A poem in memory of my beloved daughter, Jordan.
Ramblings
Trust
How to stand like steel amid chaos.
Time
Quarantined days don’t have to become a quarantined daze…
On Faith, Hope, and Luck
On faith, hope, luck, and the public library.
Refuge
I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust.”
Psalms 91:2
Refuge.
Shelter or protection from danger, or a place of security, or anything that provides recourse, aid, or relief.
It’s what we flee to in order to be safe internally and externally.
That place where we feel most comfortable amid our fears, knowing that even if the worst happens…
We’re. Still. Safe.
If you say, “The Lord is my refuge,” and you make the Most High your dwelling.
Psalms 91:9
Why do we think a threat is always big? A storm. A hurricane. A tsunami.
Today we’re fighting an enemy so tiny and vicious countries don’t even know how to defeat it.
So where should we go for refuge after we’ve gone inside and locked our doors and stayed put but a small predator still rages?
We. Must. Reach. Higher.
No harm will overtake you, no disaster will come near your tent.
Psalms 91:10
In the quiet, if we listen well we might just hear the truth: The Lord is the only real refuge that exists.
After this virus has come and gone. After we’ve moved out of our self-distanced habitats and launched into the new normal. After we cease hoarding toilet paper and water and sanitizer or whatever we hope will make life bearable during our quarantined daze.
After all that.
When we realize nothing harmed us and the disaster passed.
Will we acknowledge who chose to keep us? Will we truly understand refuge? Will we get it in our gut?
The refuge was never a what, it was always a who.
And all it takes to know that and to know Him is for us to spend weeks as refugees inside a camp called the globe, looking around for help and hope and healing and we have to and in fact we must stop searching anxiously around and…
Just. Look. Up.
A Love Letter to Leah
When the Lord saw that Leah was not loved, he enabled her to conceive, but Rachel remained childless.
Genesis 29:31
Dear Leah,
I see you.
People always want to consider you less than. Less than all the others. Defining less than as whatever the world says is worse on any given day. Dark less than light. Short less than tall. Single less than partnered. Alone less than friended. Curvy less than thin. Kinky less than straight. Homely less than lovely. Poor less than rich.
Outsider less than insider.
The female whose universe becomes manipulated by other’s opinions and actions. Society determining your rank. Making choices for what will make your life should be, even when you think you know already.
Best for you would be a community that loved you for you.
Precious Leah, you weren’t very old before you figured out the truth.
That wasn’t going to happen.
But when you opened your weak eyes and looked up, someone was watching. Someone cared. Someone not like the others, who had the power to do the one thing no one else could.
He opened your womb.
And you were fruitful and gave birth to strength and legacy. You were pleased with the outcome, though it did not ultimately change your world. Family, community, even your man, everything else remained the same.
Beloved Leah, that is the behavior of the world. But the world is not God.
Turn your weak eyes away from propaganda and manipulation and embrace the God who provides, making a way out of no way. He sees you as vibrant and beautiful and worthy.
Leah’s of the world, there is a God who sees you and loves you. He opens your life and allows you to bring forth good work. Bless Him with the fruit of your womb – the work of your hands and the fullness of your heart.
Praise Him for his eye is upon you.
It always was. It always will be.
No Mistake
No one can convince me words aren’t some of the most powerful things on earth.
December 2003 was the worst month of my whole life. My father was dying from terminal liver cancer. My daughter had been born ten weeks early three months earlier, and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia wasn’t ready to release her from the neonatal intensive care unit. Specialists urged me to schedule follow-up visits about the health of my liver, which had failed before I gave birth to the baby – so I wasn’t well either.
I still remember shaking, tears rolling down my face as I sat beside my baby’s bed, reaching my hands through the clear plastic holes, my heart twisting because I couldn’t leave to see my father, who could die at any time. I grasped her teeny translucent fingers and thought, this is freaking barbaric.
I prayed and heard nothing.
I wanted instant miracles for my baby and my daddy. That didn’t happen.
What did happen is shortly before Christmas Eve, the hospital released my daughter with portable medical equipment and a feeding tube hooked up to a thin black backpack. And three days after Christmas, my friends and aunties took turns holding a bald, five-pound, three-month-old infant while I sat, numb, looking at my dad in the casket.
Barbaric.
For a full month afterward, I cycled through post-funeral tasks and cried every time I was alone. I cried because I’d never see my father again. I cried because several of my family members hurt my feelings so severely at the homegoing, I vowed never to speak to them again. I cried because my daughter was so tiny, and I was already tired of explaining why.
Then one day, the mailman arrived, delivering a sympathy card. I sat in the kitchen to read it, and a small yellow sheet of paper fell out. The information came from my father’s hospice workers, and on the paper was the poem He Maketh No Mistake by A.M. Overton.
With my baby daughter sleeping and my son at school, I remained in my kitchen and read that poem over and over again. Just a short poem. Words on a page. But after I saw them, I stopped crying.
That poem changed my life. It spoke directly to my heart, telling me the roads of life aren’t always pleasant. We pray for people who pass away. We give birth and hope for the best that doesn’t happen. We lose connections too quickly and too soon.
But God…
Some moments in life are so painful talking doesn’t help. So for the last 16 years, I’ve read that poem during times of grief. I’ll continue to read it as the years go on and accept that God sees me in and through the pain.
The poem is timeless: Through all the way, though dark to me. He made not one mistake…