Write the Light | photography, reflections & devotions from Hannah Lois Stone

Hang down hearts

May 18, 2012 in Reflections with 0 Comments

I was on a walk the other morning with my boys. It was a beautiful day and I was enjoying feeling the sun on my face and the effort of pushing the double stroller uphill. There is a rolling dialogue as we are out and about. You know the kind you have with young children where you point out all the things you see along the way…

“Oh look, they have their sprinklers on.”
“Did you see that kitty under the car?”
“Those are mail boxes.”
“Yes, that man is mowing his lawn.”

So as we were making it up the hill and I ducked under low tree branches I said, “those look like upside down hearts.” That’s it. Just part of the passing along, rolling dialogue.

But I kept thinking about it. Thinking about those upside down hearts. Which, I realize they don’t look exactly like upside down hearts, but you can see it can’t you?

How many times, when asked, “what did you do today?”, have you answered, “oh we just hung out.”

Hanging out. The catch all. It encompasses a lot; from the mundane to the extraordinary.

But that tree, I kept thinking about it and how those branches just hang right down. And how those leaves look like upside down hearts.

And how many people do I have in my life that I can hang down my heart with?

Like those branches on that tree, it’s all in a line. Upside down heart after upside down heart after upside down heart. One looking as if it is pouring into the next like a cascading fountain.

I thought about what that line is like in my life. Who are the people that hang down their heart with me and have emptied themselves into my life? And the list of people in my life is many. And I am blessed by them, for their willingness to be tipped over and poured out.

And myself. I’m somewhere in that line. I’ve had the blessing of being poured into and I have the responsibility and the blessing to pour out. Some days, it doesn’t feel like a blessing. The tipping and the pouring. It sometimes feels dizzying to be upended. But oh! To give and pour and let my life be the pouring out into the other hearts on this journey of life with me. The hard work of it. The tears that come with it. The rejection that comes with it, because not all will accept my offerings. The joy that comes with it. What is the word to describe this? Satisfying. Fulfilling. Life-giving. Life-finding. Purposeful.

Sometimes I’m not so good at just the hanging out. I long for and crave a deepness. A connection with people that pushes in. A connection that isn’t rooted in merely being comfortable with one another; just a hang out sort of person.

I long for the connections where I can hang down my heart. But it’s a hard place to get to. And like most things that are hard and difficult, it’s worth the trek, the climb, the battle, the adventure of getting there.

So that tree and the walk and the push back up the hill to get to my house to feed my boys to pour out my day and myself in the raising of these men that God has given to me and my husband. I just keep thinking, what would life look like if there was less hanging out and more hanging down?

The best gift …

May 9, 2012 in Reflections with 2 Comments

The question posed, what is the best gift my mother has ever given to me?

I remembered the summer my sister and brother were both away at camp the same week and my dad was away for the summer commercial fishing like he did every summer. So I enjoyed and treasured a very rare thing – time alone with my mom. I remember going to McDonald’s and getting an ice cream. And strangely enough there was a petting zoo in the parking lot that day. I remember seeing a huge boa constrictor snake. She bought me a stuffed white seal that week. A treasure to remember the special week by.

I remember the journals she’s given to me and I’ve filled the pages.

I remember the ideas she’s helped me unravel and pursue.

I remember the gift cards and inspiring notes and letters.

I remember every single day of going to elementary school when she packed my lunch and she put a note in there for me to read and to find. It always said she loved me.

There are many things to remember that she has given to me. How do I rank them? Which one is the best?

I stopped and thought. The answer so clear.

The best gift my mother has ever given to me?

Herself.

She sacrificed. She stayed up late when I was sick and had a fever. She cleaned up my messes. She relentlessly prayed (and still does) for me. She instructed me. She laughed with me. She disciplined me. She gave me herself. She put aside things that she loved and was good and and gifted at from God, being a nurse, to stay at home and raise the children God gave to her and my dad. She invested in me. She has shown me the way of so many things in life. She taught me how to do the laundry and make bread. She allowed my creativity to fly. She told me no. She was there for me when I needed her. She is still there for me when I need her.

I’m almost 34 years old. And all these days I’ve lived, she has poured into my life.

