When Writing Feels Like Breathing

September 14, 2012October 1, 2012 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 20 Comments

I thought I wouldn’t write today.

But it felt like I was holding my breath.

And then my writer me wanted to pop my holding my breath me like I was a big balloon.

So I stuck the sharp pin in and let out all the air. It felt like there was something there that needed to be released. And it came gushing out, like the whoopie cushions we used in grammar school.

Like walking without seeing the all along the way, was moving through the day without breathing — that writing part of me.

The words became little oxygen holders, like place the mask on yourself before you help your children, or the passenger seated beside you. Like miniature oxygen tanks on wheels for the sick.

Like an asthmatic needs an inhaler the words became vital, life-giving.

Maybe when He lights the passion He doesn’t intend for you to hold your breath. Maybe if you were meant to encourage and give and serve and love, that if you stopped you might pop too. Or feel like you’d explode.

Maybe you get your breath back when you are obedient. The steady breathing resumes and the heart finds a peaceful rhythm when the artist gets on with making art or the servant gets back to serving. Or the doctor keeps on healing.

If doing the passion thing He gave gives life,then stopping may diminish it in some way.

Like the film went from color to black and white silent in a flash.

I thought I wouldn’t write today. I worry readers tire of the black marching words like ants at a picnic. They tread where they’re not wanted.

But then I recall the One for whom I write. And the one who called me to.

And I trust that He both steadies the hand and the heart. And the one lone traveller on the journey would stumble here if they were meant to come. And He could say you popped, you breathed, you are no longer blue from holding it in.

That the details rest with Him and the marching words bring back to Him a worship from an uncertain hand. The writer.

Who found that writing felt like breathing. And that not was not an option.

Just for today.

Until we cross back into tomorrow and He leads me back–to the page. And breathes words and thoughts and the what to write. To honor Him.

Or until He says, stop, wait, rest, no.

Joining Kris at Always Alleluia dot com

Dear God

September 13, 2012September 13, 2012 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 10 Comments

Dear God:

The Greek or the Latin may have words which feel richer and more accurate. Loftier and deeper.

But I have what I have. And you know the me that writes.

Father you know the heart, this heart of mine that writes to you. You sent your Son to be born in a stable, a humble place for the birth of our Savior. But I want my words to be an extravagant gift, here, like Gold or something from a wise man.

To pour out a thirst for compassion and a hunger to help.

But my words in this letter are what I have today, like mana. Its my gift of worship and it feels small. Thank you for giving me the love for words, and especially Your Word. May the lines of this letter bless those that read.

You amaze, you always have and always will.

I offer nothing more than the deep mutterings of a heart that you broke, spoke into, caressed, shaped, molded, bent and formed. That beats and pumps beet red life, only because of your hand.

You need nothing but you desire me. Which is so humbling that I can hardly write or speak or think the thought.

You don’t need me, but you allow me to partner with you and you allow me to receive from you tender mercy blessings from seeing the world. Granting a bold peek, into how you may see things.

That you let my hand, my very fingertips, be a splinter in the plank of the bridge to children in poverty. Its a mystery I struggle to wrap my heart and head completely around. But you already know that. Because you know me so well.

You don’t need my $38 dollars to do anything. But you grant me the beautiful relationship with a child to be a fellow human traveller between hearts. You bridge the gap between the deep South of America and the hillsides of Peru.

And you bent my heart toward a child, Erlita, in the hillsides near Lima, in your perfect timing. This, is a holy mystery to me.

It pains my heart to think I could have released $38 a month every month of my entire life. Because you gave me much. You always have.

I think that the cloud of abundance is a type of poverty for me. It is a fog that blurs the view to the important.

Thank you for patiently waiting for me to release my small contribution. Thank you for loving me while I white-knuckled my blessings.

Please Lord, show me ways I can partner with you daily. Please open the eyes of my heart to the everyday need. And make me pliable in your hands to release what I am and what I have to others.

Thank you for providing through the ministry of Compassion International while I sat in my comfortable poverty of abundance.

Praise you, that you allow me to see that abundant living is giving. Extravagantly. Even if it’s only $38 a month. Your holy multiplication of resources is always compounded greatly in your loving power.

I am simply amazed by you. Because in the mysteries of the holy, in how you move and work in our very lives, you used a child to bust open my heart a little more. And maybe over time, it will be busted open wide. So that all you want to go in will have a wide entrance.

Because when I think of the mystery of your ways, I see that Erlita will bless me more and change me more than I can imagine or fathom.

I was alone when I got the letter that she knew my name. But you were with me and saw that holy transaction. She knew my name and she knew she had a someone in her life. Lord, you saw that I have a someone in my life. A child I desperately needed. You gave us to each other.

He who is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and He will reward him for what he has done.

-Proverbs 19:17

Lord, please shape and change me, transform me through your child Erlita. She, a child, will change a woman in the United States. She will change a heart to ache to give and love more like You. She is changing me.

You have changed my heart through children before. But, you know this about me.

The relationship between us is in your hands. Erlita and Elizabeth, and all relationships which you move in and create, are in Your hands.

That you allow me to have the privilege of being a partner rattles me to the core with humble thanks.

Your child still,

Elizabeth

This letter to God is part of the September Blog Month for bloggers. We are blogging for Compassion International with a goal of stirring the hearts of over 3,108 NEW sponsors for children, in 30 days.

God is at work in His world. 837 new sponsors for Compassion Children have
stepped into partnership, with 2,271 wonderful hearts yet to move and work with compassion as a sponsor.

May I ask you to learn more? You may email me if you’d like, if you have questions.

But everything you need to know is at the Compassion International website for child sponsorship. You may not feel lead to be involved, but will you please take a moment to visit and pray over the children who need a sponsor. That is a gift of love. That is an extravagant gift from your heart.

