LOVE BREAKS MY BONES

i dressed in golden light and tucked sunbeams in my hair. 

and i didn't know what i was made of, until i sat down on the front porch step and watched the clouds go by. sunlight is a surgeon's knife. i did not expect to be cut so deeply. but it's over now, and i have finished sewing the skin of my sternum together. it is still tender, i gasp. please do not touch me. it is unfair, to have to bear the burden of somebody else's missteps. but i didn't know what i was made of until my load was increased. the doctor places the chart up on the wall, an x-ray of my internal cavities, and i examine it. innocence. and daffodils. and serpent green grass. this will not do. this will break easily, and i will be forced to undo the stitches in order to correct another blow to my spirit. Your shadow clouds my vision of the charts, and i wring my hands on my hospital sheets. it is still tender. please do not touch me. sunlight is a surgeon's knife. You take the chart from the wall and You study it patiently. i will have to be more cunning, i whisper. i will have to become quicker, to outsmart them. innocence and daffodils both die very quickly. and i do not know how much more i can take. out of the corner of my eye I see You putting the chart back onto the wall, coming to my side with that knife in Your Hand. and i trust You. oh, i do. i would trust You to cut my body apart if You wanted to. but i know this last blow, this last bit of pain, will finally ease my aching heart to a stop. and i don't want to mention it, so i bite my lip and keep quiet. it is still tender, i think. the knife slowly comes to rest on my skin, soft as a breath, and although my eyes are full of tears i will not let myself cry. do you love me? i watch the knife go in. you know i do, i say. it is all i know now. steadily, i watch the line go flat and the numbers go down, and i am on the porch step with my head in my hands. 

i dressed in golden light and tucked sunbeams in my hair.

and when the line goes flat, i hear only one heart beating instead of two. i like this sound better. i look up at You, and am surprised to see the tears in Your beautiful face. i'm sorry. i am aching. please let me be more cunning. i won't be so silly again. one bitten and twice - I died. yes, i know. My body was broken. please - and then the saddest sound i have ever heard.

did you think I made a mistake when I made you like this? did you think I made a mistake when I made your heart out of silk and your spirit out of glass? did you think I intended to make you more cunning and more impervious to attack but forgot in the last few seconds? did you think that if I had made you a little bit slower to trust, you wouldn't hurt so much? oh, Little Faith. the flowers of the field have more belief in my Love than you do.

all of my body is shaking, and i don't know how You can keep the knife steadily in my heart. please no. i sit up, and it goes all the way through, and i am bleeding from both ends. i crumple down into Your arms, and it's been three crows. i will go out into the outer court. and i will spend the rest of the night crying, unable to face the cross. unable to even be with You. please don't love me, i cry, getting tears all over You. please don't love me so much. leave me like all the rest. please! i am too silly and too tender and i will serve You forever but please don't love me. it is too shameful. 

For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence. But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption—  that, as it is written, “He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.”

I died. Body broken. I made no mistakes.

i stand up, weeping into my hands beneath an amber moon. so, it's not about being more cunning to ease the pain or hard to ease the blow or cautious to ease the ache. which is the better diagnosis, because i know what i am made of. my skin is open, my flesh peeled back to reveal the heart of Christ. innocence and daffodils, man. and i burned all the letters, but i'm not going to swallow my heart and forget the way you looked standing there. i am loved. i am loved. i couldn't earn it if i tried. i couldn't lose it if i wanted to. and i don't.

scandalous.

amen.

p.s.

WOAH SO OBVIOUSLY THAT WAS A ROLLER COASTER. a month of things will do that to you. yeehaw. but i'm back. hi hi hi. look at all of your glorious faces. cally been rockin. (duh.) i ran away to this beat. and i'm starving. someone please feed me.

also hey check out my pinterest if you haven't lately. i've been pinnin and winnin like crazy lately.  

xx