…orange wednesday…

blocks.

he puts his whole body into sliding blocks across the wood floor and he knocks my tower down. and i build my tower again.  my block glides back to  his tower and it comes crumbling down. and we rebuild our towers again. we build our towers and they all fall down. i place one block upon the next and i’m reminded of all the times in my life where i built. i stack one block on the next and i build my tower of strength, peace, and competency. from the height of my tower i look down below and can’t hardly remember what it was like to be at the bottom, to be broken and wanting, but i know i’ve been there. it is like a faint feeling… a memory of a time when even breathing felt painful. and my tower is knocked down. and, from the bottom I can’t remember what it was like to stand tall, to stretch my arms out around me and feel free, un-hooked from the pressures of the world, and people, and my own failings.

we build. and our towers fall down. again and again.

falling asleep last night i whisper a prayer on the chest of sam, my husband, the pastor. his chest rises and falls and i pray. i pray for the children. for our home. our lives. our future. i pray about starting work again this week. i whisper that starting work and adding one more thing to my life feels like i might fall apart. and i feel that soft whisper sink down into my stomach like a weight dropping into the sea. we build our towers and they all fall down. we build and build and if we add one more thing, they all fall down again. we build our lives to function until we can handle it no more and it topples down all around us, like the blocks on our wood floor.

i wonder if that is how life is meant to be. we rise and fall. over and over again. we say we will do it better this time; the tower, stronger and higher. and when we fall we pick our pieces up and do it all over again. i wonder if those blocks aren’t meant for building but for falling. is the greater joy found in creating or breaking.  my courageous four year old cheers, arms waving, as he makes direct contact with my tower, structure dismantled successfully.  what if it wasn’t about how high we build and for how long we can sustain our towers, but how deeply we fall into the very fingers that fit the universe together. and what if falling wasn’t about failure but about deepening character and faith and intimacy. that the very blocks we build our lives on were centered around one block. one cornerstone. the one cornerstone that shapes the chevron silhouette of mountains lining the horizon from north to south outside my kitchen window or the sunshine yellow daffodils ushering neighbors to our door. the block that bowed low before His Father, bending into His will. The solid block that is the source of our being and is captivated by being present with us. the block that become broken to be with us. because that’s all God ever wanted… to be with us in the rise and fall of all that breathes life.

(my compassionate one, waiting for daddy to come home to go puddle jumping with him)

* would you be so kind as to click on this link and vote for one of my photographs to be the cover shot for this bridal magazine. promise it is fast, easy, and well worth it thanks!