stability.

"Stability is in the wholehearted coming and coming and coming again. Prayer is not an act I perform, words I recite, a behavior I strive to maintain. It is a returning. It is a broken life finding healing, a misplaced soul recognizing home."

I read this quote over a month ago yet cannot seem to stop thinking about it. How nice the word stability sounds, does it not? It brings with it warm feelings of safety and knowing and surety. Yet, life often totally destroys this concept. Stability is not often found in the refuge of comfort and certainty. In fact, I'm starting to believe that it is only in the unstable trials of life that we can find true stability.

Perhaps I'm drawn to this idea because everything about life overseas seems unstable. You must learn to expect the unexpected but even then, everything is surprising or shocking or unfathomable. Constantly teetering between your heart culture and this new culture. Attempting to live in the tension of the haves and the have-nots. Stumbling through the language as if a new child learning to speak for the first time (yes, even after living in country for multiple years). Stability is a thing of the past, a worn dream, an unreachable status.

Yet, I'm finding, through prayer true stability is obtainable. Prayer and stability are so closely related, so braided and woven together that it seems impossible to separate one from the other. We find stability when we give up our own strengths and sheer forces of will to come and come and come again - to never stop coming, depending, leaning on Him.

Everyday I want to wholeheartedly come and come and come again to the feet of Jesus, even when confusion clouds my vision, my dreams, my hopes, my present, my future. I want to consistently return over and over and over again to the only place where I can make sense of who I really am. I want my wild soul to give up its misplaced desires and realize its true, life-giving home.

Stability is found in the surrender, in the acceptance, in the letting go, in the healing...in the places we often do not think to look.

waves.

There's this moment. This seemingly gravity defying moment, suspended in thin air, hanging there with all its uncertainty. It's terrifyingly peaceful, this one second of grace. Watching the waves, I can't help but notice it. Each wave comes softly - sneakily almost. It builds and builds and grows and climbs - quietly and steadily. But before it comes crashing down, something surreal happens. The moment. My heart stops, my breathing quiets. The silence somehow engulfs my entire being. Oh, the majesty of pure stillness. The wave idling before me - the silence, the peace, the surrender. Yes, there is even surrender. A certain letting go that happens in this moment. And just as suddenly, it's gone. The wave forms its perfect tubelike shape and it all comes crashing down, from every which way, wreaking havoc and chaos all in one fail swoop.

He is in these wave moments, this faithful Lover of my soul. I see Him there, beckoning. Calling me into the uncertainty of the stillness before Him. Do I trust Him enough to meet Him there? To walk forward into the tension of that one second? Yes. I must go to Him. I must sit there with Him. Without moving into that moment with Jesus, the chaos that follows crushes me. It is simply too much to bear. I need that moment with Him - that moment of letting go. Of courage. Of silence. Of majesty. Of grace. The waves teach me something: the necessity of the holy amidst the chaos. Amidst the confusion. Amidst the crashing. 

cloudy.

The worst is when you can't see anything.

When you look out that small, rounded window and all you see is a white haze of clouds. Nothing.But.White. No beautiful blue sky, no comforting green trees below...just white.

I don't like anything about flying. Something about being suspended in air thousands of miles above the ground in a metal box with wings brings out an inexplicable anxiety in me. But when the view outside my window turns white....it's all I can do to grab hold of my arm rest for dear life { or the hand of the person next to me, if you are so lucky as to receive the gift of sitting with me in an airplane } and focus on breathing. In. Out. In. Out. In. Out.

Because it's in the white when everything becomes bumpy, when turbulence hits the strongest. The slightest jolt of the plane sends my heart into panic. With each bump, I'm sure that we are falling to our death. I don't think straight. My knee begins to shake. The anxiety builds to the point of debilitation. Suddenly, I am controlled by my surroundings...the white cloudy mess of it right outside the window.

Oh and isn't that how it works in my life? When the cloudiness and confusion seep in, everything seems to be falling apart. Can't think straight. Don't know which way is up. Every little bump in the road of life throws me into even more confusion and desperation and the assumption of my impending doom. Will I ever make it out of the fog?

What else can I do but wait. To grab hold of those arm rests - to reach out to people I know are safe and to stand on what I know is true. And breath in deeply the grace of God as I wait for the cloud the pass. I rest in the mystery of what God is doing. The white haziness of life can't stay forever.

Eventually, I spy a peep of sunlight or a glimpse of sky or the ground unfolding below me...relief washes over me and I remember: everything will be okay. The cloudiness will not kill me. The unknown will not break me. The anxiety will not overcome me.

It's in these moments, I stand firm on this promise..."Behold, I will be with you always."

Even in the distortedness of a cloudy window, He does not leave us alone. And I will trust this - I must trust this - with every inch of my being. Because without it all hope is lost. And I cannot lose this grace-filled, loving, trusting kind of hope.

familia.

So, our family went to the beach. First time in a NUMBER of years that we have been able to take a trip with all five of us and it was too much fun. Ups and downs ensued, normal to any Salley family vacay { this one included strep throat and walking two miles to find the doctor...you know standard things like that } but overall it was great to all be together again at the one and only place that can unify us against the world...the beach.