by Christie Purifoy | Nov 27, 2012 | Advent, Blog, Jesus, motherhood, Seasons, Uncategorized, Waiting
As I write this, we are waiting for snow. I can hear rain on the metal roof of the red barn, but I am straining my ears for quiet. When the rain turns to snow (as the forecast promises it will), quietness will spread the news.
Silence heralds the advent of snow.
There were so many silent years between the words of Malachi and those of Matthew. I imagine the silence building until those who strained their ears, like Simeon and Anna in the temple, could hear the silence speak: He is coming. Hold on. He is coming.
I want to be like Anna.
I want to pray him in with my waiting.
My own season of intense waiting may have ended (with an old Pennsylvania farmhouse and a new baby girl), but I need Jesus more than ever.
I need his presence because, apart from him, this home is just a pile of old bricks crushing us with endless to-dos. Apart from him, there is no hope for me as a mother (the best and hardest thing my firstborn taught me, and it’s a lesson I learn again with each child, is I do not have what it takes).
I desperately need him for today (to give meaning to my dishwashing and the endless picking up of toys), and I need him for tomorrow (because, apart from him, my life has no destination; what am I walking toward?).
And so, this month, I will pause in the midst of online shopping and tree decorating. I will put down the toy catalog and the cookie cutter (which, let’s be honest, will be a relief. I could write a book on the horrors of holiday baking for the child allergic to butter, wheat, and nuts).
I will turn my face towards darkness and watch for light.
I will listen to silence.
I will pray him in with my waiting.
“… come quickly to me, O God. You are my help and my deliverer; Lord, do not delay.”
(Psalm 70:5)
You can read the introduction to last year’s Advent series here.
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by Christie Purifoy | Mar 8, 2012 | Blog, God's promises, Lent, Seasons, Waiting
Things have been a little quiet around here. A little empty. On the blog and in my heart. This Lent I find myself in a waiting, resting mode. Waiting for my lungs to heal. Waiting for a little boy’s fever to break. Waiting for God to reveal something of what’s next.
I’m waiting on big things and small and holding on to the hope that there will be much to share and much to say on this blog in the months ahead.
Last night, awake at 3 am and waiting for sleep to return, I noticed the moonglow in my bedroom. There’s a full moon tonight, but I have been thinking of new moons. This blog began with my thoughts on a new moon. I’m posting them again in case any of you are finding Lent to be a dark season.
Just remember … darkness is never the end of the story. To paraphrase the writer Anne Lamott, we may be living in a Good Friday world, but we are an Easter people.
Do you know what a new moon looks like? Of course, I do, you’re probably thinking. Until two days ago, I would have thought exactly the same, but I wouldn’t really have been seeing a new moon in my head.
Because I have been in the middle of one book (or six) pretty much ever since I picked up my first kindergarten reader, many of the ideas floating around in my head are attached to letters but not pictures. For example, having read a towering stack of nineteenth-century British novels, I have the word rookery firmly planted in my head. However, I have no solid picture to go along with it. Instead, when I happen upon this word, maybe in Jane Eyre, I see the letters r-o-o-k-e-r-y with a vague image of big black birds sitting on rocks. Which is funny, really, because a rookery shares nothing with rocks but “r,” “o,” and “k.” Though, I had to look it up in wikipedia to be sure even of that.
So, new moon. Two days ago, I googled the phases of the moon. If you’re following a train of thought and sitting in front of a computer (or smartphone, I suppose) it’s amazing how far you can follow said train. My thought began with a complaint and a worry.
I have a two-year-old, and he is a terrible sleeper. Always has been. Which means that my husband and I haven’t slept well in more than two years (because those last few months of pregnancy are never great for sleep, either). Lately, this boy has taken to creeping into our bedroom several times each night and trying to sleep on the floor beside our bed. It’s a little sad and a little cute, but, mostly, it’s exhausting because the two-year-old can’t actually fall back to sleep on our floor, and we can’t fall back to sleep with the loud sucking sounds of his pacifier. Also, I’ve been worried that I’ll get up in the night, not realize he’s there, and step on him. Did I mention that our bedroom has been very, very dark lately? We have transom windows that let in a lot of moonlight, but recently there’s been no light at all and why has there been no light? . . . well, I started googling. The first page that popped up had a huge image of Wednesday night’s moon. A new moon.
