BIG CHANGE!! TAKE NOTE!!

In oder to make a site that can work for both my photography, the blog and now the book I had to make some changes. After a lot of research I found that the only way to get away with it all was to switch my blog to a wordpress blog which allows for me to sell items, and host a more professional looking blog and photo gallery. Therefore this blog address will not be a usable address in the near future - Ill give you time to subscribe to the new blog (same name of course). Please, check it out and make sure to subscribe so you don't miss new content when it comes around! (the store will change every so often and the photos will be new so if you like something get it sooner than later!). The book is available there as well and the buying option is much more user friendly with the new site! Please, share the new site with those you know who read it and feel free to leave a comment. I really really love feedback!

SO - Here is the link to the new THROUGH THE LENS OF MOTHERHOOD 

Enjoy! 

Timothy J Haughton

Today is a special day, today I get the honour of celebrating my best friends birthday. Every year I feel the same unmistakable honour and love and thankfulness that he was born but this year it's so much bigger. I have seen Tim step up for me when I needed him or when the kids needed him and I have seen him put his needs aside for all three of us through the years but this year I have seen him at his finest yet. 

Just one year and a few months ago Tim was in a serious accident that could have been life threatening, thankfully he 'only' suffered a major concussion and yet just days following the accident he was back in the office serving the community that he loves so much. He would come home after church on Sunday's and could barely function, yet no one really knew because that's how Tim is. He is this strong, stoic soul who fights hard through his own stuff for the sake of others. He was finally starting to feel human again when we learned that Toronto was going on lockdown in March, with two days notice he worked through and got a live stream up for the very first Sunday so that no one would miss church, so that we could all feel that normalcy we needed so badly in such unsettling times. I have seen him work 60 - 80+ hours a week since then trying to make it all go smoothly, trying to hold together this beautiful church we call home, not the building but the actual body of Christ. He has stepped up, given his best, and I am so in awe of the man I married, so proud of the leader that he has become. His choices are always prayed through, always thoughtfully made and always with the church's best interest at the heart of it. It is how he leads our family, how he loves us, how he loves generally and it's inspiring. 

This isn't a normal year, no year will ever be quite like 2020 (one hopes) but what I will walk away remembering from this year is how this man I call husband stood in the face of Covid-19 and didn't flinch, he just kept doing what he was called to do and he did it with grace and love and endurance. He did it with the church and he's done it with us as a family. I still wonder every day how on earth I deserve a man like this, but I am so glad that he chose to love me, that he chooses to love me and our church. 

I often take him for granted, as most of us do with our spouses but today, this day when I get to celebrate his entry into the world I am reminded how truly blessed I really am. 

Tim, I have had a million reasons to be proud of you throughout our years together but this year you have amazed me with your resilience and faithfulness to our family and to our community. I typically just post something on my facebook wall for your birthday but there's just too much to say in the midst of this year. Thank you. Thank you for your hard work here at home and at the church. Thank you for the ways in which you use your gifts to speak into my life, to listen to my wingeing, to love me like I have never been loved before. Your strength has kept us afloat, your love has kept us going, both at home and at church and you need to hear that. I see you. Thank you.

Happy birthday love. It's always been you, will always be you. I love you.

L

It's a boat

Imagine if you will that dating is sitting or standing on a dock with someone that you are wanting to get to know. You talk for a bit but you realize that this person is actually not really someone you want to spend any long amount of time with so you kindly (KINDLY) say thank you for the talk and you leave the dock, or they thank you and they leave the dock. Then you come back to the dock with someone else, you spend more time on the dock this time, you see something in them that you really like, they see something in you that they really like, and one day while you are sitting on the dock the person you are sitting with asks you if you would like to go for a trip on their boat. You agree, and you both excitedly start planning for an amazing trip together. You spend hours planning what to pack, who to invite to your 'bon voyage' party, you talk with the person from the dock that you are going on the trip with about all the things you will see along the way and you are happy, really happy. 

On the day of your departure for the trip you get all dressed up and ready for the bon voyage, your family and friends meet you at the dock there's champagne and cake and then the person you have chosen to go on this journey with is standing with one foot on the boat and one on the dock and he is reaching out his hand to you to help you up. You take his hand and as you step onto the boat you turn to wave at the friends and family who are waving goodbye. You set the course of the boat and off into the sunset you go, smiling, excited, happy, really happy.

The first few days are beautiful weather, the sun is shining, the breeze is cooling, the air smells like the salty sea and the sound of the gulls lulls you. You have plenty of food, plenty of water, you are with the person you enjoy most in the world so you are having so much fun and still planning for the first destination. You are happy, really happy.

After a few weeks at sea you begin to notice that the person you are with snores every night, you are more tired than before, they eat loudly, you find yourself annoyed, they say this annoying thing that used to be cute but now it just gets under your skin, but they are still your favourite person and for the most part you still have so much fun together. You are happy, still happy.

Then one night a storm blows up, the waves are huge and the vessel you are on it pitching in the waves. You are scared and you can see that your person is scared too but they are trying to calm you, trying to tell you that everything is okay. You feel safe and you realize that what you felt before was a deep like for that person but now, now you feel a deep love that that seems to ground you. You are scared, but still happy.

As you navigate the storm, both busy on keeping the boat upright you argue, you fight, your fears speak with hurtful words, you think you could do things better, they think they can manage without input. You fight, you feel alone. In your lonliness you are not feeling happy, not at all happy.

As the storm breaks you find yourselves completey off course, lost at sea, much less water and food for survival, further apart from your favorite person than you were when you met. The words spoken in anger linger between you, trust has been broken, loneliness has come between you. You stare out at sea and there is nothing but sky and water. You are stuck, with your person. You are not happy, not happy at all.

As the silence streches out between you, with breaks for a bitter argument you sit on the edge of the boat, wishing you had never started this trip with this person. Surely there was someone else would have been more fun, more in keeping with who you would want to take a trip with. You stare at the water and you know that you are on this boat together, for better or worse, you can't jump or you will drown. Instead you turn, and when you turn you see the face of your person. You remember all those mean words, the hurtful things they have done, you remember the pain of the words as they sliced you, you remember the snoring, the annoying way they do things and then you look deeper into your persons face and you see them, the real them, the one from the storm that had been so scared but trying to keep calm for you, the person who could make you laugh and love, the person you chose to step onto this boat with. They are the same people. You feel something, not happy but a sort of crumbling.

