She was there. He was beside her.

She was there. He was beside her. Side by side in their wheelchairs pushed up close to the edge of the pond at Centennial park. I took a second look as I ran past them on my late night run underneath the moon. It was a strange sight- especially with it being so very late.....but stranger still was the fact that they were Fishing. Yes, Fishing. Poles in hand - side by side. Catching anything? Nope. Let's be honest, if they were to get a bite, the fish would be pulling THEM in : ) So what were they doing? What in the world were they doing there at 9 p.m. at night in their wheelchairs and their fishing poles?

Being with each other. Just being with each other.

Companions. Friends. Partners. Fishing Buddies.

I have been in thought lately about love: What is it? How do you sustain it? What is the "secret?" I have learned that maybe the secret is not merely to love - but it is to LEARN to love WELL. I think that amazing relationships come when women learn to love and understand men well, and men learn to love and understand women well and when we all do so in the image of the author and perfecter of love......which basically means that true love in its purest form is a golden opportunity to die to self, swallow pride, and to give out of a place of "the sacrifice of the will". When that happens, power struggles begin to lose their grip and what is best for the relationship overrides what is desired at the moment.There is something about a marriage that gives you a unique opportunity to love in the most unselfish and sacrificial way possible. It is truly more precious to be happy than to be right.

And maybe loving isn't about finding someone who makes you feel more loved, complete, or happy. If that were true, then what happens when they stop making you feel loved, complete, or happy? Maybe God's purpose of marriage was much more about finding a partner - a teammate - to serve Him WITH instead of clinging to someone who fills you UP. Maybe it's less about looking AT the other person and looking FOR the cork. Yes, I said the cork (or bobbers for those of you not raised in the country). Stay with me.....

Those two wheelchair fishing buddies - I never saw their faces. Never heard their words. But I have kept that image in my mind, and it has spoken much wisdom to me. This is what I have heard. Watch the cork. The purpose of marriage is to find your best friend to serve with, love with, learn from, and fish with.....with the goal of looking outward to the horizon to see how God can use your coupleship to serve Him, His children, or your children. It is not to look to each other for completion or security. Maybe it's to sit beside each other on late moonlit nights, walk beside each other, run along side each other in the loudest of cheers, or sometimes to simply stay beside each other......loving.......serving.....watching the cork. Looking TOWARD His plans for you as a ministry team, instead of looking TO each other for happiness.

Being on both sides of the marriage fence, I certainly don't have all the answers. I have lived and I have learned and I have seen......an elderly couple sitting beside each other in their wheelchairs fishing under the moonlight, and somehow in this world of division - they have given me hope : )

Remembering Haiti...... And One Crayon. And One Little Girl. And One Earthquake.

We were standing in front of at least 100 children. They were sitting on rocky and dry ground in a tent camp under a summer sun with a heat index of 115 degrees. They were dirty and hungry and wounded. We were totally surrounded with what seemed to be 1000 people at one point. I was having to practically scream so they could all hear me because it was so loud. Telling them how strong they were. How I was in Congo when I heard about the earthquake. I heard about them singing and dancing in the streets. How they had taught the rest of the world about hope and survival. Telling them how God was actually the closest to them at the very moment they felt their deepest abandonment. As if I knew first hand. As if I really had the right to be telling them that at all.

We had just given the children paper to draw their heartaches and stories of the earthquake.... inviting them to draw God in the middle of that heartache to remind them that God was with them. Starting to hand out the crayons one by one, it quickly became a mob of little Haitian hands surrounding us. Poking us. Prodding us. Louder and Closer and Pushing and Shoving and beginning to Yell. For what?

For One Crayon.

We were handing them out as quickly as we could and they were grabbing them even quicker. All I could feel were little fingers all around me.

"Blanche! Blanche!" ("white person. white person")

Sweet fingers poking harder at every inch of me they could find. Mother's shoving their children closer and closer to me. My heart racing faster. The sun beater harder. Space to even move become scarce. Almost falling over at one point. Louder and louder.

Poke. Prod. Shove.

Handing out crayons as fast we we could move. One prod. One poke was more intense than the others. Poke. Prod. Poke. Irritating, actually. Fed up - I looked down.

It wasn't a hand asking to receive a crayon at all. It was the first hand practically begging me to take what was in it. A picture. Of her heartache. I looked in her eyes. The hundreds of people faded away at that one moment, and I took her gift to me. She was smiling. So much.

As if it were normal. As if it were just a part of life. It is.

Her drawing? Her mother lying down dead after the earthquake and what seems to be a spirit or an angel in the room. She wanted to show me. Desperately show me. And soon there were more. Giving out crayons quickly gave way to grasping drawings as quickly as possible. They wanted to give us their drawings of their heartaches as much or more as they wanted a crayon.

One crayon. One heartache. One day. One earthquake.

Hundreds of broken Haitian hearts resulting in a flood of forced Hope that most of us would have stopped searching for. But not them.

