hallelujah

"Maybe I've been here before
I know this room, I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah"
                 - rufus wainwright

i love this song.  i love his voice.  i love the truth in it- i know that often all i can mutter is a broken hallelujah.  it's that bittersweetness- that is felt most when our limits push up against the eternal.  time- you feel it, you watch it- moving pencil lines up the wall as your children grow.  you know it in the fact that life hurts and is indescribably beautiful - at. the. same. time. you know it when something touches that core spot inside you that you can only know as your soul.

did i ever think i would be sitting on my porch at sunset watching monkeys jungle-gym through the trees? did i ever think that zoe would re-enter a typical school?  did i ever think she would do this in africa at an international school?  at age 13, one of the hardest ages to re-enter the social world?

no i didn't.

there are so many things i never imagined that have happened.  so many things i thought would happen than never will.

i have cried many hallelujahs.  i have fallen to bits many times.  i have cried out in joy and brokenness- hallelujah.

today my hallelujah was pure joy. 
today my hallelujah was out of deep thanks for just a kind of normal school day- a day with a few blips- but smoother than the day before.
today my hallelujah is on bended knees- in awe of this.


we come with what we have- open our hands and give it up - behold.