:::~:::
. a tiny, dark-headed girl, in pigtails and red ribbons. .her feet sandaled in white, and her shoulders kissed in countless spots by the sun above…she is Childhood. Crouching down over a tiny, crippled ladybug scarcely as big as the girl’s fingernail, she takes in the bug’s predicament.- crippled, and still fighting as ants move in to take down one who is weak - . Angered at the dangers in the wild that threaten the tiny being’s life - she is filled with a sudden determined protectiveness. she gently picks it up and carries it to the back porch of her farmhouse home There, she speaks to it as though to a baby entrusted to her - “don’t worry. I’ll keep you safe”
.she bends over her homemade easel …face splattered with blues, browns, greens, and grays -causing the alarmingly blue eyes to stand out more than usual. - lips pursed in concentration, she pushes aside her long, black curls - frustrated forever by the unruliness of them. Under her brush, a creation comes to life … she is Artistry. From the pictures dancing like friends through the imagination of her mind, beauty flows and finds its way onto the frame before her. As strokes turn to shapes, and shapes distinguish themselves as cities and mountains and people and life itself - and as God’s pleasure in imagination and creativity is made evident. - she wraps herself in His presence and His dreams and, for now at least, nothing else exists.
.mama needed her. In that moment nothing else matters. At ten years old she already carries the weightiness of seeing the world and the people in it through old eyes. She carries like a close companion, words of counsel and wisdom and grace. She unknowingly holds the understanding that she is the resting place for those who have none….she is Refuge. Her heart yields, in unending supply, sacrifice, hope, tireless loyalty, faith, and profound love. She sees need before it arises and responds without thinking. She embraces serving with ease and dances in the humility of remaining unseen. She is overworked but irreplaceable, inexperienced but foundational, partly daughter, - always the companion. Never seeming to grow because she was somehow born knowing what it meant to carry the strength of womanhood. Time in her presence is precious and deep and all who know her know peace and safety.
.on a day in summertime, after the fierce storming of spring has passed, she finds herself in a field of daises. Thousands of vibrant masterpieces stretch out before her beckoning her celebration…. So she dances. .she sways. .she marches. .she runs….she sings and laughs and delights in the moment. She stretches towards the sun soaking into her soul, it’s warmth. .she is Beloved. Embraced by understanding …. Pursued by grace ….wooed by wisdom …..captured by love - daughter of the Father’s heart. She calls upon music to express the dream of art planted within her. She observes life through eyes of light, taking in all that remains unseen to others; her feet take her to places darkness calls home and she sings out hope where there seems to be none. Over her, the Father has wept and laughed and protected and fought ….and over her - the Father expresses a fierce delight in the knowledge that this daughter dances in the definition of salvation.
.she has known the deepest of darkness and the purest of light. She has known what it is to walk both with salvation and death, embracing them both as companions. She is dark. She is light. She has danced and she has died. She has loved while refusing to be loved and embraced while being angered at even the slightest touch. She is an absurd mixture of everything and nothing. She has lived all of life and yet she is only a little girl. She is His Daughter. ….and that is all they both know. And that is all that matters. To her, there is only one truth and one life and one way of being ….and that is to dwell in the safest of safes …the depths of the deep, tucked away from all that would destroy her reason to live. And in that place she learns not only to find refuge in light - but to take light with her into a confused, scared world who, at the end of the day - carries just as much pain as she. And so pain beckons … and she moves response and resolve to share her discovery of not only a Savior …but a Father and soul mate who’s sole desire is to heal.
… we are delicate … we are passionate… we are strong ….we are dreamers, creators, restorers, hopers, feelers … we are forever on a search for intimacy and acceptance and refuge - only to discover it has been within us since the beginning. We shatter easily but never completely. We search for solidity - yet our purpose for existing is to be foundational for those we journey with. Life will forever be brilliantly mixed and sorted and confusing and raw - but it is the life that we know and the story that we will live out in aspired grace and dignity
And so before an audience of One, each precious picture of girlhood unfolds into unique forms of strength and possibility. Each posses a dream inspired by a most creative Father. Each holds a place of refuge and understanding to another who has known darkness. And each is the story salvation manifested into womanhood
…. And so Life begins
