I've been writing a lot lately.

Every once in a while I go through a battle with sleep.  It usually lasts for a week or so and then I'm back to my eyes shut on the way to bed routine.  It happens when something is going on.  Some kind of change or decision or conflict.  And I just know.  That this week I need to drink a few more cups of tea and pray a few more prayers and listen to His Spirit in me.

I was packing up at the end of the day and one of my students stopped me.  Miss B, why do you take that with you everywhere?  Why do you carry it?

Why do I take it?  The answer is simple darling.  I've been without it. 

And this right here.  This is what reminds me.  My life is in these pages, my tears, my prayers.  I know to read this chapter when I don't understand pain.  And when I'm simply tired and can't seem to rest, that's when I pray with Paul.  I can show you that in January 2003 I was struggling with feeling abandoned and David's words really got me.  In June 2007 I finally understood what it meant to love like He does.  When I read Timothy, I pray for my brother.  And Isaiah's call for justice is deeply burned into my heart.

I tell her that I carry it because I need it.  Because I don't want to forget it.  Or lose it.  And because it is precious.

I've seen a country with only pieces of it  Sometimes pages.  And I've seen the tears when they hold a whole one.  The deep, deep gratitude.  I will never forget those tears.  Sometimes when I look at my children, I see their faces instead.  I remember the way that their eyes had already given up.  How they had to fight to stay in life.

Sometimes I wonder.  How far can you fall before the memory of Him slips away completely?  How far until your spirit snaps and your heart goes cold?  I see it everywhere.  That slow tumble into living beneath ourselves.  We forget so easily.

And so that has become my main prayer, my plea.  God,  keep me close.  Do whatever it takes to keep me close.  I don't care how badly it hurts or how small it makes me feel, I don't ever want to go back to that.  Keep me humble, keep me true.  Keep me so in love.  And when I'm not.  Still, keep me.