There are moments where I become keenly aware that I’m not just body and mind, I’m spirit too. Moments where something deep in me connects with something much, much bigger. It feels like…

Deep Awe.

Irrepressible Hope.

Illogical Peace.

Quiet Love.

The Celts had a great description for these places – they called them ‘thin’. As in, the divide between natural and supernatural seems thinner than what we normally experience. For those celtic seekers, ‘thin places’ were locations. For me, these moments are strongest as I…

 

Stand beside death-beds, as loved ones slip from life to death.

Birth my children into this world.

Lay awake in the dark of the night, asking questions about life and purpose and meaning.

 

How often do we rail against these moments? We fight death, we fear birth and we do our damndest to make sure we’re too busy, or too drunk, or too social in the hope we can ignore what’s happening under the surface of our skin.

But the noumena calls out loudest in these moments, grabs our face with both hands and forces us to look at the spiritualness of our humanity. These moments arrest us and remind us that there is more. And we are more. And this life is not all. And death is not all.

 

For a Christian, it isn’t enough to visit thin places a few times in a calendar year, ignoring the relationship between physical & spiritual the rest of the time (I’m looking at you, Sundays and Christmas and Easter)

For a Christian, the invitation is extended to us to live every single day thin. We are called to, daily, visit the thinnest place of all – the foot of the cross.

 

Here we can plumb the depths of true, fierce love.

Here we can surrender the smallness of ‘me’ into the immensity of Him.

Here we can experience life as a divine collision of heaven and earth.

 

Two questions for us all to consider…

Firstly, what helps you get to a thin place? The ocean? Singing at church? Star gazing? Meditation?

And, when was the last time you allowed yourself to truly pause, sink in and visit your thin place?

 

“He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”

― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

Here is Felix’s birth story, which we can laugh about now, but was certainly not funny at the time. It was a bit fast and furious… He was fast. I was furious.

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Heads up. There is a moment in this post where I get swear-y. I know, it’s not great, but it’s my foible and I’ll own it. Besides… I reckon birth is one of those times you get a hall pass to do whatever you need to do to get through. So if you didn’t swear in labour, that’s AMAZING, but if it offends you, stop reading and go shine your well-earned halo. I’ll post something else next week.

0100
Water breaks. Initial thought: “I’ve peed the bed.” Guess agaaaiiiin! We leave a cancellation message for the day spa where I was meant to go to tomorrow to get a massage : ( I wouldn’t get to enjoy that massage for another 5 months.

0130
I have a shower, wash my hair,  shave my legs and blow-dry my hair. Why not? Dog is very confused as to why we’re all awake. Zac calls the birthing unit to see whether we should go in.

0230
We go in because there is so. much. liquid. Zac is speeding on the freeway… even though I’m not having contractions and I’m not in pain.

0330
No contractions, but water has definitely broken. I’m 38w3d so that means we’re good to go and deliver the baby. Midwives set us up in a double bed to ‘get some rest’ overnight. Ha. Hahaha. Haha.

0730
Midwife walks in, grabs my belly and says, “Good morning! Let’s have a baby!” Spends rest of morning filling in charts and swapping war stories with the other midwife about weapons they kept under their pillows back in South Africa. Highlights include: a scalpel, a metal pipe, a gun.

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When our women fail in courage,
Shall our men be fearless still?

L.M. Montgomery

This quote reminded me of you. 

I’m on pins and needles to see what crazy stuff God has planned for you next! Take your fearless nature into whatever he has for you, and know that your courage changes the world. It has certainly changed mine.

xx

Two weeks ago, a neighbour on our street pulled us aside, so angry her voice shook and she had tears in her eyes. Turns out, all year long, she’s been recording the number plates and arrival time of our guests. Some of whom have parked in front of her house. Not on the verge (public land anyway) but just on the street. Apparently she doesn’t like it… She really doesn’t like it. She finally confronted us only because when she went to the council and they didn’t do anything. Because unfortunately for her, it’s perfectly legal for people to park on the street.
The last 5 days and nights, Felix has had my number and he’s called it every. two. hours. to eat. It’s frustrating, and super exhausting.
Honest moment: I didn’t live up to my own standards when these things happened.

I rehearsed the most epic burns in our kitchen about the parking.
I thump the pillow with my fist when I see it’s only 10:40pm, and 1:20am, and 4:05am and 5:50am.

But in my head, I want to be a good Christian, hell, I’d settle for being a decent human. Someone characterised by love. So after the rant-rehearsal ends and my feet swing out of bed and hit the floor in the middle of the night, I’m left with a choice:
Do I do what they do and carry these feelings into the situation, let them define the experience? Or do I live higher?

…I’ve made my choice (for this week at least:)

 

So if you visit us, please don’t park on the street opposite our driveway.

And tonight when his little mouth drops off and he belly laughs his way to dreamland, I’ll kiss his cheek and whisper I love you… 

Because love, I’m reminding myself, is something proved again and again by choice, not by feel.

Oh, these motherhood days, what a contrast they’re proving to be.

There are moments of lush joy…

baby smiles
toddler conversations
knowing glances between this wife and her husband

But some days the dust and sand of it all start blowing in. Thick and fast until it’s all I see.

No one ever wants their life (or creativity, or relationships, or spirit) to become a desert, do they? Deserts are places of Desolation. Aridity. Isolation.

 

 

But I’m learning not to hate, but to embrace these desert places.

Like every desert I’ve been in, I’ve realised that for all they lack, deserts teem with life and the terrain is sharply beautiful.

 

The sand has scrubbed the air clean.
The stars are so bright you’re kept awake in wonder.
The stillness is heavy, drawing you in.

 

And it’s only when I’m in a desert place that the questions I ignore are allowed to rise in my soul…

Can I really matter?

And it’s only because I’m in the desert that I have pause enough to hear the answer…

“You came out here searching with a question, and I came out here looking for you with the answer! I’ve never quit loving you and I never will. Expect love, love and more love.” [Jeremiah 31:2-3]

 

 

So if the desert is where you find yourself today, I encourage you to open your soul to God, breathe the clean air, embrace the pause and let His love remind you again and again…

 

“I am enough for you always, even in this place.”

 

 

 

Images by Chantelle Malone Creative and Whisky Winter from their 2014 Morrocan adventure. (You guys need to go back – been too long!)