I had an epiphany this moring, and I've lost it. If you see it let me know.

Today I feel so unfit. Not in a "I can't run down the street" kind of way, but in a "Why am I doing this" sort of haze.

I am swimming in detox. I keep trying to remember to drink water, but I get busy and, well, the detox makes me forget. I've talked to several friends today, who pick up instantly that I am distracted and cruising on auto-pilot. I don't like auto-pilot. She's untrustworthy.

Life at our house is once again recreating itself. Each day brings something new, and its both beautiful and painful. Like childbirth or any wonderful piece of art. In this space, I hurt.

It's not depression. It's not anxiety.

It's cleansing. It's moving. It's what is going to free us to be God-pilot-ed (God-pilot-ed...I have officially worn out poetic license with that one). I need to feel all this. I need my heart to beat to each and every pain that is flushing out of this body. This is where life is. Past the numbness, the 'put-out-of-my-mindness' (uh, I guess I had one more in there...), the self-centered me who is 'so over me', and into feeling truly, for the first time.

With so many people just getting to know me, it's hard to tell everyone what it is. But it is exactly this. Movement. Recreation. Good Health. God working...on the cellular level to remove what I've hoarded as "my owned pain". It's crazy to imagine the action at the cross working on microscopic levels, but being completely free means it has to, doesn't it?

My love is rescuing me, and I lean into His catch.
My love is healing me, and I take His remedy in trust.
My love is loving me, and I am flushed in His flesh...

Sometimes life is heavy. Today is one of those days, but tomorrow...?

Here's a poem I dug up from a ways back that I feel works for me today:

sentiments.

horse hair wispers blow
before these eyes
tangled on inhales and exhales
shallow movements
beneath breasted burdens
where life settled
as a lake on lungs,
vacuolated

but breathing
(these exact sentiments);



or maybe
it's just this day.

****

And here's another one:


hulled.

i write this,
just because you might read it

encounter me
through the pane


where
womanhood is framed
and faced to weather
constant reflections:

days trailing off her right eye
years slipping across her brow

and that one risk
that could only be taken
from behind glass.

****

Ok, last one...this one was written for my husband, but I don't know if he's ever read it...

ring.

so Love,

shall we press ourselves further--
pull the string on these bodies
we've sewn together,
and as our sleeves slide to the ground

circle one another,
out of these skins
unrestrained


and
against the law of reserve,
cast our hoard onto
onto an altar of fire
purify ourselves for freedom

leave behind
our mocking bones
thumbing their teeth
and join within this idiom built for two

as
our outsides lay in the dust
we will open our lungs
cracking this holy air
we share
and rise


on the ring of our vows
two be alive.


****

Thank you all for loving me. I love you.

Here's a poem I am working on...

If you get bored, let me know what you think! It's in progress.


wild.


i used to be wild,
and wild i ran,
folding only to sun’s burn
& moon charms
where i’d abandon arms
& lie
(lay lie)
to the heart
i promised not to promise
hands i swore would never owe
feet, i was convinced could outrun the world,

until now—

as facing You in every thing
is the oath i’d break
the trove i’d forsake:
this life i turn within Your womb
seeded by Son’s enchanted love
until i drop
in two hands
forming me by the extravagance of being known,
& releasing me untamed

to the wild.

Two days, 100% raw...things are happening. :)

Emotions running high.
Detoxing some random allergy (probably the doggie).
My gut is happy.

These last few days have been rough, my brother's been in the hospital, and God has really spoken to me through it. I doubt it would be a coincedence that within the same 24 hours of recommitting to a high raw food diet, my brother would be hospitalized for a compacted colon. Or, that's what I am calling it. They are calling it a 'kink' in his hose. Ironic isn't it? How technical.

So, he's laying in a bed, and every now and then siezing up in this gripping pain, I can only describe as labor-like, and I am thinking...if I could get him to my house, I'd have him working in a week (or less). It hit me pretty hard, I couldn't believe that I was actually looking at a 'case study' of everything I have read on colons, poop, proper nutrition, dis-ease—and it's in my family...this is what I am preventing for my kids. I kept looking at him, passed out, with an angio tube up his nose, IV in one arm, oxygen in his nose feeling guilty that I am not an 'evangelistic' nutrition nazi. Not that it would have saved him from this grief for me to be a psycho, but still...