You realize that you are annoying, you do and say things that cut deeply too, you can lash a tongue better than most and if you look closely at your person you can see the scars and this hurts you, because you love them. You move closer, you touch their arm,  trace your fingers over the scars and you ask for forgiveness and you offer forgiveness and you move to an embrace that makes the loneliness leave,  you are safe, you are happy.

It goes this way, the ebbs and flows, just as the waves move your boat ever closer to the other side your relationship also moves and sways with dips and highs that only ever get deeper, more and more full of a love you hadn't thought you would even be capable of. This person you set out on this journey with is your family now, the love has grown not through the easy times but in the darkest of storms, the worst of the waves, it moved through all of those things for two reasons, forgiveness and you didn't decide to jump off the boat. You stay, because jumping off the boat isn't an option. You stay because when you turn and really honestly look at your person you see the scars that you have left too, it's not just what has happened to you, it's what you have done to them. This person has seen you at your worst, and they have loved you, and they have forgiven you, and you have seen them at their worst and found a way to forgive them and one day you look at your scars and you don't remember the pain, the words that cut you, your remember the forgiving embrace that came after. 

Marriage is the boat obviously. Somehow we have stopped viewing it that way, we think we and our person are on the dock still, that when things get hard we can just walk away but we are in the boat. We all want to blame the other person for the hurts or the wrongs or the problems but sometimes what is really required is a good look at ourselves, a humbleness that is hard but can lead to a wonderful place of love and healing that blends you together more than any happy moment ever could. 

Covid has been a storm, no doubt that it has brought so many people to a place where they are sitting on the edge of the boat thinking about jumping into the water and giving a good swim a try, I have seen those who have actually jumped in, and it breaks my heart to know that they aren't on the dock, they are in dangerous water, drowning isn't out of the realm of possibility and the person they swam from is just as scarred and hurt as they are and if only, if only there could be forgiveness, humbled self evaluation they could still be on the boat together, fighting the storms together, moving closer and closer towards their end goal. 

Somewhere along the way we have forgotten that when we marry someone, choose to say yes, (or ask) we take their hand and step out onto the boat and become ONE. No one (other than Disney and Hallmark) every said that that was the end of the story, that's the start! That is where life gets fun, navigating this crazy ocean with your person, making other little people, becoming a family, learning to be more and more humble, not harder and harder from scar tissue. My kids hate the song 'Let it go" (as do I if I am honest) but in this case I think sometimes you have to just 'let it go' be the first to step our and touch the scars on the heart of your person, scars that your words, your doubts, your insecurities , your fears have left behind, step our first and kiss the scars with an ask of forgiveness and wait for the healing to begin, it might take time but it can happen.

L

for the many people in my life who are struggling right now to stay in the boat

Gift of Good Words

Follow the Gifts of Good Words Blog Hop taking place from November 4-18, 2020, and Find quality Canadian Christian books for those on your Christmas list! Then on November 18th, join the Good Words Virtual Book Fair on Facebook: FIND IT HERE

This is going to be fun! I have never done a blog hop before but here you go, there's a first for everything! We are doing this blog hop to get everyone ready for the first of it's kind (I think?) virtual GOOD WORDS book fair on November 18th between 7-9 PM. 

Through the Lens of Motherhood 

 By Laurie Haughton

The other day I heard from someone who had read my book, he had a lot of wonderfully high praise and some deep meaningful words from his own heart about how the story encouraged him and I was left in tears and deep humbled thought. I had never any intention of publishing this book, it was written for my guys, but also for me as a way to process my thoughts and feelings through out the journey we were on and when God asked me to publish (that was a long drawn out battle between us that went on for a full year - or more if I am really honest with myself) I said I would do it, but a deep part of me wanted to somehow redeem our story, to have someone out there who had read the book find some hope, some encouragement or understanding in the midst of something horrible they were going through. I hoped that one person would find themselves on a road to healing because of our story, I wanted it to be 'worth it";  As I write this I see how self centred that is, how counter productive to what God is doing in our lives. I still have to sit, after reading emails like the one I had last week, and say 'Laurie, it's not all about you'. God has a plan so much bigger than we hope for or can imagine, why limit him? 

Our story sounds so sad to some, we get a lot of tears when people hear about what we went through with Joshua but the truth is actually that our story is so full of the awesome power of God and his joy, his boundless love, his hope; it's not about us at all and it's not up to me to redeem that story because God already has and this book is and only can be, my way of sharing what an awesome God he is, how incredibly forgiving, how infinitely loving, and compassionate... It's a form of worship I suppose, to tell you our story, not to redeem it but to show you what amazing things he did in my life, my relationship with him because of his deep love for me, the same love that he has for you and the same love that he has for Joshua and Kaleb. We are here for a short time, living in this broken place called earth and things will go wrong, there will be suffering and pain but, and it's a big but... God is right here with us, living in the brokenness, holding us in the pain. I don't want you to read this story because it's sad or because it's a journey through out personal hell but because it's a story of redemption and because it can help not just a mother, not just a parent, but anyone - truly, anyone who is going through any kind of suffering, the endless season of pain that we will all inevitably be a part of in our lives. That is who this book is for, you and anyone else living in this broken place between Genesis and Revelation. 

Please, check out books by my fellow Christian authors!

DON'T FORGET TO SAVE THE DATE! November 18th 7-9 PM

red and yellow, black and white

Last week I had an interaction via email that shook me up, I was writing to someone about a video shown to one of the kids that I felt was too violent for them to watch. As it turns out that person completely misunderstood me and responded with a really angry email that implied that I had a problem with social justice and race issues. I was shocked, as this is counter to who I am as a person and not at all what I am trying to teach my guys. I was hurt and I felt misunderstood. I still feel that way in many ways BUT... and this is a really big BUT; As I was moaning to my mom about it on the phone and telling her the unfairness of it I had a smack in the head, it felt like an actual smack too, I had to sit down. All these feelings of being misunderstood because of the colour of my skin was a moment(s) in time, but for a man/woman of colour this is actually a living reality of their entire life. I was just peaking into a window of what it must feel like to live in a different skin and let me tell you, it's uncomfortable, even for a moment. My stomach was churning, my feelings were hurt, I was angry, I was feeling a need to justify, to explain... if that was just a moment, just a thread of emails in a long history of email writing then what would it be like to live with these misunderstandings on a daily basis. Every day, for a lifetime? It was humbling and it was eye opening for me. 

