Homecoming

The concept has generally held positive regard for me
   even in how I perceive its occurrences in others' timelines.
I've lived with little pain and with no truly malicious suffering.
It's only more recently where I've begun to visualize
   the nuanced nature of homecoming for most.
For the undefeated, it's an expectant hope mixed with inevitable sorrow.
I honor the difficulties that faithfulness will bear in our broken world,
   how a determinate spirit will not only call but embrace a home
   where thorns grow wild in even a kept garden.
It is true; healing is actualized when flight born from fear is abandoned
   and the batterer and battered spirit in the same heart
   choose a God-breathed courage to accept their quintessential vulnerability.
Such beauty is fashioned in such a homecoming,
   where pleasure may be found if one is willing to persevere the pain.

The only choice before me...

In the den, in the hollow of the unknown
Oh dear Lord, please protect me
Are you not able?
Yes, I know you are
My certainty remains in your ability alone,
   without knowledge of your permissive will
I can submit
For I can choose to trust you and relinquish facaded control
My life, my joys as well as sufferings, my death, is the same
In the palm of your hand

Procrastination

What is it exactly that draws me to procrastination

Is it the potential for self-loathing

 The immeasurable personal frustration

 The pain or inconvenience inflicted on others

Is it the impossible drive for perfection

 The disappointment with the task

 A rebellion against authority

Is it a desire to fail

 The fear of what lies ahead

 Or just sheer disobedience of God

Fear Is Not

What is fear for me?

Confidence that I can misguide myself and others
      perhaps even with help from the enemy
It is distrust in God
It is an acknowledgement that I am inadequate
      but also so is my personal belief in Him
What am I afraid of that He cannot answer?
What enemy do I have, even in myself?
‘Fear not child for I Am with thee’
I fear my distance from His voice
      in a way which seems to validate it
A temptation to worry I feed to growth
For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the law,
      deceives me
But this too my King is conqueror over
And I belong to Him, l’melek
He’s given me such powerful freedom;
      I accept
What is fear?  It is not greater.

Milestone

God, my father, became my friend

A friend turned lover was the end

A boy approached the throne above
and asked my lover for my love

God took the hand He’d given me
and placed it in a bond of three

‘My Lord, my God,’ I humbly cried,
‘have you pushed me from your side?’

My heart trembled to think the Lamb
had plans for me apart from Him

Sweet silence was the peace I heard,
then I opened the Living Word

‘My plans for you are rich, believe,
have faith in me as I lead’

Days to months and now ten years
and my beloved I draw near

As I look up to see your face
Christ is what my eyes embrace

A gifted man, an honored son,
a temple for the Most High One

God turned not away from me
Yahweh weaved instead his unity 

Philippians 2:2 ‘…being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit...’

I started this poem a decade ago, so now I write ‘ten years’ and the last two lines.
Happy Anniversary Baby!  I hope you know I love you.



Way to Freedom

With trepidation but trust

          we forge through our fears

Choosing not to navigate

          their many courses of entrapment

But rather to close our eyes and see

          the choice of another plane,

          another plan entirely

Praise God who frees us from the

          enslavement of our past and

          sets our feet to the wind of His Spirit

I am both a bondwoman and a bondservant

 

"No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it."  I Corinthians 10:13

Bittersweet

I finished reading a book called ‘Bittersweet’ by Shauna Niequist last week while I was waiting during visitation to sit with a friend in jail.  Four months ago another friend, a student here at ETBU, had given me the book in hope to help me walk through our miscarriages with the aim of healing.  I wanted to honor the author and the broader story in all our lives by including some portions of her thoughts which have been good companions to me during these times.

“Bittersweet is the idea that in all things there is both something broken and something beautiful… a sliver of lightness on even the darkest of nights, a shadow of hope in every heartbreak, and that rejoicing is no less rich when it contains a splinter of sadness.  Bittersweet is the practice of believing that we really do need both the bitter and the sweet, and that a life of nothing but sweetness rots both your teeth and your soul.  Bitter is what makes us strong, what forces us to push through…. Bittersweet is beautiful, nuanced, full of depth and complexity… [it is] courageous, gutsy, earthy.” (p.11)

“It’s not hard to decide what you want your life to be about.  What’s hard… is figuring out what you’re willing to give up in order to do the things you really care about.” (p.54)

“Grace…. it’s forgiveness without forgetting, which is much sweeter than amnesia.” (p.83)

“Sometimes pain makes us selfish, myopic, and utterly unable to understand people whose pain is different than ours.  It shouldn’t be that way.  It should be that all pain softens us to all pain.” (p.123)

“God’s will, should we choose to engage in it, will generally feel like surgery, rooting out all the darkness and fear we’ve come to live with.” (p.231)

“The question is not, will my life be easy or will my heart break?  But rather, when my heart breaks, will I choose to grow?” (p.233)

“If you’ve been sitting quietly, year after year, hoping that someone will finally start speaking a language that makes sense to you, may I suggest that you are that person?  If you’ve been longing to hear a new language for faith, one that rises and falls like a song, may I suggest that you start singing?  If you want your community to be marked by radical honesty, by risky, terrifying, ultimately redemptive truth-telling, you must start telling your truth first.” (p.240)