The best gift she has ever given to me is nothing that I’ve held in my hands that was plucked from a shelf of a store. The best gift my mom has ever given to me is the holding of her hand all these years in so many ways and letting my hand go when it needed to. Only so I could pick it up again and keep on walking hand in hand with her; my mom.

Bearing backpack burdens

April 23, 2012 in Reflections with 0 Comments

There are days like this.

Days where I feel exactly like this backpack.

Emptied. Discarded. Limp. Face-down. Tired. Spent. Used. Left. Plucked.

Days where my emotions can get the better of me and I don’t see clearly. Don’t have the strength to shake the cobwebs from my eyes and see the reality of the love of life. And instead I see the defeat.

But this backpack just laying there on our ottoman taught me something.

The straps for this backpack are always there. A backpack is supposed to be carried. To be given rest by the one who carries it.

Since I was feeling like that backpack, I thought about who carries me around.

I thought about God.

How when I am carried by Him I am resting on Him. How when I am carried by Him I don’t have to worry about where we are going because I’m on His back; I’m not the legs.

I’ve been singing the song Carry Me to the Cross by Kutless a lot in my head and heart these past few days. I thought it could be my labor and delivery anthem because of the opening verse and chorus.

When the path is daunting
And every step exhausting
I’m not alone
I’m not alone, no, no
I feel you draw me closer
All these burdens on my shoulder
I’m not alone, I’m not alone
You pull me me from this place

Hellelujah
You carry me every day
You carry me all all the way
Hallelujah
You carry me to the
You carry me to the cross

It turned out to be the anthem for the days following labor and delivery. The days where the Nurses and Doctors suspected an infection in our not even 24 hour old son. The days of watching him get an IV placed in his hand and hearing him cry because of the pain. The days of having not only the IV tubing but heart monitor leads stuck on him. The days of wondering what the blood tests might reveal. The days of endless praying that God’s will would be accomplished and please please please let that will be for my son to be ok.

And God in his sovereignty carried my husband and I through this and all the way to the cross. He carried us there multiple times a day as we continued to pray for health for our son. He carried us all the way.

He carried me.

I was limp. And I let God take my backpack straps and slip them over His strong and able shoulders and He carried me through.

And in the days where I feel face-down, emotion-filled, exhausted. He will pick me up and carry me then too.

The Power of Empty

April 7, 2012 in Reflections with 0 Comments

Being empty isn’t normally a good thing.

Empty gas tanks.
Empty cookie jars.
Empty bank accounts.

It’s not good to be empty.

Have you ever felt empty?

Physically.
Emotionally.
Spiritually.
Mentally.

Dictionary.com tells us that Empty means …

1.containing nothing; having none of the usual or appropriate contents: an empty bottle.

2.vacant; unoccupied: an empty house.

3.without cargo or load: an empty wagon.

4.destitute of people or human activity: We walked along the empty streets of the city at night.

5.destitute of some quality or qualities; devoid (usually followed by of ): Theirs is a life now empty of happiness.

So if the empty cookie jar wasn’t enough to convince you. Being empty is not an esteemed thing. Nothing to hang your hat upon. Or stand up and cheer about.

Perhaps you would cry over being empty.

I know I have in the past. When my life has felt barren; empty. I’ve cried. Hot, wet, stinging tears.

I’ve cried over another kind of empty too.

You see. My savior, Jesus Christ, was mocked, beaten, and hung on a cross to die. He hadn’t done anything wrong. Other than the will of his Father in Heaven. Other than live a sinless life.

He was broken.
And pierced.
Bruised.
And bloodied.
He was in pain.
Physically; torturously.
Emotionally – as his Father, for the first and only time in his life, turned his back on his son.

And then He cried out.
He breathed his last.
He gave up his spirit.

Jesus died.

His family and friends cried. He was taken down off the cross. Prepared for burial according to custom.

He was buried in a tomb.

But death would loose. And Jesus wold win.

The stone was rolled away from the entrance to his tomb. It had been sealed. It had guards standing watch outside of it. But non of these locks or preventions from man could hold Jesus in his grave. He broke free from the chains of death.

The tomb is empty.