Then there was the US elections, we sat (the boys and I as Tim was away) watching and waiting for a result just like the rest of the world and. on Saturday, right before I took Kaleb to soccer they finally announced the winner as Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and as I took a deep breath I realized that my relief, my joy, couldn't be anything close to what many people of colour must be feeling. I won't lie to you, I cried when Van Jones cried, I cried when it finally hit me that a woman, a woman of colour was going to be the VP of the US. It was a beautiful day, a moving day, a day in which the entire world seemed to let the steam out of the pressure cooker that we have all been living in for the last four years. No, I am not living in the US, but their President, their race issues, their hate talk of the last four years has been fueling anger and dissent across the globe with attacks on allies and terrifs for no seeming reason. They had become a bully on the playground where they once had been the kid who stood up to bullies. I was born in the US and though I have tried to down play that the last number of years there was once a time in my life when that made me proud. On Saturday, I felt a small amount of that pride again when I saw Kamala Harris standing on the stage delivering her speech. I cried again and I was very aware that my two sons, white males, were also watching this historic moment and were just as happy as I was. 

Yesterday I watched the concession speech that John McCain gave when he lost the race to Obama and it sprang up a new hope in me that we can once again look at the race issue without hate, that we can open our hearts, eyes and ears to really hear the other side because the other side is not our enemy. This person I was emailing isn't my enemy, they are a hurting person of colour and while I took the brunt of the hurt this week I think it's okay, I think I can suck it up and take it because when it boils down I think I can sit and listen (when that time comes) to hear from them and come to a greater understanding, a more helpful way forward. When I was a child we used to sing a song called 'all the children in the world' - red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight. Jesus/God loves ALL the little children of the world and to HIM adults are his little children as well, there is no magical number that changes a black child into an adult that is not loved by God. He/She will always be his child, just as my guys will always be my child regardless of how fast they overtake me in height. His greatest command to us was to love our neighbours as we love ourselves and if the world started to do that a little more then maybe, maybe the world would look a little less broken, the people of colour in this world would feel more welcome, more understood. If white people could for a moment try to put themselves in the shoes of the 'minority' maybe we would start to have a deeper compassion, a deeper understanding, a more committed way of listening and maybe then change would finally be within our grasp.

The week to me was one filled with both anxst about the emails and also the election in which so much has changed, I feel a small (really small) understanding of what it's like to judged by skin colour, but it's been an incredible learning tool, and a humbling experience and I won't soon forget it, I pray I can use that new understanding to extend grace, compassion and love regardless of how I am interpreted. I challenge us all to do the same. No matter what your political leanings, no matter what religion, or race or gender I ask you to open your eyes and see the person beside you as a beautiful member of the HUMAN race, not the black race, the Indian race, the White race, the Latino, Asian, (name the race) race but the HUMAN race. I ask you to put down your defences, listen to the other side and learn from them. You don't have to always agree but when you stop listening and only assign motivations based on colour or political stripes you are part of the problem, not the solution. 

Laurie 

Black & White

 "Mama, you know how God says that he will come back again?" 

"yes" 

"When will that be exactly?" 

"Oh babe, I have no idea, no one knows. God told us to be ready at any hour of any day so it could happen tonight or in a thousand years, we just don't know but we know we need to ready"

"Today would be a good day I think. I wish he would come today and make everything better"

'Today would be a good day I think', where did that come from right? He is barely eleven years old and he has learned that the world is broken and needs to be redeemed today. When I was eleven I was starting to think about boys, clothes, being a famous movie star, collecting tiger beat magazines with my allowance and River Phoenix.  Times have changed so much with the age of the internet. The topic on his mind last night was Philledelphia and yet another black life snuffed out, another death where proper training for mental health could have been avoided, another demonstration of power gone wrong or given to the wrong people. We talked about his friends who are all 'minority groups' though to be honest he is one of a dozen white kids in his school. How is it that his friends can grow up and be afraid of the police, he doesn't understand and sadly neither do I. I don't hate cops, I have had some really good interactions with the cops in our neighbourhood, I have seen them working up in Regent Park, playing basketball with the kids or soccer or just standing around talking with them and getting to know them. I don't think all cops are bad, but cops are human and humans can do horrible things to each other. Christians did/do horrible things to people, white people do horrible things to people, muslims, gangs (of any race), husbands, wives, children, we all have the capacity to do and be wrong, to be mean, cruel, abusive. Words and fists, guns and knives it doesn't matter what weapon you wield you have the power to to hurt and abuse. Privilege then, is knowing you have that power and choosing to use your weapons to protect, to defend and to stand beside the people who need defending, the people who need protection, the people who need to finally feel safe. Privilege is a line of white Moms who stand arm in arm in between the the protestors and the police because they are Moms and any Mom who heard George Floyd call out for his Mom that day in late May immediately wanted to to go to his side, to fight for him, to save him. He was everyone's son when he called for his Mom. Privilege is stepping in because you know that you are safer than the person you are stepping in for. Privilege is coming to understand that you will never know what it is like to be in the another persons shoes, coming to fully understand that I will never have to 'have the talk with my boys' about how to avoid confrontations with the police, how to remain calm, how to do as I am told to avoid trouble, it's knowing that I will never have my 12 year old ask me "will I be next?". 

I have no idea what it is like to be anything other than what I am, a white woman, a Christian, from a nuclear, middle class family, straight, English speaking and able bodied. I can never say I understand and I hate that I can't, but I am thankful as well. I want to learn, I want to understand so that I can know how to take action in a helpful & positive way, I don't want to be afraid that I will say the wrong thing, I want to be the woman standing between the black and blue lines, I want to use what I have through no amount of effort on my part but rather through birth and circumstances, to protect, to defend and to be a compassionate ear and more importantly I want to know how to teach my kids, my two white christian middle class males how to use their privilege for good.  

