Holiness for me was found
in the mess and labour of giving birth,
in birthday parties and
community pools,
in the battling sweetness of breastfeeding,
in the repetition of cleaning,
in the step of faith it took to go back to church again,
in the hours of chatting that have to precede the real heart - to - heart talks,
in the yelling at my
kids sometimes,
in the crying
in restaurants with broken hearted friends,
in the uncomfortable silences at our bible study when we're all weighing whether or not to say what we really think,
in the arguments inherent to staying
in love with each other,
in the unwelcome number on the scale,
in the sounding out of vowels during bedtime book reading,
in the dust and stink and heat of a tent city
in Port au Prince,
in the beauty of a soccer game
in the Haitian dust,
in the listening to someone else's story,
in the telling of my own brokenness,
in the repentance,
in the secret telling and the secret keeping,
in the suffering and the mourning,
in the late nights tending
sick babies,
in confronting fears,
in the all of a life.