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.