It is just not good enough anymore to say we care, to send our 'thoughts and prayers' to the victims families, to say we are not racist or to speak into a moment but when the moment passes we move on. There has been hundreds of years of racism and this insanity needs to stop. Our fellow brothers and sisters, these HUMAN beings that we share the planet with need to finally be set free, they need walk down the street and feel safe, they need to be able to BREATHE and they need white people, yeah, us, to start the conversations, to start the change, it's on us, not them to make the difference. If a husband is abusing his wife and she tells him to stop will he? No, he needs to see it in himself and then make a change from within. It starts with me, my kids, it starts with white people making the choice to see, act and think differently. Our black brothers and sisters have been begging us to stop, when will we finally listen, finally act? How many more lives need to be lost before we accept that this is just no okay any more. Why are our children more willing to see the wrong than we are?

I've moved into a rant and that is not what I had intended. I don't know the answers, I too am afraid to ask the questions because I don't want to be misunderstood. This is an open discussion that needs to be had and if our kids are having it then so should we. 

Helpful Information 

What is white privilege?

Understanding white privilege

 

Mark you Calendars!!

Good Words Virtual Book fair

November 18, 2020

With Covid 19 hitting artists, musicians, small businesss and authors particularly hard this year I challenge you to do your Christmas shopping locally or ... HERE AT THIS AWSOME BOOK FAIR!!

Lots of Authors - Lots of books - and you are invited! You will hear from the authors and hear about the books! This is an event for all ages and all categories of books so you don't want to miss out on it! More details to follow but for now, just sign in and make sure you keep NOVEMBER 18th open on your calendar so you don't miss this fantastic way to celebrate the love of reading and to buy those much needed Christmas gifts directly from the people who are behind the magic.

https://fb.me/e/ec6lSOuLE

Part twelve: The end of the beginning

I pull off the road just a mile from the where the castle sits perched on the hill, it seems to glow in the late afternoon sun, the snow sparkles as the light moves over the ground and I can’t catch my breath it’s so beautiful. My hands are still on the wheel as I stare out the window at the view, taking it all in, then I close my eyes and rest my forehead on the wheel. “I don’t get it God, what were you saying to me all week? I didn’t die, I am alive and well and the castle sits before me waiting for me to get home.” I look back into the rearview mirror at the Pass behind me feeling like I had gone into the depths and come out whole but still confused by it all. I felt more alive than ever before, more full of life and joy and peace and now there was something new, a deep knowledge of life and forgiveness that was new to me. A car passed me and brought me from my thoughts, I turned my turning signal on and drove down the final hill towards the castle driveway and there I stopped again not ready to see anyone yet, still not understanding what was happening to me, what had happened. I thought back over the last week and tried to see if I had had any doubts in my mind that I hadn’t recognized but there was none. I thought of the letters on my bed, written with such assurance that I would never see these people again. I think of the feelings I’d had, of all the ways in which I felt God was telling me that today was the day and yet I am sitting here in the castle driveway alive, beautifully alive and unharmed. None of it made sense. Then I think back to his face when he told me that he loved me, the feeling of freedom, of breaking through something and I again think of that egg and chicken, and I understand. I finally understand and as the realization hits me I start laughing and crying and laughing some more. I had died, it had happened just the way that God had said it would. On December 8^th I drove through the mountain Pass one person, at the airport I died and I was reborn and I drove home new, having been born again just like that chicken I had envisioned. I am still laughing when I once again start the car and maneuver it through the castle gates to the courtyard. I see my friend from the night before standing nearby and he smiles at me with a grin that says ‘ told  you so’ and I think of the parting line I had left on his letter and smile back at him. I turn the car off and get out, leaving the bag where the ex had left it and I move to him. He hugs me and says sarcastically that he’s glad I made it home and I laugh too. The truth is, I am glad too because I have so much to share, so much to say and it would have been wasted if I had been found at the bottom of a cliff in the snow. We move to the back of the car and I grab the bag while I tell him all about the trip, and how I was not the Laurie that left, but rather a new, reborn version of her. He looks down at me and smiles, seeing for the first time that I was actually having a very real spiritual experience, that I hadn’t been on drugs last night when I went to him and told him what I was thinking would happen today, his eyes believed me, I could see that and he smiled at me as he threw his arm around me and said ‘sorry I didn’t take you more seriously last night, that was a pretty big deal’ and then we laughed when I told him what I had added to his letter, he pretended to look wounded and I elbowed him in the gut and reiterated that he was an asshole but I loved him.

That night there was a concert at the castle, music filled the cold night air and again it began to snow, I sat listening to the music and I saw the girl I was dancing in the rain all those summers before but this time I didn’t miss her, she had become someone so much more real to me, and though I wasn’t as carefree as I had been back then I was more sure, more confident, more resilient, and while I had always been loved, now I know I am loved and that makes all the difference.

That night as I read the Bible before sleep I read Genesis 17:21 “But I will establish my covenant with Isaac whom Sarah will bear to you at this set time next year” I could almost hear God say this to me as well, I have promised you Isaac, and this time next year I will keep my promise. I went to bed that night, my first night as the new Laurie, the night of December 8^th 2005.

One year later, on December 8^th 2006 God, true to all his promises, kept his word and that night, after decorating a Christmas tree Tim proposed to me. We were not in the most romantic city, sitting on the Eiffel Tower, he wasn’t looking green and ill, I wasn’t feeling doubt or apathetic to the situation. We sat in his living room in Toronto, he sang me a song he had written and asked me to marry him and I didn’t hesitate with my answer,  I didn’t waver through out the engagement, there were no doubts as I dressed in my bridal gown and walked down that long isle towards my best friend. He was the chosen one that God had promised me, the Isaac, and on April 28^th 2007 we joined our lives together and we made a home. The story continues, as life does of course, but to know more you have to read the book because this was just the beginning, the rest of the incredible story unfolds in the pages of Through the Lens of Motherhood (The Book).

