swim.

i sat at the edge of the water, frozen (literally and figuratively). we've had a bit of a "cool" snap here even though we've already experienced a month plus of summer like temperatures. and the water, well, it's a bit chilly.

i sat there dumbfounded why i couldn't jump in; i love the water and i love to swim. and i'm used to 68 degree water. i'm fast and i have my strokes down, but everything in me stuck there... pool side. after about 15 minutes of the internal battle (I want to go in, I can't go in, Why can't I just go in?), it hit me what the issue was. i was lonely. my friend who recently passed and her best friend were my pool companions just four years ago. carla was a motivator to get in the water; she always went in first. and she swam hard. the accountability of having them call me up and invite me to swim with them, healed a lot in me; brokenness, body image issues, and a need for friends in my life. there is something about exercising together. it's like a battle, fighting side by side, taking a Clayborne to the lies and the self deprecating soliloquies on beauty and worth.

and there i sat. remembering with nostalgia and mourning the loss of something sweet, something powerful, something right. missing those days. missing carla and her amazing and fighting spirit.

but with that remembrance, i remembered the battle. i remembered the inner battle cry; i am no coward. i am a warrior. And then, I jumped in the chilly water.

you are no coward. YOU are a warrior.

coming to the quiet

When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. Wendell Berry

it's the time of year, lenten season, where some surrender and give up something particular. it's been quiet around the house even though life is full and much is buzzing around me. but it's quiet because of giving up unnecessary things. and noisy things. i've also tried to make time for being quiet, creating space for the quiet.

we have a work out center near us that is very convenient. but there are televisions everywhere and it looks out on a man made structure and there are machine noises and tv noises and ipod noises and the sound the treadmill makes as my shoes scuff across it. it feels synthetic. it is synthetic.

and then 20 minutes from our place, there is a smallish lake. yes, i am aware that it is a man made lake, but it has created something natural and organic. it is where geese and ducks swim, where deer come to the bank for a drink or to stand by and watch, where fathers bring their children to fish and mothers take them to kayak, where families come to walk together and be together.

i love going there to exercise, to sit, to watch the families of all sizes and nationalities, to feel the breeze off the lake caress my face. i go there to sit and pray and listen to God. to walk and push through worries and fears, to let them go and walk forward trusting Him.

and though nature buzzes above my head and groups of people pass me by, it is quiet and still.

touching on grief...

"It is hard to have patience with people who say 'There is no death' or 'Death doesn't matter.' There is death. And whatever is matters. And whatever happens has consequences, and it and they are irrevocable and irreversible. You might as well say that birth doesn't matter." C.S. Lewis

Someone recently said something that has stuck with me as I process and mourn the loss of my friend. Death is not natural. Death was not a part of life before the fall; it came after it. Death was not meant for this life. We were not meant for death.

Grief is like a wrestling match. There are times when I feel like I have conquered it, I raise my hands in triumph and grief surprises me and pins me down again. All cultures have many different ways to process grief. We all have different ways of going through it. It's just that it is important to go through the process of grief... and not avoid it. I don't want to scan pictures for her memorial because it means it really happened. But I will.

i miss my friend.

juxtaposition of life and death

These last few days have been extraordinarily strange as life and death converged and sorrow and celebration dined at the same table. "There is a time for everything under the sun" but this time, the sun rose and set while both weeping and rejoicing mingled together.

My dear dear friend Carla died Sunday. We met 12 years ago as she welcomed me to a new church and opened her life and heart to friendship as well. She led a small group of people who loved each other well and fellowshiped together sharing meals, tears, laughter, prayers and fun. We worshiped together in truest form acknowledging the amazing sovereignty of God and sweet Grace God gave us through Christ. A year after meeting, Carla, Libby, Rema and I all moved in together in a sweet house of fellowship, healing, laughter, and ordinary life all mixed in one.

Carla prayed with power. Carla recognized the authority of Christ and prayed with that authority. I tell you, mountains were moved. More than once, she prayed with me for God's healing in my life from past hurts and past lies I was believing about myself which were not in line with God's view of me. Carla recognized a pain I had carried for years and with her help, we gave it back to Christ's able hands.

Carla went through more on this earth than what any person should. It could crush anyone of us, but God's healing and his love for Carla gave her life. Three years ago, she was diagnosed with cancer. The first round, she was healed. The second round, healing once again. This third round was brutal on her earthly body. She stopped treatment a month ago giving up on man's solutions but never on God's. In His mercy, she was released to go Home, and there is no better place to be.