Priority one...is God. God is the one imposing this on my conscience. I've been battling with whether or not being a raw foodist was idol worship. I think it would be, if my life revolved around food, thinking of food, eating food, craving food, etc. I truly thought maybe I had started to go down this road of idol worship until it hit me the other day after lunch with a friend...I only get uncomfortable about my choices when I am in the spotlight about it (whether good or bad). For some reason, I start to feel as if I am picky because I am different. But I'm not picky. At home, I am just fine eating or not eating, and I don't obsess over food like I used to when I was cooked (i.e. I used to be fixing breakfast and wondering what I was going to eat for lunch, etc.). I guess, what living on the cutting edge of nutrition and truly living is going to look like, is much like hanging out in the front yard nude in your bathing suit. Everyone can see me, my bumps, scars and can see how my choices have affected me. I feel exposed, which is ok, but uncomfortable. I did decide this week, that it's ok not to change my choices just to get a towel to cover up. I decided that if God has called me to this life, He's standing naked right there with me, and in that I can do anything.

Shoot, I watched 7 kids all under the age of 9, all by myself today and no one died. I didn't even raise my voice but once when they just couldn't hear me. This is the me God wants me to be. When I can offer grace, I know I am living in grace, and that is a great feeling.

PLUS...if I get pregnant, I really want to have a goal of a highly raw pregnancy. I want to birth at home. I want it to be exstatic, and exhausting and wonderful. And if I don't get pregnant, then I want to have the best day ever, every day. :) I can do that when I don't live in fear of sickness. I can do that when I know I am walking where I should be.

:)

I am off.

My diet is off track a little, well...not diet...way of eating is more like it.
My sleep schedule is off track.
My work is off track.
My thoughts are off track...

It must be summer!! :)

I am so glad for it, although it's sweltering in Houston. An old friend of mine used to call it "The armpit of America." Pretty gross, but right on.

But that's not the only thing I've got going on. It seems like my whole house is shedding (and not just the new dog...which we will be shedding in a week or so to my dad's ranch in Wimberley).

My appliances are tired. Every one of them.
My closets need weeding.
(and so do everyone else's)
My study needs...a miracle.
My car needs cleaning, and a renewed sticker.

And all I can think about is how fun it is to play outside and eat popsicles. This is relaxed. My life is going through a new level of redefinement...I can be active in God, and relaxed in my space. Awesome. I am starting to think about another book to write. It's going to be about a man. I may get to write one of my book ideas some day, so far I have three, which ought to keep me busy until I am 110. And, since I love raw food so much, things will just be getting good. ;)

I need to practice proper sleeping. I am trying to get into my ideal self before Mark's vasectomy reversal. I am so excited and scared for what is ahead! I keep thinking of all the things I want to do before we have a baby, and then I think...um, I can so do that with a baby. Dork. I am going to have to read up on everything again, from start to finish. My friend told me today that you can't have goat cheese or feta cheese or blue cheese when you are pregnant because of bacteria or something. Who knew? I don't eat cheese, but there's probably other stuff I need to remember. Scary! But fun. :0)

Well, we've decided against adopting two children that attend our church. This was the hardest three to four days I have seen in a LOOOOOOOOOONG time. I am relieved they are past, and that we can concentrate on the blessings and hopes before us that God has already set in motion.

Please pray for Andrie and Patience as they continue their journey to find their parents. And please pray for Allison and Laura as they are still actively seeking a family for the kids.

i am just me.
if i make myself out to be more,
i'm less.
if i make myself out to be less,
i'm less.

i don't know what i am doing, and
i'm neither right or wrong, all the time.

but i pledge to be present
before God
and you
as me,

nothing more
nothing less.

I've been published! Well, as much as blogging is publishing...so I guess I could celebrate this way every time I manage ten minutes to collect my thoughts into this blog...but wait, there's one more element. I was accepted into a collection of women writers--that's the difference! If you'd like to check it out, here's the link:

http://faithinadress.blogspot.com

I am totally jazzed, and really humbled.


I am exhausted. I have so much on my heart and mind..it's like a game they are playing... one daring the other to take on a little more...and both peeking from behind their own shelters to see which one ruptures first. Nasty!

I know God is stretching me, I just wish it was a little slower, a little less pressured. Here's what's looking me in the eye:

Adoption. Should we? Should we in one week? Seems like a lot to expect myself to handle in one week...although the kids wouldn't come until the end of the summer probably. YIKES! What would that look like???!!! Both exciting and terrifying (just like God likes it, I am convinced)!!

Pray for us, we need it so desperately. I am really confused and scared. Down deep I am excited at the thought...but it is WAY down deep as we haven't even established a relationship with these children, and truly have to make a decision asap. Pray for the other family that is praying about adopting these kids as well...maybe they would be a better fit? Pray most of all that I truly start to know in my heart and mind that God knows better than I do...and in the end, if we do it, I KNOW that I will look back on this and say, "How could we ever have lived without them?"

In Love,

Kelly