 

 

 

 

Tim at the Oakville pier on our third date

April 28th, 2007

Part eleven: Through the Pass

 

 “December 8^th “ I whisper to myself as I lie in bed the next morning, I wiggle my toes and then stretch long and luxuriously.” So this is it, my last day.” Funny how I it just doesn’t feel any different than yesterday but then, life is like that I guess. Someone dies and people mourn but the moon doesn’t stop rotating around the earth and the earth doesn’t stop spinning around the sun.  I look out my window and the snowing has stopped, now it’s a pristine blanket covering the roofs and hills and lawns pillowing the noises into it’s softness so that there is that beautiful quiet that only happens after the snow falls. The sun is shining and causes the snowflakes to sparkle like diamonds on the windowsill, and the sky above the mountains is a perfect blue, not quite the light baby blue that comes with clouds but not the dark either. I think about the day ahead and wonder about the weather, I had expected a terrible snowstorm, which would cause the car to slide or something like that, but this day looked like the perfect winter day. Things in the mountains are different though and while my valley can be still and peaceful a storm can be raging just over the next pass I think to myself while getting dressed. I grab my bag and take the letters from the side pocket, then I lay them out on the neatly made bed ready to be found. I glance around the room, it’s a mess really but then I don’t have time to clean, I’ve slept in and I have to a two hour drive ahead of me to get to the airport on time to meet the exes flight and get my bags. I sigh, feeling sorry for the person who has to clean this up but even as I think it I am closing the door behind me and heading up to the castle to get the car.

 

The drive through Pass Thurn is stunning; it always is but today even more so since the fresh snow is still untouched on the mountains around me. I turn on the music I have planned to listen too and turn the volume up so that I can’t hear anything but the songs. As I make my way through the zigs and zags that are mountain roads I feel al lightness of spirit that I’ve never known before, I am not tense at all as I expected to be, I am not afraid as I thought might happen. I am simply here, in this moment and it’s beautiful. Josh Groban’s song ‘Your raise me up’ comes on and I crank it even louder as I merge onto the autobahn and I can feel God raising me up, lifting me higher, doing all of this for me so that no matter what happens today, with the ex or with me, none of it will matter because I am lifted high enough that it can’t really touch me. I am on God’s shoulders, like a child who is raised on their father’s shoulders I sit and enjoy the new view. I feel safer than I have ever felt before. While on the autobahn I start seeing signs for the Munich airport, I merge into the slower lane and make the exit. I keep waiting, waiting for the accident, for the screech of tires, for the collision, the pain but nothing is happening and the airport is now fast approaching.  As I make my way around the final turn and into the airport parking lot I figure it must mean it will happen on the way home and I am okay with it but mildly disappointed that it means I actually have to face this guy again. I play the song by Josh Groban one more time for a reminder and then grab my purse and keys and walk towards to arrivals entrance.

 

I don’t have to wait long, thankfully it was only a few minutes before I could see him walking through the security gate, my gut sank when I saw only one bag, one that looked only half full. I knew I wasn’t getting most of my things back and my first instinctual feeling was anger but it settled before he arrived in front of me, they were things I kept saying to myself, it’s just things, over and over again. He smiled at me and went for a hug, it was awkard but I guess these things naturally are awkward, it’s not like I have had to do this before to know what normal is. I tells me he has two hours before his flight back and asks me for lunch. I think about this for a moment because I would really just like to get back in the car and leave but he flew across Europe to give me my things, or some of them anyway, the least I could do was have lunch with him. So we went to the café that was closest to the security gate and found a booth to sit in. Everything I think of to say sounds weird so I am keeping quiet, letting him do most of the talking but mostly I am watching the people around me and listening to the song on the radio in the background. It’s about a girl dying and I can’t shake it from my head and then I hear him, he’s fading back into my consciousness and talking about me going to Canada. He’s telling me how stupid it is, that I left it behind for a reason blah blah blah. He says he loves me, he looks at me and says he loves me and I break open, but not in the bad way that happens when something ends, it was more like a birth, like a chicken breaking out of her egg and seeing the world for the first time. I am still not sure why it happened that way, but all of a sudden this man wasn’t someone to hate or be afraid of or even dislike. He was a man, he was human and as such he was as broken as I was, he was someone that God loved and there was a new freedom in that knowledge. I smiled at him, I try explaining my Canada plan to him, but he didn’t understand and I can’t expect him too when I didn’t understand it fully self, especially in light of the last week and the knowledge that I was going to die. Nothing made sense I said to him, but I just know that God has a plan for me and I am following it no matter what. He just nodded and after a few moments they announced that his flight would be boarding soon so he walked me to my car and put my bag in the back seat, we hugged goodbye and I got behind the wheel. He was still standing there when I drove out of the parking lot, staring at me like I was something he couldn’t quite understand.  “Thank you God, for having my back in there, for raising me up and for giving me painless closure” I whispered as I merged back onto the autobahn heading to Austria. This would be it, somewhere between here and the castle I would die.

 

To be continued…

Part ten: goodbyes

 

On December 7^th I woke up thinking about all the people in my world that I would be leaving behind, my parents, my sister, my Grandpa and aunt and my friends. That was the hard part, saying goodbye to them, knowing they would suffer the agony of death far more than I would. I wasn’t morose, I was enjoying my final days here, enjoying the evenings in the cellar, chatting on the phone with my family, writing, taking photos, spending time with God, I was enjoying myself and it felt new to me somehow. I had always had fun in life but this was different, this was full enjoyment filled with a new joy and a deep sense of peace.

 

I got the ride up the mountain today, it’s easier and I have things to do. As I drive into the courtyard I think of all the memories, the faces come and gone, the dances in rain, the snowy Christmases drinking gluwein, the summer afternoons eating ice-cream, the hours of conversations, the laughter, the tears, the deep discussions, all had on these benches. The fights, the forgiveness, the hugs and the waves, if these walls could talk they would have a million moments to share and the novel would be epic. From the years when it was the court of the valley,  or when they tried witches in the chapel and send them to the dungeon below, or the time when the Nazi’s wandered these halls and did unmentionable things in the cellars below, this place has been witness to the worst of humanity and the best of humanity in the years since it was built, and now it is a simple hospital for the soul, so many souls have been healed here, so many lives touched and I am in awe that I had been allowed to be here, that I was blessed enough to call it home for all this time.

 

I walk into my office, though I am technically not working I still use this space as my office and I sit down at my desk and begin to write. I write to my parents first, a letter each; when they are done I hit print and being the one to my sister and then my Grandpa, Aunt, and then a few friends and one to the entire community in which I live. When the letters are complete and I have printed them all out I fold them and put them into envelopes. With that done I sit back in my chair and stair out the window, fresh snow is falling and I feel the urge to go walking in it. Snow in the mountains is magical, and I grab my coat, hat and earphones and click play as I head outside, taking the back steps that lead to the farmers’ field below the castle.

