I AM a Mother

WARNING ⚠ : The content below is rated "M" for Mature Mothers and "RM" for Really Mature Males.  Continue reading only if you're ready to hear some raw conversation about birth. 

 

            Oh, so you decided to keep reading? This will be your last and final chance to get out before it gets real...Standby...3...2...1... Today marks the day five years ago I became a mother. If I had known the war on my heart that would take place through the birthing of motherhood I would have told you back then I wasn’t strong enough to travel this road. Three words jumped out of my mouth after my wet slimy daughter was pressed up against my chest, “That was awesome!”  After three hours of intense pain I’ve mostly blocked out by now, and great surrender I gained more strength and confidence than I ever had in my life. I had prepared for nine months for this moment and I conquered it with loving support, but no amount of preparation prepared me for the beginning of motherhood. The ecstatic joy of my experience lingered with the delivery of the placenta and peaceful welcome flower bath with my daughter.

            Ever so slowly the battle scars I endured began to ache. Like every woman I wanted so badly to not tear, but I was left with a 2 inch horizontal tear straight down my labia. I had been wounded in my most intimate place, and upon both sitting and shitting I was greeted with this incredible pain. “What in the hell was going on down there, and why can’t I sit down?” For several weeks I sat on a nursing pillow with a hole in the middle to handle the bruised tailbone that I had suffered during delivery and each time I peed instead of wiping I squirted my lady parts with a full bottle of lavender water to dampen the stinging sensation. I was so stoked and elated with joy, but in total awesome shock. I didn’t leave the house for nine days to rest, and once I finally journeyed down those three long staircases with my new baby the whole world was different, and it was still hazy to my understanding but my whole world was different now too.  It was incredibly hard just to go to the pediatrician for a newborn check-up and pee in public, but I was thankful the office was considerate enough to have a bidet for my cowering lady parts. 

 My heart was so ready for this new season yet so incredibly underprepared.  Within two days my boobs had literally grown three sizes (no exaggeration), and the pain that accompanied that along with my stinging nipples was indescribable. My flat chest had become two stone rocks engorged from new milk flow which I would try to soothe with refrigerated cabbage leaves and accidentally burn with a hand warming packet that I stuck in my bra while I slept.  No mom, no woman or any amount of books can truly prepare you for what new motherhood is like. It is something that can only be known through experience. That experience is unique to each mama and it shapes her in ways only she can understand.  I remember in the first six weeks picking up my daughter in the middle of the night to discover I had arthritis from my fingers down to my elbows. I could barely lift my 8-pound baby up towards my chest. The night feedings were more frequent then I remember, for a girl who loves, or I should say loved her sleep. I remember honestly praying to God, “please just let her sleep for a few minutes”, followed by her waking up moments after laying her down. I digressed, “please God, please just 60 more seconds.” The heart of the tough days did slowly subside and even in those difficulties there was such great joy in every moment. Sometimes I captured the joy in the blown out diaper and sometimes I sunk back in embarrassment with yet another spit-up soaked shirt in public. 

        Birth is a real example of the dichotomy of the extreme joy extreme sorrow moments in life. One of the last pushes before Zara made her debut was accompanied by a bloodcurdling scream that could’ve been heard three stories down. Immediately followed by the tension of a 45-second silent pause before she took her first breath, and I spoke the final words over my experience, “THAT WAS AWESOME!”  Don’t let lives most painful experiences fool you into believing you are left destitute or traumatized. In every experience in life we have the final say on the outcome. Just like Jesus after being brutally beaten beyond recognition declared “it is finished “, we all know the tension of the three days that ensued between those words and the final outcome. The greatest sorrow soon became resurrection life that has reverberated throughout history touching our lives today. “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him” 1Corinthians 2:9.  What sometimes feels like a tragedy is really a triumph. If you’re still in the middle of the tension hold on because the story is not over yet. 