"Many have come to God from the earthquake. Out of their suffering they have found Wisdom. They have found Hope...."

I keep that drawing with me. In my calendar. Sometimes I run my fingers over it just to be as close as I can be to that day. So I will never forget. So I will never stop learning from children who have suffered. As long as I live. As long as I breathe. Brings me back to this:

"And I will run from a Wisdom that does not Weep. Philosophy that does not Laugh. And a Greatness that does not bow before children" – Gibran

Blood On My Hands.....

There are small things I have learned to love in this life of mine. Like how the shadow of my pen prances in the sunlight on the page when I write these words. Like how the denseness of the morning air causes a heaviness on the pages of my journal and how the ink seems to seep into the pages a little deeper. How the eyes of an old grey man who has lost his luster begin to dance when you ask him of his very favorite memory. How a small child can get lost in your eyes as you tell them a magical story that really isn't magical at all, but becomes full of whimsey and wonderment simply because it's something they've never heard before. Why? Because they are able to dream and imagine like we simply cannot. Story becomes Life.

Life.

I have said recently that my soul is weary. Feeling as if I have soaked in so much of the worlds suffering over the past few years that I am left to look into it deeply. Almost as if it is blood on my hands with God whispering over my shoulder "What are you to do with it" Should I wash it off because it makes me weep? Should I wipe my hands because I am uncomfortable or because of how others may judge me? Should I pretend it isn't there because I don't know what to do with it or how to make it go away? No, I should not. And I will not. Sitting with the worlds most wounded souls, crying with them, hearing of their pain. I think I soak it in deeper than the average person. Like I am feeling it with them sometimes. I am almost daily a bit burdened by the pull to write down all of the stories along my journey. There are simply too many. Trapped inside of my heart and dancing inside of my mind. I need to tell them. They need to be told. And today I stopped to think of my own path.

How my own steps and story of woundedness walked me into theirs. Into their stories.

It is no accident. I believe.... When your greatest heartache becomes your greatest ministry then Grace comes full circle.Recently being forced to look a bit of my own darkness in the eye - I have come. Full Circle. And I have realized I am a walking testimony of His redemption. If you were to look into my soul it would be a wonderous, colorful mirage. Not of my own doing or creation. But of a once torn spirit of darkness begging for redemption, light, and understanding.

A past suffocating breath being given new life..... and still, often, gasping. A mirage of my own spirit's brokenness knitted together by the threads of the stories of others and the Ultimate story of a healing savior and a merciful God.

I am not my own.

I love rock climbing. Love the thrill of the height and the chase of the mountain. There is nothing quite like climbing up the side of a Rocky Mountain, having to be so present in the moment to reach the top, finally getting there and looking down to only ask yourself this question:

"How exactly did I do that? How did I get here?"

In his book "A Million Miles in a Thousand Years" Donald Miller talks about his friend, Bob, who wrote down everything he remembered. He says that he "captures memories, because if he forgets them, it's as though they didn't happen." I read that and I realized simply this:

The memories in my mind of the world's broken. The steps along my path into the stories of The Redeemed Suffering. The scars on my heart and on the hearts of others that I have been so honored to touch and feel and kiss with the lips of a Savior - are not my own at all. No matter what the story is - your story, their story, my story. The ending is Beautiful because the ending is Redemption.

"I want you to leave your heart here. Take ours with you." This great pastor from Congo. He and his family had been forced to run into exile. He had lost many of his loved ones in the wars. His Life - his Story - spoke of strength and his soft and gentle disposition spoke of Hope. A gentleness like I have rarely seen. Our last night with them he said this: "The bible tells us... 'Now that you have seen, go and tell' I ask of all of you '... now that you have seen, go and tell."

Go And Tell

What good is a Story that is not told? What good is a Life that is not learned from? What Beauty is seen from a Life's story of Wisdom when it is told for generations to come?

So I sit here in my favorite restaurant in my favorite Tennessee hide away with tears falling down my cheeks and songs of Redemption in my ears. After spending the day telling about these chidlren's storeis time and time and time again. And my heart says this....

We Live our Stories so they can be told. It is when we see into the Scars of others and hear their stories of the Pain behind them that we step into their Story as well. And when we begin to love them - simply Love them - we begin to step into the story of Redemption. Not of our own strength.... but of the heart and soul of a Crucified Creator whose Suffering branded us to Him for eternity. That is what makes the ending of all Suffering beautiful.

That is what makes Survival worth it.

"....there is a force in this world that does not want us to tell (our) stories. It doesn't want us to face our issues, to face our fear, and bring something beautiful into the world.... I believe God wants us to create beautiful stories.... I don't know why there are dark forces in the world, but there are" - Donald Miller

And because there are, I will go. And I will tell. One. Story. At. A. Time. As they come to me. With no particular rhyme or reason. Because they are beautiful and honoring and they need to be told.

If these Strong Souls can live through them, how can I keep from telling them?