance of love, sometimes stumbling over each other, sometimes a head resting gently on the chest, other times lost in the rhythm, tired and numb, and on some days, wishing everything would stop spinning. But the music stays on, and we know, deep down we know, that we wouldn’t want to do this with anyone else.

With me, you were most committed to educating my palette. To seek the canvas of my tongue and leave me astonished by tastes. How your kitchen became a tiny school of life— I, an ever-eager student, perched on a high stool watching you

A New Year’s resolution/ that began as a needle in my chest,/ weaving thick layers around my heart./ Something to make me tougher, to guard/ this softness, to make this body impenetrable./ Yet here I am, so close to the end of January,/ and I have failed at indifference.

What I wish for you is a new way of seeing things, of being in the world, and it is no great revelation: your obsession with permission, with seeking validation, will take more from you than you can ever imagine. People are always going to project, assume, reject, define, distort, and draw terrible conclusions about who you are, what you do, and why you are the way you are. But their assertions and expectations belong to them. That has nothing on you.

It is true that what we’ve lost has taken much from us, but goodness, have we learned to love even deeper, to serve wholeheartedly, and to live with a keen awareness of the passing of time, the unpredictability and mystery of our days, and the urgency and blessedness of now. Despite all that has happened and the weight of his decision to walk this path alone, I want to say it matters: your selfless thought of care, the desire for it, the deep knowing that you would stop everything to be there for someone you love. No matter what it costs.

When I think I’m rising above it, pulling myself from under the water, it strikes me again, with a greater force than the last. Perhaps it is painful because it should be. This is suffering, after all. I expect nothing less, and yet, it overwhelms me again and again. Time does not stop for me. The labor of living continues, and demands my urgent participation.

The goal has been and will always be God himself, and the glory due Him. If delight, may we delight in Him; if trust, may we trust in Him. If there is any knowing, any praising, any surrendering, may we hasten to direct them to the One who is Sovereign and Lord over all. Whatever needs casting, whatever we deem dead and gone, however low the valley, no matter the terrible darkness and the weight of a burdened heart—there is no boundary line that isn’t under His lordship, no depth His love and mercy can’t reach.

Recognizing my limitations and having to accept the latter felt, in some ways, that I was failing myself and the people I care about. But of course that isn’t true; it has only been a hard pill to swallow because I’ve gone so long believing that I should bear all things that come at me. But I cannot and shouldn’t.

I will say this has been a quiet and private year. It has been revealing in its solitude, and generous in its gifts. It feels somewhat brief, as though I walked into its door, touched its walls, and now I’m stepping out of it without much to show for it. As though I lived through it absentmindedly and from a distance, taking very little ownership of anything, refusing to get too comfortable, hesitant to make myself feel at home.

I love these words by Lewis: “The more we let God take us over, the more truly ourselves we become - because He made us. He invented us. He invented all the different people that you and I were intended to be. . .It is when I turn to Christ, when I give up myself to His personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own.”

“I hope these songs help nourish and nurture people’s individual walks with the Lord. That people are able to see Jesus more clearly, more vividly, because of the way He reveals Himself to them as they worship Him with these songs. I pray they become well-worn paths to the throne room for people, as they have been for me.” — Brooke Ligertwood

I’m currently reading Brother Lawrence’s Practicing the Presence of God, and all he talks about (really) is recognizing the intimate presence of God at all times, attaining a ‘habitual sense of God”, and filling his mind with Him. It’s a tiny book of his letters to people about the need to consistently-by simple attention- exercise ourselves in the knowledge and love of God even as we go by our duties and I’m amazed by how he placed so much emphasis on this one truth: “The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer, and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess in God as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the sacrament.” Now isn’t that something? I strongly believe what we listen to contributes to this conscious personal union between ourselves and God.