Oh, how He grows us!

It is such a joy to be able to look back on things I had written just over a year ago - all the hopes, dreams, and fears - and to see how God gloriously answers our prayers and speaks to our hearts. My last post on this blog, written just after we found we were expecting our first child, speaks totally into exactly what the last year and a half of my life has become.

First things first, that sweet baby we were expecting was a little GIRL! Her name is Loyce Kelly, and she just turned 10 months old last week. She came into the world two weeks past her due date, but in her own time. She had a fiery spirit, an inquisitive mind, and has brought more joy to Adam and I than I ever knew this world had to offer. Along with that, we made the decision that the best thing for our girl and our family was for me to stay at home. Funny, how even with working before when I posted about how different my life had become than what I expected, it has changed even more so since then!

Being a stay-at-home mom (with some babysitting of my good friends little boy and some geometry tutoring mixed in there) is a job I NEVER thought I wanted to have! I thought it would be so boring, such a wast. However, as so many of us learn when a little person comes along, I have never been busier in my life. Hands down the BEST job I have even had. Occasionally (ok, lets be honest, a lot of the time) I feel like I am going to go crazy spending my day wiping noses, changing diapers, making bottles, and pushing buttons so little toys can play the same song on what feels like eternal repeat, I have never been more satisfied. My soul is so happy when I think of all the moms who are at work, wishing they could be home. I have serious respect for working moms, because it is so much work to mold a tiny heart, it is so incredible to me that anyone has any energy for more!

In my last post I had written about how I longed to become a more loving, respectful wife. I feel like I have grown a lot in that area of the past year (of course I still have a looong way to go, but who doesnt?) and Adam and I are so happy in our marriage. We recently went to a marriage class through our church, which followed a book called "Sacred Marriage", written by Gary Thomas. The whole premise of the class is what I was barely beginning to understand last year, that our marriages are not designed by God to bring us happiness (though that is certainly and added benefit of sharing your life with someone), but rather to make us more holy. He talked about how our marriages shine a bright light on the darkness in our hearts and our souls, and help us grow to love more like Christ, to be closer to our Lord, and to really give of ourselves in the way the Father calls us to. SUCH a good class.

I think I have probably rambled enough for the time being, it feels good to put words down on virtual paper again. I make no promises to be a regular poster (remember those snotty noses and diapers?), but I do hope to at least occasionally come up with something worthy of writing, that hopefully speaks to someone else out there. :)

I seemed to have stopped writing in the recent years. I feel like writing is a window into our heart, and I have been unwilling to open that window and let anyone see in. I think I have felt disappointed in myself, or maybe that other people have been disappointed in me. I'm not totally sure why. I have a wonderful life, it is just so different than what I had expected my life to amount to. It's funny though, in an ironic sort of way, because I don't think that I would be happy in the sort of life I had imagined. I would feel alone.

I may feel many things about my career, my bank account, my life - but I am not alone. In fact I am the most together I have ever been. I cannot explain the blessing it is to be married and have someone fully know you. It is possible to hide your heart I suppose, but there is such a vulnerability in marriage like nothing else I have ever experienced. Literally every single decision you make affects another person. Whether it be what you make for dinner (if you even make it?), what time you get off work, if you pick up your clothes. You are required to be a lot less selfish. Let me tell you, it isn't easy. So many of the things I most get annoyed about around the house are really things I have been to lazy to keep up on, and I act in anger because I am angry. Angry that I can't be more perfect. As infuriating as that is at times, it is the most humbling experience. I thank God for putting Adam and I together in this marriage not just for all the wonderful things he brings into my life but also for the honest introspection is has required of myself.

With how much my marriage has changed the essence of who I am, I can only begin to fathom how much change this child (Due May 14th 2013) will bring. I pray that the Lord will prepare my heart for it. That I will be able to become a more gracious, loving, giving person than I am. That I might be humbled into a more honoring and respectful wife. These are areas that I struggle in daily and I hope to grow. Now I will not only be living for my Father, my husband, and myself, I will be living for my Father, my husband, my child, and myself. I have to remember who comes first and who comes last on that list. I have to remember that without my Father and my husband I would have no child. I will have to consider all of us before I make a decision because more and more there will be no "just me". I look forward to it with both fear and excitement. I can't wait to meet my child, and even more, to become a person they can respect and look up too.

I am not sure if any of this wordiness really has merit or interest to any others, but I felt like sharing my heart. I want to begin to open the window and to remember that happiness is not having what you thought you wanted, it is realizing how blessed you are by the things you never could have dreamed for yourself...

Challenges

Here it is, my first post from my brand new MacBook Pro. There is just something so freeing to me about typing on a laptop. I'm not 100% sure what makes it feel "special" or "different", there is just something about laptops that feels personal to me. I love how the keyboards feel too, I am able to type so quickly and freely and I just really enjoy it.

So far this post hasn't been terribly poetic. I suppose that's why my title is PROBABLY poetic, because things don't always have to be. Though, if you think about it, prose in and of itself is poetic. Kind of. Every piece is just a little bit different. Anyways...

