over coffee this morning: belong

Fading memories ignored
I crawl across the forest floor
Pool reflects an orphan child
Dirty, lost, alone and wild
Fatherless and nameless still
Fallen heart and broken, will
There ever be a place where I belong?


I cower 'neath the monster trees
And try to stand on broken feet
But gravity knocks me to the ground,
Where I give up and tears roll down.
I claw the dust and beg the end
And curse the day that I began
To hope there'd be a place where I belong

The lyrics to this song have been favorites of mine for several years. I somehow just connect with these words. I often feel like this "orphan child: dirty, lost, alone and wild." I mean, I know I'm no longer this child, but it's so easy to slip back into this despair. Sometimes when my heart breaks and I'm tired of being tired and tired of doing my life and thinking my thoughts (you know what I mean, right?) I can feel myself collapsing "'neath the monster trees," and "claw[ing] the dust." Most of the time, I see this space from the other side:

I hear a sound I recognize
You lift my chin and seek my eyes
A song of love you sing to me
I ache to sing it back to Thee
"Father love prepares a place,
Brother Jesus leads the way
Follow to the place where you belong!"

I actually think this happens to us over and over in life. I mean, our following Jesus, our being rescued, our salvation is an ongoing process, and ongoing realization and understanding. I'm coming to understand that our rescue is in the following of Jesus and in the (slowly) realizing and understanding that we belong to God and He's singing His song of love over us.

This morning over a few delicious cups of coffee I was part of a book discussion/Bible study with some beautiful young women. We are reading Abba's Child by Brennan Manning. Actually, they've been reading it. I joined today at chapter 4 having read only the first few pages of chapter one. :) We talked about how as believers in and followers of Christ we are children of God. God created us and loves us, not in spite of our selves, our sin, and our brokenness, but including all that and all that we are. We discussed what life would be like for us if we could live in and operate under this belief and understanding all the time. We talked about how some of us read about and studied cases of abused children who have attachment disorders. Abused children who grow up without believing they are loved by their parents have a really hard time accepting love from and forming attachments to anyone. They lie, cheat, and act out in various ways that reflect their mistrust of everyone and everything. We realized that because of our broken nature and broken hearts we are sometimes like this; having a hard time accepting God's love because we know we are imperfect.

BUT, through it all and all our experiences and surroundings and through His people and His word God is trying to tell us otherwise:

How did I miss this wondrous song?
The forest sang it all along
"River rinses all your shame
Father offers you his name
Father love prepares a home
Brother Jesus leads you on,
Follow to the place where you belong."


"Father love prepares and place
Brother Jesus leads the way
Follow to the place where you belong
Follow to the place where you belong."

Belong by Chris Rice
(go look it up! the melody is beautiful!)


So, I don't believe that I have the absolutely correct theology about everything. I sometimes feel like I don't "get" God at all. And I certainly don't understand the mystery of His love for me and how that works. But I want to believe He does love me. And most of the time I find myself looking at my moments (or days, weeks, months) of despair and feeling like the author in the last verse of the song, "How did I miss this wondrous song?! The forest sang it all along... "

Hope this is encouraging to you too and it's not an over-share. :)

Here are some pictures from our garden. This is what it looks like right now...
The tree branches and palm leaf things are Patrick's help for the tomato plants. We're thinking they'll grow up the sticks... Also, there are a lot more tomato plants than I planted. And my whole system of squares got messed up when Zoey (the Ridgeback) broke the fence and dug all through the garden just 20 minutes after I'd planted everything. Thanks, Zoey. So there are random plants everywhere. Florah, our housekeeper, thinks it's really funny that I tried to be so organized and it backfired. But on Saturdays she supervises me in the garden. :) At any rate, things are growing!!!

But then there's this guy...

I'm gonna try spraying the leaves with hot pepper juice...

This has been Michelle's and my workspace during spring break. We were the only ones here while everyone else went on some adventures. So we took our office outside and enjoyed the sun in our backyard! We also took 2 hour lunch breaks every day and went swimming.