~Another Ending~

If you're here at my blog looking for answers, I'm going to break something to you. 

I don't have them. 

All I've got are 

-thoughts-

- Questions-

-Words-

-Stories-

Last week started hard. The first two babies I ever babysat said 

g o o d b y e 

to me. 

They aren't really babies any more. Little people with 

big minds,

 big hearts, 

and big souls.

"I don't want to leave you behind Miss Maddie. I'll come back, I promise," little girl tells me. 

I babysit a lot of kids now, 

but these ones... 

they've left a soft spot in my heart.

 

"Are you going to miss them?" little sister asks me one night in bed. 

It all floods out then.

 I open up.

"Yeah, I'll miss them.

 I won't just miss their smiles or their laughter, 

I'll miss the way they made me feel special. 

They always saw in me something that no one else did. 

On those  L o N e L y  days when I felt like my world was 

b

r 

e 

a

k

i

n

g,

 little boy came and told me 

he loved me 

in that childish way that pieced my world back together. 

Sure, 

they're just little kids, 

but sometimes little kids see things we don't. 

I don't know why they liked me. 

Maybe it was because of the adventure we had when I rescued his toy out of the toilet. 

Maybe it was because of the surprises I brought in my purse. 

Or maybe...

 it was because of the stories I told them. I don't know why, 

but they did. 

So yeah, I'll miss them." 

I turn to my emotional little sister and jokingly ask, "You aren't crying, are you?" 

There is a sniffle. 

Then, two pitiful choked words.

 "I am."

 Silence. 

"Maddie, that is so sad. You may never see them again." 

"But now they know how to tell stories. They can take that with them," I remind her. 

Maybe I'm comforting her, 

or maybe I'm comforting myself. 

"Can I sleep in your bed?" whimpers little sister. 

"No," I return, "But you can come snuggle for a while." 

We snuggle for a while 

and we cry for a while 

and we try to understand. 

Sooooo...

 all that to say -> I don't have answers. 

I don't know why they left.

 All I know is that God put them in my life for a season 

and 

took them out. 

I'm so happy to be able to say I could be part of their story, 

and I'm so happy that they were part of mine. 

<3 storyteller

Someday

 So, I wanted to tell you somethings that have been on my mind and sometimes the only way to share is through a story, so here is a super short story. It's completely fictional, kind of just flooded right out of me at the last moment...

Little girl doing creating

Babies can paint too

Somehow it became finger painting

{S O M E D A Y}

"So you like art?" the woman with the shining eyes asks. 

"Yes," answers little girl. I don't just like art. I breathe art. Ever spiraling curve. Every harsh brush stroke. Every soft line. Art is piece of me, not just a hobby. 

"I'll show you some of my work," the woman offers. "Would you like that?" 

Little girl nods. 

Into another room the woman leads her, a room full of art. Shapes. Colors. Unspoken words... all collided into each painting. 

Little girl is speechless. Awkward. I'll never be this good.

"This is what I do," the woman says smiling. "I hoped it would inspire you." 

Little girl is wordless. This is what I want to be. She's amazing. My art is so bad next to this, but maybe someday...

"Your mom said you brought some work to show me," mentions the woman. 

Little girl pauses. I can't show her mine. It's so bad next to this. "It's in my backpack," she whispers instead, and rushes out of the room to get it. 

Little girl brings back a drawing of a flower. Crooked. Light. Plain. It was once beautiful to me, but she'll never catch that beauty. She couldn't.

The woman takes it. Looks it over without a word. Little girl waits, hardly breaths, just waits. 

"That's very nice," The women tells her at last. "Someday you'll become famous." 

Its not good enough now... but maybe someday. Little girl smiles. "Thank you." Stiff. Too short... but what else can I say?

To the women it all feels stale. Did she really inspire the little girl? Doubt. Or just intimidated her? 

Weeks slide by and the woman gets busy and famous and stops talking to the little girl. Stops seeing the hidden artist inside her. 

But the little girls doesn't stop dreaming. 

 s o  m e d a y

She whispers to herself. 

The weeks form months and the months form years and nothing changes. The woman forgets the little girl, but the little girl never forgets that one word 

s o m e d a y 

One stormy March day the woman moves on in the world. She leaves, but before she's gone she sees the little girl and she remembers. Did I ever help her? She wonders. Probably not. She goes. 

But little girls still hears the old promise 

s o m e d a y 

she never let it go

Words are wild things. 

Don't underestimate them. 

Sometimes we watch them form people 

and other times they form people 

on their own. 

~storyteller

His

{Broken, Rusty, Empty... but the daughter of the KING}

Sunshine In All Those Clouds

According to my family, I've been grumpy this week... I like to blame it on the weather. All week the sky has been cotton coated by clouds and the world has be sunless...scopeless. 

I've worked on math. 

Taken walks. 

Baked. 

Drawn. 

And on one particular morning my creative mind was killing me so I wrote the beginning of a novel that I never intend to finish. It started out like this, 

"The world, a septic tank, breaking people down and sending them on unending journeys..."

 So yep. That was... fun.

And in this rainy week, questions have been spiraling through my head, questions that so many humans have tried to solve before. 

No answer.

We say the bible is the answer. But there are things that the bible doesn't specifically answer. So we continue to look for answers. In the end of the day, though, faith is all we're left with. 

Frustrating faltering faith. 

The scripture has one answer...the only answer that we are required to give on judgement day. That's all we must have, and the bible gives it to us so many times.  

Isn't that sort of comforting?

Sometimes the world looks bleak. The future so unknown. The older I get the darker the world around me gets. Insides it leaves me confused, scared, and sad, so sad. Everywhere there are marks of this sadness. 

Disgusting sin. 

Black Hate. 

Seething Pain. 

Sometimes I just want to give up. I don't want to live here surrounded by so much darkness and so little light...but once a long long time ago this world was beautiful. God saw it and said that it was good. And sometime, whether later or soon, this place will be made beautiful again, and God will see it and say that it is good. 

So even when the world feels like a septic tank tearing us apart, (gotta love my anologies) 

don't give up. 

This world is a dark place, but not hopeless. Even in a little kid's hug or the sight of a fawn playing in the valley, there is beauty, beauty behind all the clouds.

I promise.

<3 storyteller