Giving of Thanks (2020)

in this year of want

wild with worries sore

tangled up in time

and left to melancholy

hearts are now humbled

bells set to chime

and I inhale long

dare to shirk the folly

and to look up and up

position a full posture

of gratitude galore

for these blessings You have brought me

how with reasons wrapped in rhyme

You whisper "Peace" within this war

This Time -- PAD Challenge Day 7

 

Photo by Pixabay.

This Time

Waste not

that accorded wisdom

to seize and to savor this slivering

Wait not

for ideal opportunity

born of wanton maneuvering

Wish not

for mis-sized dreams

drawn out providentially for another

Will not

the time to fly

this time, love, elect to linger

 

Decision

Image by Rudy and Peter Skitterians from Pixabay.

I have been instructed by the institutions,

“Choose you this day whom you will serve.”

What is a pilgrim to do

when taxed with the impossible?

When pressed to decide between which matters most:

children destitute at our borders in cages

or children in pieces in a biohazard container?

“Which is more valuable, oh voter?”

How has this been established a dividing line in a "civil" society?

For all are made through Him and for Him

and Jesus loves ALL the little children of the world,

just as He loves every confused, every desperate

mama facing every difficult, every impossible decision.

Where are the honest scales to properly weigh such a dilemma?

I own privilege. I know that. 

I did not earn it.

I often do not want it.

I watch as many I love continue to scrape and scramble day to day

just to be embraced as equal,

to be afforded a truly fair shake and

their pain matters, too.

Their plight deserves sober consideration.

And so much more!

But now I am expected to somehow sign my name to 

one – of -- two 

who stand atop even greater privilege:

one who pays lip service (my cynicism deciphers)

to equality of color and creed and gender

and the other so cold he can’t even muster the deception.

God help us, your chosen brood,

to bear with one another through this time
(for we do not agree). 

Enable us to forgive lavishly and

long-suffer like never before for Jesus’ name’s sake.

To recognize our greater heavenly bond

come what may in this kingdom on the ground.

And, in the end,

to refuse to require institutions or earthly allegiances 

to do the good work that

You have predestined Your people to accomplish.

We are Yours.

You are sovereign.

Jesus is King.

May He reign in our hearts above all else.

 

We lost a friend today . . .

Oh, Death,

perhaps for a moment
you have stolen center stage
with rot and rank offending
But remember
for every child of the King
a new life waits in the wings
light and life ever lurking behind the decay
a life that, at curtain’s call,
shall utterly ruin and replace your reign

Kindred Mom Article

Thanks to Kindred Mom for featuring these thoughts on cutting the cord, so to speak. It's really tough, but I'm thankful to have some other gals to walk (and sometimes scream) through the valley with me. 

Click HERE to read the full article.

Blessings!

John 6:68 - A Poem

 

Image by Dayron Villaverde from Pixabay

Of John – Six and Sixty-Eight

 

Oh, where could I go, save to You, Lord?

My Messiah, with words life-eternal!

These teachings, they rub like a splintered board,

But where could I go, save to You, Lord?

See, I’ve come to believe that it’s true, Lord,

You’re the One to become sin’s reversal.

So where could I go, save to You, Lord?

My Messiah, with words life-eternal!

Remembering Some Old Words in a New Day

I came across an old document today . . .

(from October 2017)

Some things that feel like death aren’t.  Life continues regular pace, but the wound seems to hang open, collecting decay.

This piece of broken cheap pottery reminds me of a loss.  It reminds me of a “last”.  It reminds me that something was torn away when I wasn’t looking -- something that felt holy and ordained, something more valued than I even knew at the time, something that I was obviously clutching a bit too tightly. I fought hard, but the gift (and so much more) was taken.

And many rotations later, it still wreaks of death.

Honestly, I just don’t quite know which way to go with what I’m feeling – this strange, cold deadness that swells up inside me when I least expect:  in the whisper of a quiet and sunny day, during a building bridge of a familiar worship song in the gathering, at the precise moment I think I am able to stand up and finally be done with it all.  But no.  When I try to live, the death is resurrected.

And again I see the pain vividly before my eyes in all manner of images dark and menacing.  It drains all the color from the surrounding landscape.  Sucks up the life.  Plugs up my heart.  I attempt a be-a-big-girl rebound, but then I hear one of my children recount the grief, gather up her own wounds in this tale.  She can’t escape it to save her life, and I am so angry.

I hold my husband’s hand, and we hunker down in supplication that God would twist and turn this ordeal to make these children better, not bitter, as I hear myself silently pray, “Holy Spirit, it’s okay if my own rest must wait.  Just please give me the words for this child -- truth that would remind her that God is good even when humans are blind and cruel.  Even when her mama is struggling to pry the bitter daggers from her own prayers for justice.  Give me good and righteous words to guide her.”  I desperately want her to walk away stitched up and wiser.

In the end (and this may be the most difficult part), I am beginning to swallow the fact that, for some heaven-only-knows reason, God ordained this season, this pain.  He is in control.  I believe that.  I know He is sovereign.  I want to say that that fact is somehow comforting – I’m trying.  But there are still so many tears.  Maybe I’m close?  At times, I am convinced to be comforted in one breath, but then, with the next inhale, His sovereignty makes it all even harder to understand.   

So I know only He can lift this curtain.  Not I.  Not now.  He is able.  In His time.  In His way.

And the waiting, too, feels like death.

I wrote the words shown above almost three years ago, but I didn't share them. Written while my family was walking in and out of shadows and struggling together to heal from a deeply personal wound. I was fighting with forgiveness in my own heart and watching my whole family, our oldest child in particular, lose faith not in God but in fellow believers. It was a brutal time, and I wouldn't step into one of those days again for anything.

I suppose it finally feels okay to share these thoughts at this point because, well, it's now a "then" a "was". But for every one of us that stands on the other side of the valley, someone else is just beginning to trudge through. It is a well worn but exhaustingly painful path, and it winds on for too long. If you are there right now, please, don't give up. Keep walking.

For our crew, time has now brought some closure, some healing. God has awakened me (again :||) to my own need for forgiveness and so also to my need to forgive. We are in a healthier and (though often still quite cautious) safer space by His grace. My oldest is more than okay now having seen God's faithfulness clearly through the journey. 

So I share these words and the ugly nature of my heart in those days to, perhaps, encourage you to "keep going" if you have been hurt, if you are hurting. Hang in there. Hold to Him even in all the raw and rancid ugliness. Eventually, you will notice yourself catch a deep breath of life and find your feet  steady, finally planted on the other side of the destruction.