 

            Happy fifth birthday to the girl who made me a mother and gave me gifts of love, wisdom, hope, great joy, and the reignition of childlike wonder and imagination.  Motherhood rips your heart wide open and creates fertile ground for new capacities to grow.  From one mother to another, enjoy watching your mystery garden grow both internally within you and externally within the little heart you just created. Motherhood has always been one of life’s greatest miracles.  Don’t miss the joy of todays pain for the promise of tomorrow’s relief.  Motherhood is experienced in breaths…not years, not hours, not even minutes, but one breath at a time.  Exhale whatever you need to right now, you are incredibly loved in this moment. 

Inhale this truth:

 

“He tends his flock like a shepherd: 

He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; 

He gently leads those that have young.” Isaiah 40:11  

   

I AM Grace: 50 Shades of Grace

I Am Grace

I will walk with you through failures

Through doubts 

Through blatant lies and cover up stories

I will cover your sins with love

Pick you up out of your own pit

Rescue you from your vices

Save you from your own demons

I will shout louder than the voices in your head

Give you wisdom when you've been deceived

I will carry you through your messes

Erase your worst memories

Fix you up from your own destruction

Repaint your past horror stories

Exchange life for the death you sowed

I will give you a second chance

a third chance, a fourth chance

I will walk with you out of divorce

I will walk you away from disgrace

I will blanket your shame with my robes

Dry your tears with my blood stained hands

Repay you for lost years 

I will give you room to grow

Time to transform

Hope to overcome

and strength to kick every bad habit

I Am Grace

and I have many shades of forgiveness

but gray is not one of them

I am red and I am white

I cleanse with blood and I shine with light

I will walk you through every shade of gray 

but my goal is to bring you from dark to light

death to life

I will reveal your shady heart

your shady thoughts

your shady ideas 

your shady ways of living
that hurt those around you 

and your shades of gray
that destroy your own family from the ground up

I will make you into a wise woman

who builds her own house

rather than into a foolish woman 

who tears her house down with her own hands

I am the power of transformation

I cleanse with blood and I shine with light

I Am Grace. 

"Flee sexual immorality.  Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body." 

-1 Corinthians 6:18-

I AM a Bride

Running from my kingdom I am out of breath...abandoning my throne I try to escape by foot.  I am panting like a dog on a humid day.  I try to pull some air into my lungs so I can continue what I do best...RUN.  "But you are an heir to a throne, you are royalty."  I often hear these whispers coming up from the pavement behind me.  Someones footsteps are speaking to me, and no matter how fast I run I always hear the faint sound of someone chasing me.  I am engaged to a guy that has actively pursued me for nearly nine years.  The pursuit was seen sometimes by chase and sometimes through waiting.  Reluctantly he watched as I ran as far and as fast as I possibly could, he let me go,  hoping I'd still be the girl for him.  5,000 miles later he was right and his love ran faster than my resistance.  We are not yet married, but I already see a rough sketch of a Christ like husband in him.  I am reminded of Ephesians 5:25, "Husbands love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her."  He reminds me to not give up my throne as a joint heir with Christ Jesus.  I used to call him my muzac, like music, but for me it meant my very own personal muse named Zac.  And in this case he was my muse that inspired me to write this poem during a very difficult winter day.

Born a Bride

In all my striving, 

I am reminded that I am getting married

There's someone out there in this world that calls me his baby

He thinks about me for no particular reason,

and wonders what I'm doing when he's away from me

He ponders my thoughts, my ways, 

and cares enough to ask... 

"what are you thinking, and why are thinking the things you think?"

Which I know is a very dangerous question to ask a woman,

yet he still asks.

He reminds me that I've always been 'getting married',

I've always been a bride,

I've always been betrothed, 

I've always been preparing for a wedding.

There's always been a groom, before I ever met him.

A groom who embodies every ounce of the word love

Whose own body became the atoms that made the substance called love

He is in and of himself, love

His flesh and bones spell the word love

For in His marrow was the creation of blood

that demonstrated to the whole Earth, what is love?

