It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart... and this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more.

I am sitting here in the middle of my day after pushing things aside because I need to be here in front of the fire, at the old desk, with His Word open beside me and the new box of tissue behind it.  And I find that I am talking back because my heart isn't holding anymore, Paul.  My heart has been a slow explosion, a tired burst for a while now and I knew sitting there Sunday that my heart was too much mine and that He would be taking it.  I knew and I did my best to sit tall, chest open, shoulders back.  A brave offering.

I am studying how to see well with a friend and I am trying to change the way I story tell but it has become lost lately.  I am trying to speak parts and to hush parts and to cradle the sad while celebrating the joy but it is frequent that I shake my head instead: yes, but how? Last night husband was gentle right here, in this very spot with the fire and the window light.  And he told me what he saw and it was hard to be open and brave then.  But it was a relief, too.  To lay bare what is missing, to admit out loud that it is worn inside, that I am tired of heart holes and love that is all day leaving me.

That is how I know He is coming: this empty tinny heart of mine is finally gone enough to be captured again and He is always capturing because I am always straying, aren't I?  And this morning I was in Paul's letter just bleeding because there is a hard goodbye coming and this season has me so low that I am fighting to get out of bed, fighting to get out the door, fighting to love the ones He has given me.  That your love may abound more and more and more and more.  That your love may abound and abound and abound.  And of course I need His heart.  Of course I want it-- goodness I am begging for it now.  There is still so much love to be given and I am out.  I am out again, and again I am here on my face admitting that I wreck my heart when I don't remember His and please, knock me down sooner next time.  

I am remembering that the story telling is already done.  That He is the one completing me, putting me down, rounding me off and then closing me in His time.  And right now it is the time to be really alive in Him. Abounding more and more.