I miss her. Many of us miss her. She was well loved. But now she has been greeted in Heaven with love and joy and rejoicing. It's funny. I cry every time I think of that. I'm so happy for her! And I grieve this planet's incredible loss. There is Joy that she is alive with Christ. There is sadness that so many will miss out on Carla's testimony of Faith and the love God has shown her.

Sunday she passed. Monday was my birthday. Tuesday we welcomed a new niece.

Celebrating Life with loss lingering in the air is hard and baffling and profound. Immediately it reminded me of the words of a hymn. The most profound sorrow and rejoicing I know of is Christ's death. In His death, there was so much pain and loss, but with it there IS so much gain.

See, from his head, his hands, his feet,
sorrow and love flow mingled down.
Did e'er such love and sorrow meet,
or thorns compose so rich a crown.

When I Survey the Wondrous Cross by Isaac Watts (1674-1748)



where o death is your sting?  where o death is your victory?

love must be sincere.

hate what is evil.

cling to what is good.

outdo one another in showing honor.

rejoice in hope.

show hospitality.

be patient in affliction.

be faithful in prayer.

bless those who persecute you.

rejoice with those who rejoice.

mourn with those who mourn.

live in harmony.

do not be proud.

do not be conceited.

Do not take revenge.

leave room for God’s wrath.

do not be overcome by evil.

overcome evil with good.





i didn't write any of those words. they belong to another. and no, it's not 1 corinthians; it's romans 12, shuffled around a bit. and it's true. to love and really love, to say that you are someone who loves means putting aside your own desires for those of another. it means letting go of anger and showing kindness. it means rejoicing with someone who is happy when you're not so happy. it means laying aside your joy to mourn with someone who is mourning. it means holding fast to goodness. it means no hypocrisy. it means love is not a feeling. it is action.

i cringe every time i hear someone equate love with a feeling. you're selling yourself short. you're cheapening love. and if there is no action behind the word love, it's not love at all.

this is love in action. this is true, sincere love.

ebenezers and milestones

"Here I raise my ebenezer, Here by Thy great help I've come."
Come Thou Fount by Robert Robinson

The term "ebenezer" is not a common one and usually congers up images of Charles Dicken's character Ebenezer Scrooge and a grumpy, old codger of a man. The truth of the term is beautiful. Ebenezer comes from the Hebrew "Even Haezer" meaning "Stone of Help". In the book of Samuel, Samuel places a stone down in an area where a battle had been won calling it, Ebenezer, and remembers God's help to the Israelites in defeating the Philistines and the reclaiming the Ark of the Covenant. Samuel states, "Thus far the Lord has helped us."

What a remarkable and memorable year 2010 was. I do raise an ebenezer. At a later age than most young women, I was married to a man I am most grateful for, a man I fall in love with more and more. I listened to my husband's prodding and the internal artist God has created me to be and submitted a poem to a contest and won 4th place. I fell ill for a while only to find new healing. With N by my side, we walked 10 miles, something I hadn't been able to do since first becoming sick 3 years ago.

I now look back at the milestones to see how far I've come, how far "we" have come, and I know with certainty, it could not have happened as it has without God's help. I cannot take credit. I start this year, knowing that the past successes,recoveries and joys have come with help. Not just a little help. By HIS good Grace.

oh, to Grace how great a debtor, daily i'm constrained to be...

prepare Him room

Draped under a purple burlap sky,
We wait, We fast;
We Pray, pregnant with Hope,
Anticipating a longed for Salvation,
For the word made flesh;

And, now, we behold His tiny form,
Bundled incarnate purity,
Swaddled pink humanity;
And his cry rings out
Echoing prophetic the voices of Eternity
And the weight of glory,
Falling on an audience of sheep and goats;

Joy to the World!
The Heavenlies welcome on earth
Whom they bowed to,
Whom they knew as King;
Magnificence unknown to human eye,
Left behind
For the chisel and plane,
For the olive wood,
For the ox and trough,
For smelly, moist, rotting hay.

Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!
Debts erased by his inch long fingers
And a life forfeit;
Again I say, Rejoice, Oh world!
With solemn hearts lifted
In awe of a babe.

copyright Micah McDonald 2010