One week until my birthday. Thirty-three. I feel it creeping in with timid feet and open heart. Is this what leaning into grace feels like?

Today, London gray skies sit flat and dull against my window. February, despite all its birthdays and feasts of love, is a dreary month. We sing about the bleak midwinter at Christmas, but this would be a more fitting time.

Though clouds crowd out the sun today, I ache to remember how crisp the light can be on a cold and sunny winter day. Tree branches and buildings snapping to attention, stark silhouettes against a brittle blue sky. Light so brilliant and sharp it makes your eyes cry.

I forget too easily this bare and quiet beauty.

Summer blurs the lines with her soft edges of leaf and flower, her air thick with damp and heat. Such obvious beauty, like a hothouse flower outshining its backwood cousins.

Only in winter do I notice the light itself, when all distractions are lost and earth stripped down to her barest bones. Only then do I see how much beauty there is in emptiness. Only then does the light seep through the silence to fill me with wonder.

I come to the page praying for that same emptiness and pouring out, begging for the courage to write without hiding or pretense, without fear or shame. “Eyes wide open, naked as we came.”

I chain myself to the desk and fight the urge to run, because this is my only offering, my “one wild and precious life.”

This is My Body broken for you.

How else can I repay Him than to raise my hands in surrender and let the words crack open across my chest?

This is grace.

This is hope.

These are my bones laid bare.

[ Inspired by Lisa-Jo Baker’s Five Minute Friday | Photo credit: Kyle Post ]