Ehyeh

Ehyeh,

There are moments where You appear to be a thousand miles away. I get caught up in vanity and appearances and you seem distant and disconnected. It's hard to believe in a Father who rescues when I grew up in an environment of unending self sufficiency. No one would rescue me, I would have to do it myself.

We live in an atmosphere with salvation is an impossible concept. We live in a society that no longer rescues. So how do we transplant the idea of salvation and rescuing from this completely imaginary idea, to a real-life-true-story scenario.

I talked to You about the desire of my heart for the emotional experiences that I so often encountered in the Protestant church. I talked about how much I missed the mood lighting and the music that was purposefully chosen to create a romantic thought in my mind. I actually missed being manipulated. When I brought those feelings to You, You told me that you weren't make-up, you were razzle-dazzle, that you weren't a whore... dressed up and dolled up and shoved down my throat for my own amusement or distraction. You scolded me for desiring that. You then reminded me of your simplicity.

So I asked You to help me meet You. Not the falsified ideas that I believed to be You, but the real-carpenter-simple You. I asked You to help me fall in love with You.

It has been a gradual process. Erasing the dramatic experiences from my mind has been difficult. Finding elation in the quiet moments of sipping coffee together on the back porch has been new. Hearing You in the hymns, prayers, and sunlit church has been different.

After weeks of this new relationship, today You punched me in the face with You. Today you rocked me to my core with your Magnificent Glory, minus all of the falsified TV drama... Today it was all about us and it felt amazing. Everywhere my eyes looked, I saw Your Salvation. I saw Your Rescues. Today You rescued me. It was too magnificent to attempt to pacify it with "good luck" ideas. Today it brought me to tears. You brought me to tears. You did it with birds, and sunshine, and clouds, and golden mountains. Today You showed me a side of You I've never seen before. Today it was a love song, played out with music I've never heard, and with images I've never seen.

I'm sitting here trying to write it all down, because I don't want to ever forget it. I'm trying to figure out how to tell You what it meant to me, and I'm fresh out of ability. I don't have words, or a love song, or anything that I can offer. But I can whisper, from the depths of my soul, that I am desperate for you, my simple Beloved One. You are quite genuinely the most beautiful Beautiful I have ever seen. Being alone with You and lost with You is indefinable. I am in awe.

I just want to scream... You rescue! You rescue me when I call.

Today

Nuggets,

I hope you spend your entire lives looking for laughter, choosing to be happy, and celebrating joy. I hope that when grief arrives you recognize it as temporary, and bare the weight of it patiently. I hope that you know personally and passionately, the God who has carried us all through so many challenges that I can't name them all. I hope you know that Daddy and I, while vastly imperfect (something I anticipate you will cover greatly in your adult psychotherapy sessions), loved you with all that we had and absolutely gave you the best that we had to offer.

I hope you always have a sense of delight in adventure. I hope you spend time in nature (hiking, camping, etc). I hope you respect the earth and do your best to take care of it. I hope that you have insight to know what is good and what is not, and courage to act wisely in challenging situations. I hope you have self control.

Today, I hope you take time to notice the beautiful things around you, and the different forms that they come in. I love you!

Winding down

I showed up in this town with three babies. Three tiny human beings who were so frail and so... I don't even know. Their older sister was just over two. I honestly can't remember the road trip very much. I have a few random snippets of memories, but they aren't clear in my mind.

Seven years... Seven years brought a plethora of jokes about being Moses'd and never leaving. Seven years has brought four post commander, Brigade commander, Battalion commander changes... Countless company leaders have come and gone. Soldiers, volunteers, friends... Beautiful friends have moved on and away. I began to feel like a concrete pillar. I felt cemented here. I felt resigned.

And then the Army came and changed the game plan (as the Army so often does). What was the plan, is no longer the plan, and now there is a new one.

I've got to be honest with you, America, my heart broke in that levee briefing. It seems so strange to write that. It is bizarre to feel heartbroken about leaving this place that in so many ways, felt like where happiness went to die. It is irritating that when I began to feel of it as home, was when it was taken away.

These walls watched my children learn to walk, read, write... These walls surrounded me while my husband deployed (a few times), my children grieved, and my heart ached. These walls have listened to seven years of laughter and love. These walls surrounded us as we mourned our beloved Jake, and the three babies that my body couldn't hold on to. This house stopped being a "house" and became my home.

And now I have to leave it. And it hurts like hell. It reduces me to tears and it makes my heart ache, to know that these days, these moments, are ticking away. They are on a countdown to done, and a new story will begin. I will turn in the keys and drive away and this house will hold someone else's memories.

I don't want to go.

I wonder if this is how Moses and the Israelites felt. Their wandering in the desert was over, and now the new chapter was about to begin. Did they grieve leaving the familiar? Did it hurt to move on? I think they were afraid. I'm guessing that because in the beginning of Moses' replacement, God keeps telling him to "be strong and courageous". Why would God tell him that if he did not feel weak and fearful? Maybe... grief?

I am excited for our next chapter. I am looking forward to the new memories and the new experiences that will come with it. I am hopeful for the next page.

But I am still aching. This place is worth that. These memories deserve it. The friends I leave behind... my great, great friend I leave behind, is worth it.