so i'm obviously the most horrific blogger.
maybe now that i'm officially off work, and officially into
"stay at home mom" mode (minus child)
i'll become a little more successful.

updates are:
my precious little amos is due on monday!
(though my hospital calculated wednesday, but oh well to that)
there has been much drama surrounding these last 3 weeks of pregnancy.

i broke out in a horrific all over body rash, that was lending me 1-2 hours of sleep a night.
i was diagnosed with a condition that has terrifying side effects for baby.
talk of induction at 38 and 39 weeks was in the air...

it was ROUGH.

but thankfully, all has settled, prayers have been heard, and the pregnancy train is back to normal.
baby can come on his own time (before 42 weeks of course)
and i can mentally gear up to have this baby (pain med free!!!)

i've been enjoying life with my husband more than i ever ever have.
even if i'm the size of a whale, and i waddle next to him as we make our weekly trips to target and ikea,
as we pass time by doing this and that, talking about what we think parenthood will be like.

i think pregnancy is one of the greatest gifts a marriage can be given.
two lives, joined together, begetting life. it's like the trinity.
their love and fellowship - their oneness - produced life... US!
it's in our DNA and it's so satisfying.

i mean, don't get me wrong, our first year of marriage was unforgettable.
but there is a sweetness that can only come in giving over yourself, your time,
even a little bit of your dreams to raise up someone whose life will go past your own.

i'm sure mothering and fathering will increase the joy of marriage even more.

and so we may not get to backpack europe,
and so my body may never look as it did pre-baby (it's a truth),
and maybe our evenings will turn to less about us and more about someone else.

but isn't that ministry? isn't that the gospel?

i read a PERFECTLY dictated blog about adoption (and children in general)
you can find it here.
he states it all so much better than i could myself.

to bring someone into this journey of finding Jesus...
calling on His name,
partnering with Him in these last days.

as a family.

wow, I'm so honored. so excited!

i can't wait to make more babies and adopt more babies,
and maybe team up with a house of prayer,
and continue in this thing God has given me.

sooooo,
that's enough for now!

here's a little pic of my big ol' belly!

congrats to me!

how absolutely genius of me to title my blog and so forth with tiffany dawn rather than tiffany dawn untch. marriage is a lovely thing - but along with it tags the little burdern of "name updation" as i would like to cleverly title it. banks & gvts & such must be informed of the great life transition of name changing, and to be honest... going to such places with white walls and tile floors, waiting in line clicking my heel, is the last on my list of "things i wish to do in my first months as a mrs."

how lovely my blogs are free from such toilsome and worry!

now that i have internet access at my big wooden desk @ my current place of employment, hopefully this can be updated for the total of 2 to 3 people who glance upon it.

maybe i'll start a craze.

love.



oh and hallelujah He is alive: As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love..

kiss my ears, & let them hear.

they compare beauty to
emerald lipstick and all those gaudy
ruby rings you find in the plastic,
vintage candy machines.

i'm looking for a 747 to be my carriage,
and swing me to some ethereal tree-houses
or boathouses made out of crystal
floating in the middle of the sea.

dear adventure,
i am waiting for you to return my letter
post-marked four hundred and thirty seven hours ago.
you promised to be quick in response,
but i'm still waiting here
with my neon yellow carrying case
and six hundred summer dresses.
my right leg is falling asleep from crossing them
for fourteen plus days.
and my hair smells like summertime,
and this glass jar of fireflies' sign no longer reads
vacancy.
when will our carousel arrive?
love, longing.

i'm shedding skin like a snake
on the inside.
and things are changing like those plastic toys
kids place on their eyes to watch mini slideshows.
dinosaurs change to butterflies change to firehouses change
to the big question mark painted with pastels.

click, click, click.

when you squint you can see what its asking,

"is this change where He wants me to be?"
"did i catch the right train?"
"what am i doing wrong?"

and i don't know really,
for the smell of chlorine makes me cry
and my dreams are filled with mountains and fairies
and romantic, ethereal, elegant & dainty sort of movie-esque,
momentary after-dinner conversations.

or something like that.

and if you peer through the crack in the golden wall,
you see him eating His dinner alone, with these spoons and forks
that seem too elaborate to be practical.
ya, he knows you are watching him, and he's inviting you in.

but i'm just sitting here at the side of the road,
with my journal and pen,
waiting for something that might never come.

but when i close my eyes, i see.

and i feel the sun licking my skin, it's spit the freckles that merge
together into a cluster of islands on the sea.