And that empty, that is powerful. That is the empty I rejoice over. That is the empty that astounds me. That is the empty that I can hang not only my hat on, but my hope on. It is the empty I can and stand up and cheer about; fill my lungs and sing about.

That is the empty that makes me cry. Because my Jesus, my Lord, endured shame and scorn, beatings and being bloodied. He endured the cold dark empty of death. To rise and offer me a life with him.

There is a song called Death in His Grave. Here is a part of it.

On Friday a thief
On Sunday a King
Laid down in grief
But awoke with keys
Of Hell on that day
The first born of the slain
The Man Jesus Christ
Laid death in his grave

He has cheated
Hell and seated
Us above the fall
In desperate places
He paid our wages
One time once and for all
-John Mark McMillam

Here is part of the lyrics from the song Glorious Day by Casting Crowns

Living He loved me, dying He saved me
And buried He carried my sins far away
Rising He justified freely forever
One day He’s coming, oh, glorious day, oh, glorious day

One day they led Him up Calvary’s mountain
One day they nailed Him to die on a tree
Suffering anguish, despised and rejected
Bearing our sins, my Redeemer is He

Hands that healed nations, stretched out on a tree
And took the nails for me

One day the grave could conceal Him no longer
One day the stone rolled away from the door
Then He arose, over death He had conquered
Now He’s ascended, my Lord evermore

Death could not hold Him
The grave could not keep Him from rising again

And from the book of Luke 24:1-12

24 But very early on Sunday morning the women went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. 2 They found that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance. 3 So they went in, but they didn’t find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 As they stood there puzzled, two men suddenly appeared to them, clothed in dazzling robes.

5 The women were terrified and bowed with their faces to the ground. Then the men asked, “Why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive?6 He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead! Remember what he told you back in Galilee, 7 that the Son of Man must be betrayed into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and that he would rise again on the third day.”

8 Then they remembered that he had said this. 9 So they rushed back from the tomb to tell his eleven disciples—and everyone else—what had happened. 10 It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and several other women who told the apostles what had happened. 11 But the story sounded like nonsense to the men, so they didn’t believe it. 12 However, Peter jumped up and ran to the tomb to look. Stooping, he peered in and saw the empty linen wrappings; then he went home again, wondering what had happened.

Death could not hold him.

The Grave Could.Not.Keep.Him.

It is empty.

And that empty -

That is what fills me.

{image taken from dailybibleplan.com}

Wait for it …

April 6, 2012 in Reflections with 0 Comments

Waiting.
Deep in the darkness.
Wondering.
Not seeing or understanding.
Doubting.

Was it real?
What He just said?
Can I believe it?
Do I believe it?
Will I believe it?
How?
It’s impossible; right?

Nagging thoughts.
Fear.
Worry.
Anxiety.
The pit of your stomach turns and churns.

Silence.

No answers.

Just the blackness of waiting.

And this is good?

…

Wait

For

…

Freedom to fly

March 6, 2012 in Reflections with 1 Comment

Because toddlerhood has quick wings.

But this sneak peak of a perfectly spring-like day.

Found my toddler donning the quick wings.

With a daddy who has strong arms to keep him in flight.

Because there is joy

and trust

and abandon

and freedom.

In letting your Father give you flight.

Today, for the one I love

February 14, 2012 in Reflections with 0 Comments

For all the reasons I could type. All the reasons my heart melts. All the reasons my heart holds on to.

For all the days that are so very ordinary and yet in the living and loving and breathing with you they become extraordinary.

For you, my one and only every you; my love.

I love you David.

Finding love

February 10, 2012 in Reflections with 0 Comments

I was headed somewhere; trying to get myself and my son out the door. And there, as we walked past, on our way out. A bit of silver on the floor. Right there at the edge of the area rug; a gum wrapper freed from the inside of a pocket or my bag. I bent to pick it up to throw it away when I stopped short.

It wasn’t just a gum wrapper. It was a heart.

That’s when I think to myself: love can be anywhere.

Why don’t I always notice? Are my eyes are tuned to a different frequency, one that wants love the way I want to find it? Not in the finding of it how it really is?