 

The fear set it around ten o’clock, the entire building seems empty and cold and the clock is ticking closer and closer to December 8th. I walk through the hotel side, open the door to the cellar but tonight it remains dark and empty so I close the door and go to look in the kitchen but again the lights are off and there is no sign of life. I check every possible meeting spot for people but no one is around and then finally I go to the study center’s study hall and find the one person I can always count on for a hug and a prayer. He is sitting hunched up over his computer, his fingers banging away at the keys writing his thesis, well, that is my guess at least from the look of concentration on his face. He looks up at me when I enter and he smiles but I can see I am interrupting his thought flow. Tonight though I don’t care, I grab the chair from the desk beside him and sit down and tell him what is on my mind. He is the first person that I have spoken too about my death tomorrow and I have to admit I was expecting more drama, more concern but he just looks at me like I have lost my mind. Which I guess I probably have but it’s so real, so true to me, a knowledge more than a feeling. I ask him to pray for me and kindly he does but then he’s distracted again and I know he’s thinking of the work on his desk and despite not wanting to leave the comfort of a friend I stand and leave, he doesn’t even look up to say goodbye. The door closes behind me and I walk down the hall to my office where I take his letter out and in handwriting I wrote at the bottom. “I told you I was going to die you asshole” followed by a big smiley face. I placed all the letters in a pile and took them home with me so they would be easily found when the time came.

 

To be continued...

Part Nine: acceptance

 

The rest of the climb is easy because I am not focused on anything but the very real feeling that on December 8^th,  on my drive to Munich something will happen to me, I can’t shake that feeling or maybe I should say I can’t shake the knowledge. It’s as real as the fog in the valley, as real as the village hidden beneath and as real as the sun breaking over the mountain peaks to the east. I walk slowly, trying to figure out what I feel about it, I can’t say I am comfortable with it, not afraid but unsettled. It doesn’t make any sense to me and I can’t fathom all that God has been saying to me in light of this new knowledge. I reach the stone steps and don’t stop, I don’t turn to take in the valley below, with the sun finally burning through the clouds and slowly bringing the village into sight, I don’t pause for oxygen, I just keep going, lost in thought. Through the castle gate, up the long drive to the wooden stairs that lead me to the far side of the courtyard closest to the hotel side where the kaminzimmer is. I pass people on the way and smile and say hello but I don’t stop to talk, I don’t head to the kitchen for a coffee and chit chat with the chef, I am moving on autopilot to the chair before the fireplace where I will sit and spend the day thinking, praying and trying for figure out what this new piece of information reveals.

 

The Kaminzimmer is cool this morning, no fire is lit yet and so I gather a pile of wood, and stoop before the giant stone hearth to light it, blowing it when it finally catches the kindling enough to spread. When the fire is finally large enough that I can leave it untended I grab a blanket and wrap it around myself and settle into my chair. My Bible sits in my lap, but it remains unopened as I stare into the flames, mesmerized by the flickering light. I can hear a vacuum in the hall outside and the gentle clatter of dishes being cleared from tables in the dining room. I listen to the voices of the servers not understanding the polish they are speaking but comforted by the sound of people going about their lives around me and then I go back to that thought. Will I really die? Can that really be what I heard God saying? It can’t be true, I nod as if to reassure myself. No, it’s not true it’s just my silly imagination. I decide I am right and start to read my Bible, looking for more truths, more answers, more information about the rescue plan in place for humanity.

 

As lunch approaches I pull myself from my Bible and make my way through the hotel entrance to the kitchen where I fill my mug with some chicken broth and then quickly leave so as not to have to stop and talk. I place the mug at the hearth and add a log to the fire. The sounds of people working is gone, they are all eating in the student side dining room and I can almost imagine I am alone in this old castle. Three times today while reading and praying God has raised my death as as issue, each time I shrug it off, each time telling myself I am crazy and each time sensing that this is actually something I believe deep down. I sip the hot broth from my mug and allow myself to go there, to really contemplate it in my mind.  I think about the ways in which it could happen, and I finally decide that given the time of year and the roads I will need to travel that it will likely be a car accident. I think about the moment, imagining it in full colour and I surprise myself when I am not afraid. I pray only that it won’t hurt too much, and that I am found quickly so my parents don’t have to live through a search. The idea that death doesn’t scare me is new to me, but in this new place I have found with God I know that no matter how I die, how much it hurts, I will wake up with Jesus and the suffering, all of it, the physical, the mental, the emotional, all of it will end and I will be fully loved, forever.  “OK, I say out loud to God, if that’s what you want then I'm okay with it.” And the strangest part of the whole thing was that I really was okay with it.

 

To be continued…

 

Part 8: Really? You sure?

 

My bed is very cozy, I woke up not ago but I can’t seem to drag myself from my bed even with the delicious smell of fresh coffee that my housemate is brewing that I know he will share with me. It’s been one three weeks since that night at the castle, three weeks since that phone call and now plans were underway to meet in Munich airport on December 8^th for a belongings drop and retrieval.. That is just days away now and I lift my hands to my face and rub at my eyes as if I was rubbing it out of my mind for another day. It has been such a great few week, I have spend everyday in the kaminzimmer tucked into chair by the fire reading the Bible and praying for hours and hours on end and I still can’t get enough. I have had my earphones in and listening to worship music and it’s been an amazing restoration time. I have been avoiding people but only because they tend to get in the way of what is happening to me in this space I have found myself. It’s like a birth process in some ways. The more I read and learn and the more I pray the more I find myself so deeply rooted in this new love that I found. I feel so different, so loved, so worthy of the fullness he talks of giving his children. I wish I could do this forever I think to myself, this time is a rare gift and deep down I know it. This morning though I know that if I don’t get that coffee it’ll be cold and coffee is important to me so I push the covers aside and get dressed to go in search of the brew.