Know that I am grateful for each of you in my life, in Christ’s name…ministering for His Glory….

Linking with Imperfect Prose , Thought Provoking Thursday, Faith Barista

Story: Remembering, Praying, Healing

September 11, 2012September 12, 2012 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 17 Comments

“Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the intrument as one goes on.” Samuel Butler from Chapter 10 “The Life of a Storyteller” from Annette Simmons “The Story Factor.”

She cuts hair and her words cut my heart. And I listen to the story. Someone has released a colony of bees in my insides, the buzz and sting compete with the sweet honey making in one stirring moment.

I hear the happy. But I process the other.

There is a man who has walked this earth for close to a half of a century. He just connected with his birthmother. Worlds and emotions collide. And the telling is a beautiful mix of God and man and life and living.

In a flash of living a man with a mother now has two.

Hearts and life and souls and God are on a course moving foward and the lines of grace and redemption criss cross like the tracks of zipper teeth.

A forward moving narrative.

She cuts my hair. Her words cut my heart. Because I have a child with a birth mother. And so I release the possibilities of circumstance and discovery in his life. She cuts my hair and the story cuts deep my momma heart.

And the story is being written.

There are chapters and pages and lines with hurt, in my own. Wet smears the line of the ink still wet. Dries in a blur. But dries nonetheless. And the pages stay in. There is no ripping or removal. It all stays in.

The beautiful bound spine can contain both and.

Remember, praying, while healing.

And the violin solo, played in public only gets more beautiful with each note, with grace like resin on the squeeky bow. With grace like resin smoothing the out of tune and the parts that sound off key, seeming beautiful in the learning of the living. Seeming beautiful in the practice done on the life stage. There is no rehearsal.

And yesterday’s story and today’s story are bound in guilded gold, saved and savored, while remembering, praying and healing.

The same salt that enhances flavor and adds to, can rub in a wound, or help make an icy road passable. Or bring a non-believer toward a Jesus Follower questionning the beautiful, questionning the story, seeking to know more.

Or in excess make us thirsty, with a thirst that feels unquenchable in the longing for wet to hit the parched, the dry, the brittle.

Releasing the thoughts of my adoptive son seeking his birth mother in a one day page of his story, and hoping that when that chapter is written on our pages, we will pray, while remembering, pray while healing, and pray in our forward living.

And God, tosses mercy, like coins in the velvet-lined violin case of the sidewalk city soloist. His gentle affirmation, His constant love. He listens in love. And finds the story of the soloist, beautiful. And sings the chorus of grace.

Amazing, how sweet, it saves.

Linking with Heather and Jen and Eileen and Jennifer, Duane, and Ann. As well as Courtney

(You are cordially invited to follow on wynnegraceappears facebook page. And you are warmly invited to follow this blog by subscribing below. It would be pure joy to have you along on this grace-filled journey. Scroll down to learn more. You bless.)

Why There Is Always A Back Story

September 10, 2012September 10, 2012 ~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 10 Comments

“Say what you need to say,then leave.”

Seth Godin’s words today on his blog intigue me. A lot. His blog is wonderful. If you haven’t discovered it you should. Great insight, wisdom, and just plain good stuff there.

My heart crosses the concept of narrative and story often. I am reading “The Story Factor” by Annette Simmons, the full title of which is “Inspiration, Influence, and Persuasion Through the Art of Storytelling.”

In it is a stirring quote from Jim Harrison, “The answer is always in the entire story, not a piece of it.”

Yesterday’s sermon focused on Isaiah 40:21-31, our story, our life’s narrative. And God, He plays a major role too. As He thankfully does. And did in the sermon. Its a good thing, right. (There is already a back story raising its not-so-ugly-head here. You may want to go to the archives of the blog to read of my love for Him and some of my Christian “story”.)

So much to gnaw on. And I love stories. I seem to learn well when story is used as a tool.

I seem to remember events when there is a story woven like silken threads through a snapshot of life. Is that what story is? Isn’t that what Jesus did when he told parables. Very brief. Very powerful. Very important.

But what of the back story? The parts thinly veiled or left untold. What of the living that lead up to the event?

Are we left to wonder, to guess, to write a narrative around the unknown parts.

“Say what you need to say, then leave.” I love the one, two bunch of the brief. The potency and power in the short. In the very intense, undiluted telling. The concentrated strength of the brief.

Is this why I love the poetic.

Is this the beauty of poetry? Isn’t this the beauty of poetry?

Can the backstory show up in poetry in a way unique to the poetry format.

There is a beautiful backstory to these pictures, of my daughter, taken by The Patient One.

I want to tell you the story.

I think I’ll write a poem. But knowing my bent toward longer forms, maybe I’ll go write a proem, entitled “Salt” because that is why the beautiful winged-one lit on the beautiful girl-child.

It was all because of the salt.

Have I been salt to someone today?

{Will you come back tomorrow to hear more on story, the beginning the middle and the glorious endings. It’s really our life narratives. And aren’t they beautiful?

My heart is about to burst wide open to tell a beautiful one of a man I know. Its his story. It is beautiful. And I will ask permission to tell it this week. What a glorious story he is having? How is your story going.}

Counting gifts with Ann at A Holy Experience dot com.

Today as I think of writing my “Salt” poem, being brief when I write (because your lives are busy and you may not have time to ready the longer posts), and as I dream of how to tell the story of my friend which my heart bends into because it is an adoption story. I have a particular fondness for adoption stories, did you know that?

….. I am counting gifts, quietly, because you may have places to go, people to see, and a story to live.

Go live it with an extra dash of “salt”. I hope I will see you tomorrow.