shelter

I have mirrors hanging in my house and poetry written on my windows,

both for the same reason--

so I can see myself.

Yesterday on the largest window in my home, 

I scribbled the words,


"I felt it shelter to speak to you".  

--Emily Dickinson


I left Emily's words there, 

to better see 

me.


I mostly see the absence of myself in Emily's words on my window each time I walk past.  

Truth is: I am rarely the shelter and am often the tempest.

I am the storm instead of the safe place.

Often I bring honesty and opinion and forget to bring subtilty and tenderness.

I live my life with an umph and urgency that doesn't leave alot of space for others.

But I so want to be a shelter...


The whole wide world is wild and a bit rowdy.

Crazy things happen everyday.

Big bursts and small ones.

Lives are changed and lunches made.

Self control is lost and so are keys.

I want to be a shelter from it all.  

For my kids and my partner.

For my friends and neighbors.

For my sisters and my people  (and also anyone who needs it.)

But it's beyond me.


A shelter doesn't just magically come into existence.

Someone has to build it.

Someone strong.

I happen to know a builder.

He's been offering for awhile to take me and make me something new.

He wants to redeem all my pieces and parts and make me into something that can somehow be used...

He looks at me with some imagination.

He sees the unique parts that only belong to me...the beautiful ones I try to cling to.  

He sees all my lost and broken bits... and He thinks he can use those too.

He longs to make a shelter out of me--

a shelter for not only my children but also the cast-offs that no one wants to claim.

He wants to come in and take my crazy and make me cozy.

He wants to make me both a home for my own and those who've never known home.

Right now I look more like a junkyard of stray dreams and half-started things.  

I am all and sundry. 

Odds and ends.

I'm a wistful pile of rubble.

The Creator-God promises He can move in and make sense of it all.  


So much for making something of myself...

I'm quite relieved to find I'm not alone at this work.

I often get confused and think the point is to become more like me

when this whole life is about looking more like Him.  

Shelter.

Helper.

Home.