 

I turn down the ride to the castle in favor of the walk, and as I climb I think of all the amazing things God has been saying to me this last month. I knew for example that God did indeed have a man already picked out for me, I could stop searching for him because when the time was right God would bring him to me. I also knew that I was to be moving back to Canada, something I hadn’t ever planned to do but which seemed God really wanted, when I begged him to send me anywhere else he gave me a vision. I was walking down a pier I knew well from many visits in the past, as I walked along this pier there was a sailboat and a man with a yellow rain slicker on, it was very windy and the man offered me his hand to pull me on his boat. The pier the Oakville pier, and somehow I knew that the man was the one who would offer me his hand in an entirely different journey. There wasn’t fighting with him after that vision, I knew I would go to Canada and that I was being sent to Oakville of all places. (I have never lived in Oakville before, only ever surrounding it).

There is a bench that sits about half way up the mountain that looks out over the valley, I almost always stop at that bench and contemplate the valley, the way the fog sort of sits down there and the village disappears and I am above the clouds. When you look down the length of the valley towards Zell am See it’s like you are actually looking at a long lake between mountains, and if one was planted here for just a moment they  wouldn’t believe it if you said there was green pastures, a river and a village; it was all gone in the morning, blanketed in the fog until the sun woke up fully and burned it off.

 

I sat on the bench this morning, it wasn’t too cold today but still the seat beneath me was gripping the cold from the night so through my jeans I could feel the chill. A feeling I can’t describe comes over me, it’s a peaceful feeling but there is a message hidden in it that leaves me questioning everything, I question God, ‘what is it? What are you saying?” and that feeling persist. I don’t feel scared or worried or anxious but acceptance that this is what is and I don’t understand all that God has been saying and doing in my life if that is his plan. The feeling, it was that of impending death, my own, on December 8^th.

 

To be continued…

 

*Kaminzimmer means common room or great room, a gathering space of sorts

 

Part seven: look up

 

 

The countryside is dark, I mean, really dark and it’s quiet accept for the occasional sound of a cowbell in the distance letting you know that the cows were close or moving further away as it sounds tonight. It’s late, I stayed too long in the cellar enjoying the company and forgetting everything else for a while but now it is the wee hours of morning and my body is tired. I’m walking a different way home tonight, through the neighbors farm because it’s less steep and though it adds a lot of distance to my walk it is easier in the dark but that doesn’t make it any less dark tonight. I can’t see my hand in front of me, forget trying to see my feet or any possibly pitfalls below me. It’s a long and slow walk. I keep my eyes trained on my feet, sometimes catching the shadow of the moon on the side of a rock and manage to keep from tripping. It’s weird how earlier the moonlight was so bright and now, when I need it most it’s all but gone, hiding as if to laugh at me when I stumble into a cow pie or land in the mud. I think about that stupid mobile phone sitting in my desk drawer and wish for it’s light and then grumble at myself when I remember why it was in the drawer to begin with. I get to what should be the middle of the farmers field, the valley is below me and the castle about a hundred yards behind me and I stop to try to see which direction I’m heading, making sure it’s not into the cows and at least sort of heading towards the narrow cart path that lies about two hundred yards ahead and below me but as I gaze out into the darkness I also happen to look up and then I’m stuck in my spot unable to move. The night sky is pitch black, darker because the moon is lower tonight and hiding just a little behind a mountain top, but as I gaze up I see a million stars and I can’t breathe with the beauty of it. How many years have you been around I wonder when I see one winking at me, are you dying or have you died long ago and I am only now standing witness to it. I don’t know how long I have been standing in the spot but I hear the cow bell again and it’s closer than before so I shake myself from my thoughts and once again turn in the general direction of home. The path doesn’t seem as dark now, it’s crazy but I’m so busy looking up at the stars at first that I don’t notice that I am trusting my feet, I’m trusting the knowledge that I have been here before and know my way, I’m just walking and looking up, and I realize that I have already cross the field and have come to the cart path that will lead me safely down the mountain towards home. My eyes have become adjusted to the light, my feet more confident in their footing I find myself able to think about something other than where I am and where I am going, I can allow myself time to listen to the sounds of the night. It is while I am listening, about half way down the mountain that a strange thought smacks me upside the head. When I was busy looking down, trying to figure my way out and avoid falling I was struggling, grumbling about the lack of the moonlight or that damn phone but when I stopped, when I focused on looking up, trusting my feet, trusting the path that I am on I found my way easily even though it is still dark, even though I can’t see my feet. Life I think to myself, life is just like that sometimes, like now. I have no idea what next week or next month will hold, I have no idea what plans God has for me, I can’t see my footing there any more than I can see it here but if I stop struggling, stop trying to figure out one my own and allow myself to look up, follow God, trusting the path he has me on then it will get easier too. I smile as I reach the final turn in the zigzag path and see the small park where I turn into town, at the opening to the park is a street light and there is comfort in it’s light.  I walk under the light and see the next one seven or eight feet away and so it goes for the rest of the walk into town, through the small village towards home.  When I crawl into bed, thinking about the night I just had I am left in awe that I feel so free, so much more sure of where I am going even as I have no idea where that might lead. I have started on the path, and right now it’s dark but I promise myself that I will keep looking up and deep in my heart I know that it will lead to a street light, and then more street lights and then one day, one day it will lead me home. I close my eyes and allow sleep to claim me.

 

To be continued...