The toys, shoes, clothes, stuffed animals that litter the floor. Kitchen drawers emptied out, the small appliances lined up on the floor. Offerings of a day well played. Love from my little man and grace to put away. Teaching him how to put back what he takes.

Emptied stubble from razor in the sink. Love that I have a man to love and grace to silently wash it down.

The give and take of friendships, the struggles that can be in the sharing of different lives. The hard lesson learned last year. Grace to keep on loving, hoping, even when they expect me to be different than I am in the giving of my love.

That’s the thing with love.

It comes in surprising packages.

Love comes in the laying down, the giving up. John 5:13 says, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friend.”

Love comes in obedience, a different kind of laying down. Laying down of self to follow submissively. 2 John 1:6 says, “And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.”

Loves come in sacrifice. The ultimate laying down; Jesus’ life upon the cross. Him bleeding out love, forgiveness, salvation. 1 John 4:10 says, “This is love: not that we loved God, but hat he loved us and send his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

The other day was a hard morning for me. I woke already feeling tired and spent. There are days like that. (John Piper knows how this feels) Ones where I awake feeling broken, fragile. Cracked and in need of mending straight from the sheets of sleep. And then there was a battle of wills. Mine .vs. My son. He did not want to sit nicely in his car seat so I could buckle him in. It was a battle, one I lost because I reacted in anger. We both ended up in tears.

I felt defeated all day. Ashamed of myself and my behavior to him, my unloving reaction.

God spoke quietly to me.

To my hurting heart where shame and sadness wanted to come and camp He whispered, “In that moment, the one that was hard, the one where you snapped, how in that moment can you best show love to your son?”

How can I be love?

Because love can be everywhere.

I can find it in surprising places and ways.

I can give it in surprising places and ways.

How can I be love in the hard? The difficult? The breaking? The emptying out?

Because if I am not love, I am just background noise; clanging. Nothing.

Love that can be missed unless I am intentional in the finding of it.

Love that can be missed unless I am intentional in the giving of it. Especially in the hard and ugly and messy and tired and battles of life.

Love that like the gum wrapper heart, might be stepped on, thrown away, ignored.

Unless.

I constantly find the love.
To constantly give the love.
To constantly be the love.

1 Corinthians 13

The Way of Love

1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Help {desperately} Wanted

February 3, 2012 in Reflections with 0 Comments

Have you talked much with toddlers? And for those of you who have your own toddlers, have you talked much with toddlers who are not yours?

The language that is emerging and breaking it’s way out of previously locked lips is a language all their own. And you, as their family, know them and spend time with them and are able to interpret all the mangled words.

You can listen to them and understand them and tell others around you what they are trying to say but don’t have the right words for.

The past few weeks have been long nights. My 18 month old son has been waking up in the middle of the night screaming and not settling down well or going back to sleep without a fight that takes hours. As a parent you investigate the problem. Did is diaper not hold? Is he sick? Growth spurt of hunger? Teething? You want to know the problem so you know how to fix it. When there doesn’t seem to be any real reason for the wakefulness and night fight between you and he to go back to sleep night after night after very long night, you wonder what you are doing wrong and what you can do right to stop this pattern.

The other night I was at the end of myself. I was exhausted. I was getting frustrated with my son, myself, my husband. I started to cry and all I could say was “Jesus Help.” It was the only words that I could eek out amidst the crying. I can’t tell you exactly what happened. I know that hours later, my son exhausted and spent, finally fell asleep. Somewhere in the wakefulness for me and that one tiny two-worded prayer that I prayed, I caught a glimpse of The Holy Spirit and Jesus interceding on my behalf.

There was much in my heart to pour out to Him. To pray. To ask for. But all I could manage was “Jesus Help.” In my head I imagined The Holy Spirit taking my prayer and He and Jesus going to God The Father for me. Filling in the gaps of my gasp of a prayer with groanings too deep for words. Interpreting my mangled, heart-spilled, words to Abba. Who in turn, lays a blanket of peace over my heart just as I was finally setting my son down and laying his blanket over him.

It is hard work. Being emptied for these little ones. And even on this lack of sleep merry-go-round we’ve been on the lessons that He is teaching me, pealing back my eyes to see His constant-love beating heart for me, His child. Well, they are worth the roughness. Even in the moments that I doubt that they are.