He calls me beloved,

and thinks about me so much that each individual grain of sand 

on every beach, of every continent,

represents one thought about me

He longs for my worship night and day

and His smile lights up the sky when I utter just three words to Him,

"I love you"

He not only ponders my thoughts 

but He knows my thoughts 

before I even think them

When I pray, he begins to answer before I manage to say the first word

He cares so much that he challenges my thoughts 

and reminds me to think on what is pure, what is lovely, what is good

He reminds me to think only what is true,

even when every circumstance tells me the opposite 

and every experience whispers lies to me

"The truth", he says is "you are a bride,

and every bride becomes a queen. 

So act like one." 

                          

We are the bride of Christ.  What have some of us given up because of fear or persecution or the lust of the eyes and the pride of life?  The day we wake up and realize that it is an entire kingdom we have abandoned, and it is our throne we have left empty maybe we will return to our position in Christ Jesus.  We are called to rule and reign with Christ.  Do not run from the kingdom of God you were born in to.
"[..]and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you."Isaiah 62:5    

I AM ART

          I believe that as Christians it is our job to convey the gospel story in a language that our culture can understand and connect to.  Why are there so many different versions of the Bible?  One of the reasons is that the language of the times keeps changing.  As a result new versions are written in order for the emerging generation to understand what is being said.  Did you know that there is a version of the Bible translated into Hawaiian Pidgin and it is called "Da Jesus Book"?  Hawaiian Pidgin is a creole or slang language that originated as a form of communication between English speaking and non-English speaking residents.  Pidgin is the primary language for many residents of Hawaii.  Da Jesus Book is an example of creativity used to reach a sub-culture where a new language emerged.

            My generation and the generations that are growing up today in America relate to the world largely through media, television, music, and art.  Therefore we should be expressing and translating our Christianity in every art form.  You must take this beyond your idea of the "Christian religion".  Art is so much more than a mere tool for evangelism or a tool to teach us more about the religion of Christianity…it is who we are in our purest form.  We are creators, and by extension we are artists.  Before we could understand that we were anything else we knew that we were born to create.  Why?  Because in Genesis 1:27, "God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them."  We are the sons and daughters of the creator of the universe, made in His own image, thus we are creators. Our lives are a continual work of art; our salvation is made possible through the creativity of God.  How? To be "saved" or "born-again" really just means to have a re-created new nature.  So in a sense you could say that creativity is in our physical and spiritual DNA. The forming of our physical bodies in our mother's womb was a creative act and the recreation of our nature was a creative miracle.  "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new"(2 Corinthians 5:17).

            So what do we do with this revelation?  We are artists by nature, and we live in a culture that is communicating more and more through social media, pictures, videos, gifs, and memes.  Our culture relates to the world through computer screens, phone screens, TV screens, the silver screen.  We hear through music, and we listen with more than just our ears but with our eyes we understand concepts, feelings, emotions and ideas.  It's interesting that the church used to be driven by the arts.  Look at the beauty of the Sistine chapel and the art of the renaissance age; it is breath taking.  It's a tragedy that many churches have excellent teaching on the word of God yet are lacking in creative expression; as a result the gospel is becoming more and more irrelevant to young people.  As a church we need to realize that we are presenting the gospel in such a way that doesn't translate to a vast majority of our culture. 

            This is not a new reality, but it's becoming more and more obvious as our culture shifts.  I have always had a strong passion and appreciation for the performing and visual arts yet have sat in churches that dull down the message of Jesus until it's dry, boring or outdated.  Even though the truth of the gospel is being taught, it's presented in a boring manner and 2 hours later all I can think about is my butt being numb while someone lectures me or over spiritualizes faith.  I've listened to "secular" music and seen films that have had more of an impact on my life than many church services I wasted my time at.             
                         This is a call to remember the creativity that is inside all of us.  This is a call for every individual to express the beauty, the awesomeness, and the indescribable love of Jesus Christ through every art form.  What we can create and express on this earth is unimaginable, and yet so attainable if we just believe and break through the ceilings and the limits we've place on human creativity in the realm of the church.  The language of art and music is timeless…we can reach any culture through some form of art…perhaps we're just not speaking the right language? If our culture is speaking through art and music we need to translate the gospel through the language of the arts.  Look at some of the greatest films of our time. Listen to the greatest music hits. Take notice of the art that captivates and inspires you through a language you can't even verbalize.  I am art and so are you, don’t' stifle the creativity that God has designed you with.  Art can't be contained in four walls; it will paint every sidewalk, every building, it will light up the sky, it will echo through entire cities…just look at nature, it's beauty covers the earth.  Think beyond what you've ever imagined and create what you see with your spiritual eyes.  Call to life the art and the expression of a living God that has died, been ignored or been oppressed. 