but when i close my eyes, i see.

he's drinking that red wine that smells sorta fragrant,
and i can taste it in the air.
he's on a mountain of buttons that will close up all that's
gaping wide and exposing my shame.
his table is turquoise.
his chair is on fire.
and i think he knows i'm watching.

and slowly he raises the cup, and starts to speaking.
but he's moving his mouth, and now he's weeping.
but i can't hear a sound.
i can't hear a sound.

my eyes suddenly open, like the draw back of the shade
rolling up all violently,
and i hear the cars go by. they're drowning out the sound.
cats are crying, and men are yelling, and the clouds seem to be
playing music that fills up my mind. it's the cake in the creases.

so much traffic. so much ebb and flow of this symphony.
martha put on mary's sweater and hear your master luring.

i just want to swim in his wine, and ask him why he's crying.

i scream something under my breath and kick my suitcase in
front of the coming cadillac. i lay down and breath into the sky
to push the clouds out of the way, and start eating the rays
of sun.

i take the key and lock my eyes into the chambers of darkness.

he's weeping. he's calling. he's beckoning. and he knows i'm watching.
and all the letters on the buttons on the remote have been rubbed out,
because time's been wearing them down,
and i can't find the unmute button.
and there he sits, like a king in his castle, and a peasant in his shack.
he's got the wine. he's got the wine. and he's roaring in silence.

something is wrong here.

and i want to pull out my eyes and make them cry.
i want to find the strings of my heart and play them into
feeling. feeling. feeling, whatever the silent man is weeping.
and i know his tears mixed with the red, red drink of choice
will heal my soul,
and sit me at that table
and make me whole.

but i can't interpret what he's saying.
and my spirit's not glowing.

your tears are flowing beneath my feet,
and the waters cold.
you are shivering.

the words weave up the cemented door that
invite me into peace of mind.
"this is who you are,
this is where you are going."
or something like that in poetic nature yet to
enter english language.
the words are dancing.
the words are breathing.
the words are wrapping around my limbs and pulling me near.

it's the vines of the lamb.
it's the vines of his name.
it's the vines that keep growing - paused in time.
i will be your grape, and i will be your vineyard.
make me into wine.

take me where it's you and i.
man of silence shrouded by my busy mind.
your my lover. i'm your chime.

when i hear you, my bells begin to sing.

you love me and i do not understand.
the cement in the doorway tastes like candy-cane.
the vines are growing in slow motion.

i want to be with you where you are.
you promised.
i'm a failure.

let's sit together and dine.

this is it.

"you've brought me to the wilderness
where i will learn to sing
you've let me know my barrenness
so i will learn to lean."

this is the life i've chosen.

and i'm never going back.

no matter how the beauty of this world may call me

this ship is bound for light.

and so i'll bare my face, in the secret place,
and dark night of the soul.

and Only You Can Satisfy My Soul.
[and Your coming, soon enough,
this too shall pass, and we'll see True Beauty]

so let me be found faithful to Your heart.
let me be found set on Zion.
let me be found mourning.
let me be found waiting.
let me be found Burning.

because I'm in love.

and I'm never going back.

it's the end of the world as we know it.

i heard this tale once, tall and towering,
yet somehow true...
and for its borrowing
i am here to let it out,
break the seams,
let rushing water overwhelm
this
infamous drought.

listen all ears
hungry for
emerald
and gold.
galatic fairytales
parables of old
hidden enigmas
never been told.

what
could
this be.

the great feeding
the mystery breeding
the beautiful shes
and the powerful hes
all in need.

for they are the broken.
they are the maimed.

and out of the heart shaped cavern of
hunger.
the calvary speaks,
"whisper Oh Man of the Desert
dusty feet
a wellspring of waters
tall oak Tree.

bury my bones in the
depths of your belly.

count back down from three.

let me grow
out of your skin
and speak to these roots,
say to these anchors like lead -
that hollow evenings are about to be fed
with cement
and there we shall sink deeep deeep
covered
in
the unbreakable.
unshakeable.

make us beautiful."

and there He stands.
mighty Man of war -
the jewel of the desert
sparkling against the Saharan sun

He vies for frail affection
like a hungry village for the burnt batch of rice.
dusty frames have no delight to offer
but still He withholds, only to entice.

this King, a jar filled with blood,
is Wisdom
rushing
roaring
soaking
the alluring Flood.

sparkle.
shine.
glitter.
sweet red wine.

