" to more than I can be...."

"I only hope
someday you find,
that you can believe
in me..."

I was reading some of the emails and notes I have received about a post I wrote, for this blog last winter, about my niece, Lily, and her mom, Laurie.  It brought to mind both Dan Fogelberg's, "Believe in Me," and Westcliffe's version of "You Raise Me Up."

The emails, notes, and FB messages only confirmed for me, how much we all hunger to have someone in our life whole believes in us with all their being. 

Some wrote about their own mothers, fathers, aunts, teachers who encouraged them to live their lives boldly and courageously.  Others wrote of their heartbreak, their hunger for someone, anyone to believe in them.  There were so many teens who felt that "if only" they had someone's encouragement, they could become someone who would change the world.  And there were the moms, dads, and grandparents who still wondered if they could have made a difference in the world themselves...if only.

Today's post has a simple message.  It is never too late. 

I want to repeat that again.  It is never too late.  If all it takes is for someone to believe in you...then its done.  I believe in you.  But that isn't going to do it.  That isn't going to make it happen.  You have to believe in yourself.  You have to believe in the you that God created you to be...perfect, whole, complete, filled with inspiration, beauty, creativity, fully resourced with all that you need to "make it happen."

When I was a girl, I was a dancer, a writer, a painter.  I loved these things.  I saw myself as these things.  My mom and dad had seven (count 'em) seven other children...all younger than I was.  I mourned the fact that my parents could never see me dance in a performance, rarely had a moment to read my report card...much less my poetry, and didn't have the resources to support the purchase of canvases, paints, or charcoal. 

So, slowly my vision of myself as a deeply creative person seeped away like a slow-leaking pool...until all that was left were a few hobbies that I indulged in when everything else was done and all my real tasks were accomplished.

Until one day, I started spending time with the best cheerleader in the universe...God.  I began spending lots of time listening to what He had to say about me.  In the silence of this listening I started to remember what I loved and Who it was who put that love in my heart.  In honor of my love for God, I started honoring those loves.  Not self-indulgently, but God-encouraged, God-inspired, God-impelled.

I loved to write, so I wrote.  And if I wrote, I was a writer, a poet, a lyricist.  I loved to paint, so I painted.  And if I was painting, I was a painter, an artist.  I loved to sing, and if I was singing, I was a singer.  Get my drift?

The more I wrote...the more I would find myself writing.  I put writing, not at the end of my list of the day's priorities, but at the beginning...right after my time with God.  I let that first-things-first time with God, set the agenda for my day.  And God is Love, so if Love said "write first," that's what I did.

You, every one of you...every one of us...has someone who believes in us and stands behind us, saying, "You are amazing, you can do it.  Go ahead...sing, write, paint, climb, run, speak....

Don't let anyone tell you anything about what you can't do.  They are lying to you.  I don't care who they are.  They can be a parent, a school administrator, a church leader, a counselor...it doesn't matter.  If God, Love, is telling you that you love to sing...then sing. 

As Dan sings:

"Too many hearts have been broken,
failing to trust what they feel..."

Trust what you feel.  Trust that it is Love, that is moving you to love...whatever it is you love.  You do it, and keep doing it.  Practice really does make perfect.  Do it because you love it, and others will love it too.  You will inspire them with your courage...and God will always be there to celebrate with you...to encourage you, to cheer you on. 

I hope that you will never forget to love the you that dreams big...

always,

Kate
Poet

*the photo is of my dear friend, and talented artist, Brooks Anderson...I thought you might enjoy visiting his website.  His paintings bless our home with generous beauty.

"Abide with me...."

"Abide with me
Fast breaks the morning light
Our daystar rises
Banishing all night
Thou art our strength
O Truth that maketh free
We would unfailingly abide in Thee…"
-     W. H. Monk

Today I am thinking a lot about what it means to really abide in God, to "abide in the doctrine of Christ"….not just visit.