This is what a new moon looks like: black, empty, nothing. Somewhere in my head I suppose I knew that. However, it’s the word new that throws me off. New suggests promise, possibility, beginnings. New things should be light, bright, and shimmery. Shouldn’t they? Yet a new moon looks like a black hole. The opposite of promising. The opposite of fresh. The opposite of, well, new.
Staring at that shadowy, black circle where a moon should be, I felt both surprised and encouraged. I’ve been waiting and watching and longing for new things. Months ago, I read these words and felt a promise for my own life: “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?” (Isaiah 43: 19). Some days, I did perceive it. Lately, not so much. I read David’s confession that God lifted him “out of the mud and mire” and “put a new song” in his mouth. I too want a “new song,” but I’ve seen so few signs of it. The landscape of my life looks a little dark. Mostly empty.
Seeing rightly what a new moon is, I recall what I do know: new things start out small. New things begin growing in darkness. In their earliest days, new things look a lot like nothing.
Today, I am choosing to believe that what looks like emptiness and nothingness to me is actually the most promising sign of something new. It is fertile ground for the new thing I choose to believe that God is doing.
I’m afraid I’m mixing metaphors here (from sky to earth), but the new moon reminds me of nothing more than a bed of fertile soil. It looks like absolutely nothing. It looks like darkness and emptiness. It isn’t.
“Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him” (Psalm 126: 5,6).
by Christie Purifoy | Oct 7, 2011 | Blog, Food, God's promises, Seasons, Writing
It’s a mystery. One day (in a succession of many, many such days) you are a still and brackish puddle of water. No movement. Not much life. Then, something imperceptible happens. Perhaps, Someone breathes just a bit of Himself over the stillness? And the still puddle begins to trickle. It’s no river, certainly, but there is just a hint of movement, just a hint of renewal. Some fresh spring has begun to flow.
Nine months ago I began writing a story. My story. For the past five months the draft of that story has sat, locked in my computer, untouched. But this week I opened it up again. I started rewriting, tweaking, adding new thoughts.
It feels good to be at work again.
The only problem is that I’m feeling, here at the end of the week, just a bit dried up where words are concerned. Perhaps it’s only laziness, but I feel better remembering George MacDonald’s words: “Work is not always required. There is such a thing as sacred idleness.”
I’m giving myself over to idleness for the next few days. Let’s hope it’s of the sacred sort.
Meanwhile, since I have few words of my own today, here are the words (and a few images) I’m carrying with me into this weekend:
“I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt. Open wide your mouth, and I will fill it.”
Psalm 89: 9-11
by Christie Purifoy | Aug 9, 2011 | Blog, Vacation
(photo by yours truly)
Okay, maybe not that last one. But, really, it wouldn’t at all surprise me to see a unicorn drinking from one of these dappled mountain streams.
We’re enjoying a family vacation this week. The air is blessedly cool. The pools and streams are icy, and when my children come out after swimming they look as if they’ve been dipped in gold glitter. My husband, who will always carry with him the rock-collecting Boy Scout he once was, could tell you why. Mica? Quartz? I don’t know, but it’s lovely.
I’ll be back in this space next week. I’m just popping in briefly tonight to say thank you. I’ve enjoyed one full week in my beautiful new online home, and I am feeling very grateful for the super-smart design wizards who have made this possible. Thank you, Adam, and everyone else at McLane Creative. Tech-y, computer stuff seems like rocket science to me and just thinking about it makes me bite my nails, but you made this process entirely painless . . . actually, better than that: it was enjoyable!
If anyone reading this needs help with web design and development, someone to help you take that “next step” online, may I recommend my new friends at McLane Creative? They are the web design equivalent of a mountain vacation (waterfalls, glitter, and unicorns included).
