I suppose I never do leave completely. A part of me lingers, or is it that I carry fragments of places with me? Here I am, all skin and bones, but really, deep down, there’s a window in my eyes, a yellow curtain in my hair, a red coleus sprouting on my tongue. A girl of homes, of opened doors, and winding paths.

Wondrous is the depth of the Father’s love. Unending is the reach of His loving arms. From the void of the earth to its fullness here, the sovereignty of the Lord knows no end. He reigns, He reigns, my heart shall sing, to the King of Kings who knows my name.

Here we both are, together, in this place. How miraculous this brief encounter. What would it teach us? What do we have to give today? All the little ways we announce ourselves to the world, all the ways we touch and hold each other without lifting a hand. And yes, how, with our silence, we reveal what has our attention, what is worth our time, and what we don’t care to acknowledge.

It is as though all my life I’ve been waiting for something to happen to me. I sit, the boundary in front of me, waiting for it to take shape, to shift, to come apart somehow. Or is it a river and how deep? What I should do is cross it, stretch my leg over its thickness, and see what I would find: a self I do not recognize because I’ve so stubbornly insisted on one way of being in the world.

I turn to move my body from its coldness, but nowhere to go than to press myself into the wall, wishing it would open up and take me, praying it would crack under the pressure of my heart and make a stone room soft enough for the flesh.

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.

My learning memo for this month is from my reading of Louie Giglio’s book “Winning the War on Worry.” He addresses the myths and lies of worry, our tendencies to be anxious by tracing the root cause of our worry (“at the heart of worry is our need to be in control”)and he also calls us to develop the discipline of cultivating a peaceful heart and confident mind (by replacing the lies with the truth).

I don’t want to live this way, and God is certainly calling me deeper. A deeper fellowship that doesn't have me walking away and turning my face from Him when things don’t go as I planned or hoped, a stronger faith that does not sway wherever the wind blows, a true knowledge of Him that profoundly changes how I live my life, what I give my thoughts to, where I find rest, how I surrender, how I wait, essentially how I live in the mundanities and the unexpected terrors of my day to day.

“I have learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the rock of ages”

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.”

In all this, there is still one hum to the tune of my occasionally distressed life: I am grateful, I am grateful, I am grateful. Although I may fail to pay attention, although some days may be shrouded in uncertainty, my heart throbs, even if faintly, with thankfulness.