identity and my safe place

 by Alanna

The day after my son overturns my heart in the kitchen, I am driving past our pond and suddenly it comes to my heart out of nowhere. Who is my safe place? 

 People come and people go. A lot of both lately, but two people so close to us are leaving in the next 10 days. One we likely will never speak to again. One has become such a kindred spirit and I am not sure what I will do without her. Thankfully God does. In all these things I hurt.  I long for a safe place. Someone to hold me and whom I can find rest in.  I fight so hard for approval from people, fickle and sinful. Beautiful but marred. Long for a sign that my kids love me back, that any of all this investing has a payoff somewhere. But what am I fighting for really? Who am I? This morning I cried so hard because letting people close to you means letting them hurt you. It means forgiveness and crying in the shower and into your pillow, swallowing all that pain but really just surrendering it. Remembering that on the cross Jesus bore all of our sins and all of our sorrows.

People come and people go. Like me, broken. I love them but I can't find myself in them. Jesus is my Redeemer, brother, friend. He is my safe place.  

fear and your safe place

 by Alanna

It was one of those afternoons. 5 p.m. The house a wreck. Raw meat in the fridge, snack dishes still in the sink. Baby crying because he didn't nap well earlier and doesn't seem inclined to nap now. The backyard isn't picked up again. Me feeling like a failure. I start rehearsing those lines in my head before I even know what is happening. You suck at life. But this time I stop, reign it in. Pray. I remember the feeling of soil on my hands, because 20 minutes ago I was digging in it with eight little hands helping mine. We planted lettuce, flowers, collard greens, and something with pink stems that I can't remember the name of. Not because I think they will survive but because someone gave them to me for free and I so long for my kids to learn to grow things in the earth even if their mama can't. I give them til tomorrow before the rabbits and squirrels eat them. But it was so fun.

My kind husband takes four of the kids so I can have just one with me in the kitchen. My true middle child. He loves being here. He would be my kitchen assistant every day if he could, but Tuesdays are his day so he revels in them. Today he sits up on the counter and we start mixing spices for meatballs. I ask him why he likes being my kitchen assistant so much. Because he likes cooking? Or he likes hanging out with me? "Well, mm, I do like, mm, cooking pasta." Sometimes his constant pauses and backtracks annoy me but in this moment they are so beautiful.  "But I also like, mm, spending time with you. Because when I'm with you, mm, I think about you, and not about anything scary. So that's why I like it." I stop with my hand in the meat, look into his eyes. It hits me so weighty. I am his safe place. And this feels heavy in a way that lightens my heart of so many loads. So many things don't matter anymore. The long list of things I never seem to accomplish. The bathroom trash overflowing. The sticky spots under the table. I realize all at once in this moment that my kids don't care about any of this. And it's not what they will remember when they grow up. They will remember that I was their safe place. And in this one way maybe I am not failing them. Even when I feel so lost and lacking.  Praise the Lord.  

Need a Little Christmas (The Light of the World)

By Mary

The holidays are long over, the new year already speeding along. Still Christmas lights shine from many a house as I walk with my husband and our dog along the darkened streets at night. They all seemed to be brought out early too. "All bets are off this year,” I heard people say, “We all just need some extra comfort and cheer.” I sang snippets of the familiar song in my head as all the lights showed up long before Christmas—We need a little Christmas, right this very minute…And the truth hidden within them struck me. It might not be candles and carols that we’re in need of, but how we need Christmas! How we need Christ and His entering into our world to redeem us! How we need His comfort and hope and light.

 Whether it was the heaviness of the past year or talk of a long, dark winter stretching out in front of us, Jesus as the Light was constantly on my mind at the closing of the year. And whether or not Jesus was actually born in December, I love the beauty of celebrating the Light of the World at the darkest time of the year, the lights sprinkled through neighborhoods and inside our homes becoming a reminder that He is our Light and Life—on the grayest, gloomiest of days, and the deepest darkness in our spirits.

 “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.”