I think I mentioned before how my friend Katie and I give one another "poetry challenges". We mail each other our latest poem and include a challenge for the other to write a poem. These challenges serve to stretch the imagination, and to keep us writing. Katie is great about them. I, on the other hand, am two behind. I have poets block. Or I just don't try. Or I try to hard. I'm not sure what my true reason is I just know that I haven't felt terribly creative lately, and this post is an attempt to correct that. So, here we are. The first challenge that she gave me is this:

"Write in the point of view of a type of person you are not (a type you are most unlike) (?Slutty girl, atheist, callous person?) This is not meant to be cliche or a satire, but try to realistically explore their psychological and spiritual landscape: we all see the top of the mountain, but what lies in the forest (if anything)?"

Man, Katie goes straight to the heart! Well, here goes nothing::

The Forest at the Mountain's Base

Sarrah Loyce

There is an anger at the top of the mountain

a brutal, bias voice.

It screams out of me, louder than a lion.

It is not my choice.

The rage within me bubbles out my mouth

frothy, foaming fury.

The anger so consumes me

that I can see nothing clearly.

So many bad impressions are made of

my anger, my wrath,

I am judged so harsh and rashly,

that it makes me catch my breath.

They call me crude and callous,

a mean, insufferable bitch.

But the truth is they don't know me,

they only catch a glimpse

of who I am.

I am a wealthy woman.

I am a mother too.

I am a fiery leader.

I am not a fool.

I have a painful history.

I have a story of loss.

And most of all, I have my reasons for being cross.

Do not presume to know me

or think that you could understand,

I'm guarded by my anger,

and I protect myself how I can.

I see the world around
the green, the glorious, the grand.
I also see pain and persecution,
treachery done by man, to man.

I am the forest lying
and the tall, noticed mountains base.
I am the truth behind it,
I am the emotion hidden behind that face.

Inspiration

So it has been quite a while since I have posted much on this blog. I love the idea of writing poems constantly but as of late I have been struggling with finding inspiration. My dear friend Katie sends me poetry challenges in the mail, but alas, I cannot seem to be inspired by them and it saddens me. I think it is in part because I have sort of cut myself off from my creative, inventive brain. When I go through hard stuff my instinct is to shut down, and to hide. I went through some really hard stuff this past year, and while I'd love to draw inspiration from that I still find myself quite anxious when I try. I worry I will share to much, give to much of myself away and become vulnerable. I guess that is really part of the thrill of written art, wondering who will see it, and how much they will glean from their limited knowledge of the subject matter. I don't know why I find the fear of sharing myself so paralyzing. A work in progress...for ever more I will be.

Here's a Fool For You

Here’s a Fool For You
Sarrah Loyce

If I had a penny for every brilliant thought,
I’d remain a penniless fool.
If brilliance is “distinguished
by unusual mental keenness”,
I’d rather remain a fool. “One lacking in common powers of understanding”.

I find it highly ironic; the oddity of the hated, of the praised
the fool is found uncommon;
the brilliant unusual and odd.
Both measured by their mentality, the capacity of the brain. The is no fool,
nor wise one.

Can I not be brilliant fool? Unusually keen in my lacking
of the common understanding?
Can I also be foolishly brilliant? My lacking common thought
to make me unusual and keen,
to uncommon understanding?

If you call a thought uncommon, a thought I may have had,
am I brilliant, or a fool? If you disagree,
a fool!
If not, my brilliance exceeds all before!
Ah, but who is really uncommon, if everyone agrees?
Who can be a brilliant thinker, if only having common thought? That would defy
the definition, and rend my thinking
common.

So what was it that I said, that supposedly “brilliant” thought?
Ah yes, it was common, like everyday chimney soot.
Hiding in every chimney, in every house, every living room.
Cleaning it out may be messy, intelligence, is only
willingness to hold a broom.
The effort, to pick through, the soot.

To get on hands and knees, to scrub.

Dirty, difficult.

So brilliance? Foolishness?
That’s just pretending you didn’t get it from the soot.

Well....it's been a while...

We finally accomplished our 10-month goal! Adam and I are now a Mr & Mrs. It's pretty exciting. We've moved and experienced a whole lot of life changes in the past few months. I love life, and love learning about how you do this whole marriage thing (it isn't as easy as it looks).

Anyways, I hope to be back at the poetry soon, or the blogging, or something other than just a random life update. But I figure that's good too.

Still job searching, but I hope I'll find something new.

Peace out
Sarrah

Facelessness

faceless

a figure standing
high heels - stilettos perhaps

threatening

an a-line skirt
with a business jacket

a model.

personality

a figure standing
tennis shoes - converse to be exact

cowardly

old navy jeans
with a t-shirt

ordinary.

the faceless
the centerfold
the model
dictates

the ordinary
the middle class
the human being
fears

the faceless.

is threatened by

the faceless.

ironically

the faceless

is fake.

the farce influences the genuine.
the genuine long for the farce

the fake

the dominant.

worthless.

media
lies
hypocrisy.

media makes the world
the society

it’s a fakeness

the faceless
the ordinary.

nothing matters.
nothing gives.
until the end.

the part beyond this place.

heaven.
the whole.
the holy.
the heavenly.
the surreal.
the unimaginable.

that’s what’s real.
that’s what awaits.

faceless. nameless. placeless.

heaven.


-Sarrah Loyce 4/13/10