"lets drink from your cup.
garnished veneer
golden studded handle
bubbles
and water
and red
and tears."

this is a pining for light.
liquid illumination.

He sets people on fire.

the people's come bounding.

it's the Burning Man in the desert.

His call is resounding.

and the great eagles of the sky
peer with their one seeing eye
down into the great bowl of sand
the seemingly barren barren barren land.

and the great God of the flame
is surrounded by rusty and weathered lampstands
the shattered and lame.

but they too
are burning.
burning.
burning.

"in His river of fire,
we are illuminated."

no one is being consumed.
like moses and His bush.
forever blazing
this is the hour.


watch.
squint into the Sun.


He breathes.

same old thing

I haven't written in awhile...
which usually means something is terribly wrong.
I don't think, in this case, something is terribly, terribly wrong -
but I do think my heart has been in a rather chaotic state...
and the journey of "pursuing the Lord" has hit a rather
testing and trying place.

I can't decide if this is a beautiful valley to be in -
a great plunge into the depths of love within the arena of my heart...
for the wilderness of the repetitive,
the mundane,
the monotonous,
the routine,
is the greatest wilderness of all.
for this child at least....

eck.
this
is
such an arduous harbor to try to anchor yourself within
especially with sails such as these...
so prone to catch the wind of anything named "spontaneous"
and whose scarlet letter is that of the inconsistent and unsteady.
give me 45 days and i can walk on the path of the victorious,
but watch day 46 hit, and I become unraveled.

if you know me.
you'd agree.

and here i am singing to the words,
"good morning, brokenness..."
for broken i am.
into many pieces, and these pieces haven't found their home
to function as a whole
normal
working
human being.

My weakness is my dependence.
And again my eyes drift to the hills,
for there is where my help comes from.

He promises when I call, swimming in the mess of my own
inability to function without continual Aide,
and my frequent attempts to operate in independence,
even in that...
He would come and deliver me.

Here I am again,
let this cry be heard.

sometimes i try to figure out why He made me the way I am...
and I come to 2 (maybe 3) conclusions.
Let me list them,
to appease my own soul's anguish...
ha.

1.) I was made to be someone similar to Emily Dickinson,
locking myself in a small room of solitude,
and writing until my death bed.
2.) I was made to be an absolute mess of a woman unless
I am given to continuous and extended period of time to
being a little Mary, at the feet of Jesus
(I was NEVER good at being a Martha...)
3.) I was made to jump upon a train, wearing multiple layers of skirts
and bells and trinkets and things, eating off the land,
taking pictures with the camera I don't yet have, and writing small
ambiguous lines of poetry at the bottom of polaroids tacking them on
random trees and doorposts hoping it would breed revival...
4.) I was made for communion, and when I settle for anything less,
I stop being a whole human being.

So,
I lied, that was 4 conclusions, and I coulda kept going if I wanted to.
But I didn't want to.
And I think I'd have to agree with 2 and 4.
They sound right.
How often I convince myself, without totally mentally agreeing
(for how silly would it be if I made those statements within my head,
and then rejected them)
instead...
I just convince myself that I am neither 2 nor 4, by refusing to
acknowledge them...
in the midst of my little ihop life.

i'm making no sense.

and anyways, i listened to a sermon that changed my life.
it was misty talking about patient endurance...
a timely word, if not a billion other wonderful things,
that made me feel
not so alone.

it's one thing to pick the lifestyle of matthew 5,6, and 7 with
aggression and deep conviction for a month,
or months,
or even a year....
it's another to give yourself over to this for the long haul.
5 years
10 years
15 years
and on.

To try to find the rhythm within the wilderness,
and dance upon the dusty ground of
barrenness
day after
day after
day.

for a friend once told me:
the wilderness (hour of preparation, hiddenness, the Great purging)
the crucible of His burning away all that hinders love...
is hard.
its unconventional.
it does not cast a glorious light.
it's messy.
and it is rather humiliating.

oh
but
i believe
(or i wouldn't be sitting at this ugly card table
in this white room,
signing up again for this GREAT death)
it is wisdom.

and again,
His wisdom will be justified.

and...

Standing in the middle of a circle of those named, "the furnace of affliction and voluntary weakness"
as they come from every which direction,
moment after moment,
day after day,
kicking out so violently the props that have formed themselves to
my heart...

ahhhhh!

the props!
the props!
always there.
looking at me with those tired eyes
the props I've grown to hate..
and as soon as i find myself free of them,
the opaque ones come into view....
layer upon layer upon layer of
a faulty foundation.

and the bridge I burned yesterday in the name of abandonment
and violent pursuit
suddenly becomes the prop I find today I lean upon.