Romans 8:26
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.

Romans 8:34
Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

Little Light

January 11, 2012 in Reflections with 0 Comments

My son is 18 months old. Every day there are discoveries to make. Some are fun, in fact I’d say most are fun. Some are not; like learning about edges to surfaces and gravity and what happens if you are standing on a surface, like say a kitchen chair, and you just step off the edge.

A recent discovery that he likes is the flashlight he found in a kitchen drawer.

He loves it for many reasons. There is a button he can easily push. And when he pushes said button he can see an immediate reaction from pushing the button. And so it goes. Clicking on and off and on and off. Pointing it at the ceiling. The floor. His stuffed animals. The chairs. His eyes (another one of the not so fun discoveries).

Then he discovered the joys of a flashlight in a dark place. He was investigating the floor under the piece of furniture where our DVD machine and speakers live. I have no idea what toys have rolled under there and are collecting dust bunnies with the wires. But you can see it in his little head; all the processing that is happening. Learning, discovering, putting concepts and ideas together. Figuring things out. The equation of ‘this place is dark under here’ + ‘I have a bright light’ = him laying down on his stomach and shining his light into the darkness. And the joy of finding and retrieving a ball we haven’t seen in a week or so.

I’m watching this from the couch as I fold laundry. And I say to my son, “See how much fun a light in the dark can be?”

And then I stop. Unfolded t-shirt hanging limp in my hands. “Lights in the light aren’t all that powerful, you can’t really see the full effect of what they can do,” I say. I’m saying it to him, but really I’m saying it to myself. My mind starts wandering.

What good is a light if you don’t have a dark place to shine it into?

And I think of John 8:12 Again Jesus spoke to them, saying,“I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

And then I think of Matthew 5:16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

My mind keeps thinking … What good is a light if you don’t have a dark place to shine it into.

Lots of my circles are well lit. Church. Small group. Family. Friends. I am a light that for the most part is currently hanging around with other lights. Now don’t get me wrong. This is important. Embers stay hot and can be fanned into a roaring blaze if they stay together. Take one ember out and it dies faster without the heat (light) from the other coals. We lights need each other.

But the questions still lingers in my head …

What good is a light if you don’t have a dark place to shine it into?

Last year my husband and I chose Galatians 5:25, “If we live by the spirit, then let us walk by the spirit.” as our theme for the year. We chose it because I had physical goals of walking and then jogging after baby, and he wanted to support me in this so he set goals too. We chose it because we wanted to constantly be reminded that life is walking by faith, walking in the spirit. We chose it because we wanted to celebrate with our son as he learned how to walk, in this his first year.

2012 has just started and the theme for our year is Matthew 5:16. Letting our lights shine. Tonight we sang ‘This Little Light of Mine’ with our son before our family Bible reading time. Flashlight in hand, he stood up on the ottoman, waving the beam of light around the room as we sung.

It struck me today that the song says this “little” light of mine. I like that. It’s not a “huge, life changing, sell all your belongings and go be a missionary in the far reaches of the globe” light {although if that is what God is calling your light to be, you better listen and follow!} It’s a little light. I can be a little light. I don’t know what that might look like for each of us. But a few ideas come to mind.

Smiles to the check out person at the grocery store.
A word of encouragement to a hurting friend.
Not joining in the verbal fray with a coworker.
Praying over your neighbors’ mail boxes as you get your own mail.
Serving at a soup kitchen.

This list of little things we can do to shine our light can be pretty huge.

I don’t know all the ways in which this years theme will shape and influence 2012 for my family yet. But I do know that we each are looking for purposeful ways in which we can be a light in the dark. Ways in which we can, every day, even in small ways, let our light shine before men so that they will see our lights and give glory to God.

Because the thing of it is, what good is a light if you don’t have a dark place to shine it into?

I’ve been in some pitch-black, dark rooms before. Places where there isn’t any light whatsoever. And I’ve struck a match in that room. And that one little match flame. That one little light that shines. Well, you can see a lot with just that one little light.

This little light of mine. I’m gonna let it shine.

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