Part six: making the call

My office sits on the second floor of what is called the ‘Student side’, I share it with two others and often one of them works late but she isn’t here tonight, and I’m grateful,  though her conversations always either soothe me or make me laugh but tonight I need the quiet office to myself. I move to the desk, put my coat on the back of my chair and I sit. I pick up my phone and dial. My fingers play with the cord as I wait for the ringing to start and when it does my I can feel my pulse quicken, nerves have me pulling the cord more taught and I have to stop myself before it pulls from the wall entirely. When I hear his voice I pause a beat before saying hello. “Breathe” I tell myself and then I begin the conversation that had been weighing on me all day. I had already moved many of my things to England in anticipation of the move but now I had decided I wasn’t moving and I needed a plan to retrieve my things, it wasn’t going to be an easy conversation so I stalled a little while and asked how his day was going. He was short with me, not wanting to chit chat so finally I had to just come out and say it. “I’m not coming to England.”. I blurted it out by accident in my haste to get it over with and the speech I had previously prepared was gone out the window. I paused; he paused, and then I heard the audible exhale of breath. We talked at length about how we had planned to try to work things through, I try to explain what’s been happening to me, how God has been showing me that I have been looking in the wrong places for love, that he is speaking to me, calling me to him, and that I needed to follow him but nothing was coming out right. I try telling him about how God has been using the story of Abraham and Sarah to talk to me about love, and his promises, how they had tried to maneuver to make the promise happen which ended with Ishmael but that wasn’t God’s plan, he had promised them a child through Sarah, and when they accepted that promise God delivered.  I twist the phone cord more and more in my hand and my fingers turn white, nothing was coming out right, he’s angry with me, he isn’t yelling but I can hear the unspoken words, the clipped way says ‘uh huh’ as I try to tell him what’s happening to me. I tell him how I think we had been trying to create the promise of love and marriage through each other when actually God had something else planned for us, that God had promised it yes but it had to be his choosing but all he hears is me saying that he is Ishmael and he begins screaming about me calling him a bastard. I hold the phone away from my ear, the peace from the chapel is dissipating and I close my eyes willing it to come back, I try assuring him that I don’t think he’s a bastard, that it was meant as a metaphor but he’s beyond hearing me now. I sit, listening to the screaming until finally his temper begins to cool and then I tell him I need to get my stuff back and he hangs up. I put the receiver back in the cradle and lay my head down on my desk, deep breaths, I have to count them because ten just isn’t cutting it and I wonder how many it will take to get my own blood pressure to lower. Nothing about that had gone according to plan I think to myself as I lie with my cheek pressed against the coolness of my desk, my arms hung limp beside me and I must have looked a little like a cartoon character from an office comic strip. I have no energy, only questions and frustrations and yet, beneath it all I also have a sense of ‘okayness’ that I didn’t possess before tonight. I wasn’t happy, but there was a peace and joy that I’m struggling to define.  I had been lying like that for another ten minutes when my phone rang, it was the mobile one this time so I knew immediately who it was and though I didn’t want to be screamed at anymore I also felt a calmness wash over me and I answered despite my misgivings. I knew immediately that he had cooled, he apologized, and then shocking me, he told me that he would pack my things and fly them out to me. Part of me would have rather thrown everything away rather than have to face him again but then the calmness comes, it covers me like a blanket and I find myself agreeing. He says he will get back to me when he knows when he can come and I say thank you and we end the call.  I throw the mobile into the desk drawer beside the discarded ring and quickly grab my jacket and leave so that he doesn’t have a chance to call back while I am in hearing distance, best to leave it on a decent note I think to myself as I head back to the cellar to forget the call and enjoy the people in my life that I love.

 

 

 

To be continued…

Part Five: dancing moonlight

The day after I took the ring off my finger I remember walking into my bosses office feeling like I was going to throw up, how do I begin I kept thinking to myself. I sat in his chair and he smiled at me, knowing something was wrong and not pushing me to start until I was ready,  he was always so patient. When I finally sputtered out that I wasn’t getting married, that the whole ‘Im leaving in October thing isn’t happening’ he listened with no words and then he nodded and said ‘ it sounds like what you need is some time to think. This is your home Laurie, we won’t kick you out. Take whatever time you need to stop and pray and think and then we can talk again”.  I think about that statement a lot these days, it was the same man who told me four years before when I had been looking to leave Canada again ‘you always have a home here, just say the word’ and here he was still saying the same thing. This man, who was always so gracious, so humble and loving was giving me breathing room for the third time in my life. The first, when I was nineteen and not knowing what I wanted in the world, the second when I needed a fresh start somewhere other than Canada and now again, when I felt most alone and unsure he was offering me safe haven. “Sounds like you need time to think” echoes in the darkness around me and I turn back towards the steps of the tower that would lead me back to the chapel.  They are old wooden steps, and the middle of each step is deeply grooved with hundreds of years of use. I have sat on them countless times, running my hands over the smooth wood and wondered about who came before me, and who would come after me. Tonight though, I don’t notice the grooves,  where I was reluctant before I now feel a fresh urgency to seek the chapel and pray about the phone call. I moved quietly, not wanting to be seen, not wanting company, just wanting time alone with God. The door of the chapel is always a little bit open, as if inviting people to come and spend time within it’s walls, it’s unheated but you don’t ever feel cold in there. The ceiling is tall, the windows small, allowing for only a small slit of moonlight. I slide into the pew behind the door on the off chance someone peaks in; I just desperately want to be alone in this moment.  I stare up at the moonlight on the wall, it’s almost dancing up there, I start to pray but falter, what is it I can possibly say to the maker of the Universe that would make any sense. There are so many unknowns right now and all I really want are answers. I try again, and then bow my head in frustration. “I wish I had the words Lord.” I muttered to myself, to the walls and ultimately to God himself. Then, deep inside me an old hymn started to come out from the shadows, reminding me of the beautiful love and mercy and faithfulness of this God who loves me so much, of this God who I have so recently come to love as my own.

 

 

Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father;

There is no shadow of turning with Thee;

Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not;

As Thou hast been, Thou forever will be.

Great is Thy faithfulness! Great is Thy faithfulness!

Morning by morning new mercies I see.

All I have needed Thy hand hath provided;

Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

Summer and winter and springtime and harvest,

Sun, moon, and stars in their courses above;

Join with all nature in manifold witness

To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth,

Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;

Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,

Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!

 

Sitting in the darkness of the chapel that night, watching the dust dance in the moonlight, singing quietly the words to that old hymn I had a renewing in my spirit. I was loved but more than that I had finally found the love that I had always been searching for and I was flooded with emotions, I wanted to know everything I could about this God who could love me so much, who would pursue me and romance me and fight for me, the God who believed me to be beautiful, the God who made me and signed me with his signature as if I was his greatest masterpiece. At once the unknowns that plagued me, the loneliness that I feared would define me were gone and I was full of joy. I sit here, still watching the moonlight dancing, a smile on my lips knowing for the first time that joy isn’t ‘happy’, it is so much deeper. I gave myself completely to his will, right there on the cool stone seat in the chapel. I was his, whatever plan he had for me would be revealed when the timing was right and until then this was my home, and I was safe here. I had time, time to breathe and time to really dive in deep to finding out who this magnificent God is. For now, the only thing on the agenda was a phone call and for the first time I didn’t dread it, there was a new sense of peace in all that I was doing, all the decisions I had made. Standing in the path that God had placed me on, waiting on him for my next steps was the very first time in my life that I wasn’t afraid, it was the very first time I have felt true peace and yes, joy.

 

To be continued…