Oh that I would exit this wilderness
leaning only upon My beloved.
in that day, that I would be one who fully embraced wisdom
and found herself established in the cement of Jesus Himself.

Oh that I would claim patient endurance as my own...

Oh that I would follow in the footsteps of the flock
foot by foot.
step by step.
still fasting
still praying
still giving myself over the Word
still waiting
still listening
foot by foot
step by step
day after day after day...

Oh that I would believe that in my darkness
He calls me lovely
and one day I will see the wisdom of my weakness
remaining as a heavy cloak bearing it's weight upon my shoulders
as I try to run...

for I know He says he whose forgiven much, shall love much...

and how deep this reservoir of love is being dug.
for His forgiveness and mercy, and even more - His craving of my heart -
is the motivation that gets me out of bed
every single grey skied morning.

He wants me...
more than I want Him.

and I don't see why.
but that doesn't change it's truth.

---

and to tie this rambling post together.
and to bring some summary or some conclusion.

i am stumbling in this journey.
i feel His jealous flames burning away the darkness hidden in my heart.
And
until the day breaks, and the shadows flee away,
I will go my way
up the mountain of myrrh,
and the hill of frankincense.

for i am my beloveds, and He is mine.
and His desire is for me.

replace the plastic chairs.

lola don't know what happened.
she really don't.
but you can peer through her gloriously, glorious bay window and find her
and her paper dolls
barely seen amidst a mountain of browned maps
rolled up over and over with all her plans.
lists and places and trinkets and things
her little life inside this mansion of a cabin - built with woooooooden beams,
ceilings low to the ground,
has
been
interrupted.

watch the terribly divine inter•jection.

it must be
the great pause/reversal on the ancient tape player.

hear it sssskip skip, change. the blood in the atrium beating to a new, ethereal rhythm.
the silver record, switches to something of divine nature.

and she tastes it all crashing down, as rubble and rust cover
her little life of dreaming -
and ceiling dusts rest upon her tongue.
listen
as she whispers to herself, in the squeaky voice behind her mother's
red lipstick, "He tends to do this to me..."

invisible movements.
missing bed frames.
the great reform.

FOR WE HAD IT ALL FIGURED OUT.

ya, she's a dreamer. a seer. a fairy in a make-believe world.
ya, she's an architect. a lover. a terrified child in need of deconstruction.
lola's one of those with chipped white nail polish, and gaudy diamond rings, and dancing fingers upon the bottom of her
hair.
ya. she's a daughter. a dancer. a safe-havened sojourner looking for a home.

and there she was: mapping out all the bold-fonted tomorrows,
with colors and numbers
and connecting dot.dot.dots,
all perfectly in line,
lining up.
cake. and horses. and oceans. and fire from heaven.
babies. and 17 stringed harps. and foggy fruit gardens.

all perfectly one after the other
etched in her expectation well,
going deep within her soul.

columns and rows like pebbles in the walls of castles.
deep dark waters like the kiddy pool in the back yard.

(stones captured from a greater, rock mountain?
waters stolen from deeper seas - stretching beyond those blufffs like mighty knights on the backdrop of sand, sand, shell, and sand.
it must be only the outlines of her coloring books.
ever and only.)

but THEN.
click one, twenty, thirteen, ten.
He comes -
that stranger of a man,
light, and Life, and mystery, and power..
it's either this way
or that...
he arrives on a horse painted yellow
out of the abyss of her inner frame

can you see him
knock
the
house
down?

smell shreds of map and paper and color
all over the ground.
mounds of piles, and piles of mound.
and lola remembers, even through blurred vision within
the waterfall of wondering.

in a whisper she recites those classical words,
"I love it when He does this.
yes, I am sure."

for there is something delightfully fascinating about
swallowing the soup He serves.
she's been at the banquet before -
and what sings to her from the table of glass
sounds better to her stomach than all
the potions of concoctions of adventures she's
written out before.
being blanketed, anyway, by sinking, submerging sands of time.

his offering exceeds her faction-ing.

his diamonds are the fat beat that
make the song worthy of a dance.

she knows she's not a good artist.
her play-games bore
the atmosphere.

lola longs to live -
and so she's remembering.

his redefinition is her reality.
for the title of his book is still,
"i know your desires."

watch him reprogram the time machine.


this is glorious.
and lola breathes.


selah unto living.
and living unto
LIFE.