This timeless hymn's last verse, and I always seem to hear it in Mindy Jostyn's beautiful voice,  began to give me a glimpse…

"…I know Thy presence
every passing hour,
I know Thy peace,
for Thou alone art power;
O Love divine,
abiding constantly,
I need not plead,
Thou dost abide with me."

This hymn has long been a companion in times when I have felt like I was standing on the precipice of change…looking down into the chasm of "what if", wondering when the fall will come, if it will hurt, and then backing away as if God needed my consent to move me forward.

In those moments it is as if I forget that I am not waiting for Him to put His hand in mine so that with Him I could handle…or maybe even survive…the fall, but that He is the very chasm I am backing away from.  He is All-in-all.  There is no place, circumstance or situation I can find myself in that He is separate from.  It is my perception of the chasm as darkness and emptiness that I need to replace with the understanding of His omni-presence.  Where could I fall, but, as my grandmother used to say, "into the wideness of His lap."

One winter I faced a life-threatening health crisis.  One that left me feeling as if I was no longer on the precipice of a chasm, but already within one of those spiraling slides at the playground…only this one was a dark tunnel of pain and fear.  I could not see a circle of light at the end…only more darkness.  I was spinning out of control.  I could not find a way to stop myself.  I was gripped by the fear that without health insurance, the medication I might need for pain management so that I could stay mentally free enough to pray for myself would devastate us financially, the terror of not being able to care for my daughters…the doubt that I could face another night without losing my spiritual poise...seemed to draw me deeper and deeper into the tunnel.

Late one night as I lay on my back under a blanket of crushing pain and fear, the words from this hymn started to pierce the palpable blackness with pinpicks of the light.  And it was enough. With only the glimmer of light from those tiny pinpricks I found my lost courage cowering in a corner.  I slipped out of bed, into an old cardigan and padded my way across the cold wood floors, through pools of golden lamplight and into my office. 

The panes of glass in the French doors were frosted and the harsh edges softened, the lamplight from the city streets cast a soft beam upon the painting above my desk.  It is a painting by artist Brooks Anderson of the Collegiate Peaks, a range of 14,000 foot mountains that cradle the Arkansas Valley.  It is my heart's home.  It is where camp is located, and readers of this blog know that this is where my thoughts rest when I am lost in prayer. 

That night, lying in the dark, I had wondered if I would ever see my "home" in the valley again…if I would ever sit on the porch of my cabin, "Crows Nest" and look out at the Sleeping Indian range and listen to the laughter of campers and counselors on the lawn of Valerie Lodge.   As I stood in the deep blue pre-dawn light filling my office I realized that a beam of streetlamp light had found the spot on the painting where camp sits…in the palm of those five fingers…five avalanche chutes that fill with snow each winter and are often still traced in white when summer begins. 

I thought of Mary Baker Eddy's statement:

"The astronomer will no longer look up to the stars, -
  he will look out from them upon the universe..."

For the next few weeks this speck of paint became my home…my abiding place with God…the focus of my mental space…I looked out from the perspective I have when I am at camp…the "God with us" that is so evident when I watch teens abandon selfishness and help eachother, listen to hearts hungering for "something more", and feel the glow of their inspired journeys.  I sat on my porch looking out from the space of that painting in my office night after night while the winds of winter shook the tall sycamore trees and scattered the lamplight around me.  I used that painting to re-focus my vantage point.  I was not alone in the dark, in pain and afraid…I was sitting on the porch of Crowsnest watching God work His wonders.  I could feel His presence in their smiles, hear His voice in their laughter, see His hand in their discoveries. 

While the world slept in the hibernating cold of a long winter's "night" I was awake and alive to His promises.  I was living in a dot of paint, the slip of a sable brushstroke, a flick of light on canvas...I was abiding in summer's lanscape of healing and discovery, the space of expectation...pregnant with healing...full of the evidence of His love.

I did go back to camp that summer.  I sat on my porch and it was wonderful, glorious, beautiful…but then,  I had already been there all winter…I knew it would be.

With Love,
Kate