"Any group that willingly or unconsciously sidesteps creativity and human expression gives up their effective role in the society in which they live.  In Christian terms, their ability to be the salt of that society is greatly diminished."  -Francis Schaeffer-

I AM a Virgin

I started this blog in May of 2008.  I was 20 years old and highly concerned with living a pure life, which to me includes waiting until marriage until I have sex.  It's been five years since I began writing on this subject and my view has not changed.  If anything, I can see more now why it is so important and healthy to protect yourself against the damaging affects of premarital sex.  I'm 25 years old and anytime someone finds out that I am a virgin then that is suddenly how I am defined.  I am no longer Leilani, but I am in their minds some kind of an overly religious slave who is adhering to this so called rule that I must remain a virgin.  Sex is not a game, it's not how you discover love, and it cannot satisfy you completely in a casual relationship.  Now I understand that I am part of 3% of the population who decides to wait until marriage, so this explains better why 97% of people look at me like I'm a naive fool.  It's way past time that we evaluate what our careless over-sexed attitudes are doing to our society as a whole.  Women under 25 are more likely to have had a baby than to be married, while 44% of British children are now born out of wedlock.  If you're a parent and can look at your daughter and be okay with the idea that she may be living with you after 18 with a child as a single mother then by all means continue to believe what you believe about casual sex.  If you are 25 or younger, seriously consider your life...your youth is fleeting!  You have a much better shot at living a successful, happy and productive life if you're not a single parent raising a kid on your own or tortured by your past liaisons .  Our mentality about sex being a casual thing is faulty, damaging, obviously pleasure driven and creating dysfunctional families.  Our choices affect not only our lives but the lives of generations to come.  Maybe if we were more concerned about teen sex than we were with gay marriage we'd be helping to raise healthy adults for the future.  We don't want to fight for purity,  especially in America we'd rather fight to keep and protect our perversion.

Here is a good article series for those who have decided to wait until marriage:
Sexless in the City

I AM humanity

We mourn because the world is a dark and troubled place

we dance because the world is a dark and troubled place

we cry from heart ache

and we laugh because of that same ache 

we rejoice in hopes of days better

weeping often 

having faith in better days unseen 

we pretend not, but believe

because someone has to

else we all drown 

in what is seen. 

I feel the deepest of these pains

weighing heavy on me

In my simplicity and in my smiles

you have judged me 

in my silence and in my laughter 

you have pinned me ignorant

but I have cried for you.

who cares if I am simple or complex

whether i hurt or feel what you can't or won't 

I know nothing more perhaps than any man

but I know pain 

and compassion too

it moves me to do something 

anything 

for you.

my heart hurts often for you

I am humanity 

we can't separate I from you.

I AM wise

In reflection of Proverbs 7 & 8:

I know two sisters

"To each their own'
a common phrase
I often spoke
to wary travelers
along life's road.
dabble here
dabble there
perhaps soon
you'll find an heir
yet in this way
you'll find no heart
 you'll find no home
just lonely travelers
traveling the same broken road.
simplicity and wisdom both call
saying, "turn in here,
and I will teach you my ways"
but her ways are simple
and her ways are wise
one will revive
and with the other you'll die
I am simplicity:
turn in here
I am wisdom:
turn from here
slight are their warnings
and swift their entrapments
you may think you found answers
but, a can of paint
is just ten dollars
at any hardware store
even I can white wash
every dark door
I wager that for
mere pennies and quarters
I could buy even more.
be careful when saying
'to each their own'
listen for desperate whispers
and confident drones
for simplicity and wisdom
are sisters
one wears a T-shirt
labeled 'SOLD'
the other is made of stitches
no human hand could sew