Works Of A Wordsmith

When wonder at the world becomes insipid,
When watches of the night become too long,
When days drag on until it all seems vapid,
When noises overwhelm your every song,
It’s time to press beyond your inclinations,
To make your feelings cave beneath your will,
To stand upon the Rock of your salvation,
To hold firm, finding rest in being still.

Ignore the weight that seems to press around you.
His Spirit holds you safe from every harm.
Instead let quiet grace and peace surround you.
Come nestle in the safety of His arms.
Refuse to let this fleeting world dictate
The way you feel and how you choose to live,
For heaven’s true realities await
All those who can accept what Father gives.

By His own hand He brings us through the fire.
No flood can overwhelm us in His grace.
His unseen realms are far beyond desire,
But open to all those who seek His face.
Believe that all His promises are faithful,
That every word He gave to us is true.
Don’t listen to the clamor of the hateful,
His everlasting love has made us new.

By Holy Spirit’s power there is a door,
Through which a child of God can pass with ease.
Your inner, spirit eyes can see much more,
If you will just submit to Spirit’s lead.
Come find the joyous universe within.
Fly far beyond all boundaries of thought.
If you will trust when everything seems dim,
The Father will reveal what He has wrought.

Sometimes, my Lord, I wonder why
You chose to come, to live and die…
Because we are so full of sin,
With hearts of wickedness within.

Yet it’s so clear you loved us still
Despite our weak and foolish will,
So in due time you saved us all.
You offered us your loving call.

By one man’s sin, death reigned supreme,
But by your blood, you make us clean–
Free gift by your one righteous choice
To those who heed the Spirit’s voice.

Great God of love, of life, of light,
Remember me this dark, dark night.
I need to know your grace once more.
Bring peace again within my core.

Let loving-kindness reign in me;
Let truth and love bring liberty.
Sweep through my heart with your sweet grace,
Till I can only see your face.

Your goodness is your glory, Lord,
According to your spoken word,
So, hide me in the rocky cleft.
And in your mercy, be my breath.

Please, manifest yourself this hour
That all may see and know your power.
Make clear your gift to all mankind–
One only you could have designed.

Ro. 5:6,18-19; Ex. 33:18-23

I feel this compulsion to write again,
To try to express something new and different
Than the thousand thousand ways I’ve written before.
Words have always been my comfort,
My way of pushing the envelope of my emotions
Until I can define and quantify some aspect of myself
In a verbal space that others identify with—
All with a hope that I will help my fragile emotional state
Settle down into something steadier,
Easier to deal with,
Not quite so overwhelming in the end.
…And with some vague idea
That I can help someone else in the process,
Anyone who feels with an inability to articulate those feelings.
Yet here I am, back again,
Caught in a swirl of tumultuous inner upheaval,
Trying to claw my way back to sanity
By way of letters and words jumbled together on a page.
Today it feels like it’s all just going, “Splat!”
The bifurcation of myself between
Analysis and experience doesn’t seem to help at all.

I wonder…
Maybe I should stop trying to segregate my soul
Instead of integrating my being
Into wholeness…completeness.
Is it possible to be centered,
Smack in the middle of all the troubling sensations,
Fully aware of all the logical implications??
Trusting my Comforter, Brother, Father
To hold me securely inside the Christ anointing
Until I come into Their/His order
Rather than my own???
What if it really is okay to feel, think, move, function—
All of them at the same time!
Because ultimately,
“In Him we live and move and have our being…”[*]

I cannot seem to be satisfied with that,
Though in the core of who I am
I know it is Truth.
The weight, the jumble of life
Keeps catching up to me when I’m not expecting it.
I focus on the circumstances just in front of me,
Putting off the consequences of my choices,
Till suddenly I am forced to stop.
The burdens of yesterday’s decisions catch up,
Jerking me off my feet,
Landing me on the ground
Where I sit shaking my head in a daze,
Wondering what, exactly, happened…
Then I go,
“Oh yeah… that…”
All the stuff surrounds me
Like a big cloud of dust I displaced
When I fell on the dry ground.
I just want water again…
Living water.
Father keeps telling me
It’s okay to be still, to rest.
This is where Word, Living Word,
Rises in my heart again.

“The Lord is good to those who wait for Him,
To the soul who seeks Him.
It is good that one should hope and wait quietly
For the salvation of the Lord.
It is good for a man to bear
The yoke in his youth.
Let him sit alone and keep silent,
Because God has laid it on him;
Let him put his mouth in the dust—
There may yet be hope.
Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes him
And be full of reproach.
For the Lord will not cast off forever.
Though He causes grief,
Yet He will show compassion
According to the multitude of His mercies.
For He does not afflict willingly,
Nor grieve the children of men.”
Lamentations 3:25-33

Many people quote verses 22-23,
How many go on?
How many read it all in the context
Of Jeremiah’s lament for his people?
Or how about verses 38-41…
“Is it not from the mouth of the Most High
That woe and well-being proceed?
Why should a living man complain,
A man for the punishment of his sins?
Let us search out and examine our ways,
And turn back to the Lord;
Let us lift our hearts and hands
To God in heaven.”
So, Jeremiah keeps calling to his people,
But they turn a deaf ear.
Will I listen?
Will I turn?
Will I repent of my self-seeking,
Self-focused way of living
That turns away from “the Lord,
The fountain of living waters”
To hew myself “broken cisterns that can hold no water?”[†]

Then the cloud of dust subsides,
The air clears, and I notice
The quiet stream beside my path.
My weary, thankful heart remembers grace
As my trembling hands reach for His arms.
Before I am barely conscious of it,
I find myself stepping forwards,
Able to go on in His strength,
Not my own.
Just like that He’s brought me back around
Making sense out of my nonsense,
Reminding me that He guides me—
My thoughts, my feelings, my fingers, my focus
As I allow His Spirit to flow through me.
Yup…there it is again:
“In Him we live and move and have our being…”

[*] Acts 17:28 (NKJV)
[†] Jeremiah 17:13; 2:13 (NKJV)

I find myself completely overcome
By this need to struggle against the odds,
The ones that tell me
There’s no way I could ever win this fight.
Quitting is not an option for me, though,
So I keep on wrestling the angel
Though I feel so exhausted.
The worst part of it all
Is that I am simultaneously fighting myself.
The voice inside says
I am a complete failure.
I’ve fallen so many times in the filth,
I often think there is no point in getting up,
But another voice inside tells me,
Don’t give up;
Keep trying;
Eventually I will succeed!!
Somewhere inside I recognize
I am not a quitter–
Not when I fight myself,
Not when I cling to the One who gives blessing.
I want to change.
I don’t want to be the old me,
Stuck in the lifetime habits and patterns
Of giving in to desires simply because…
Well…
That’s what I’ve always done.
The more I tell myself, “No!”
The easier it gets.
But it’s hard to say, “No.”
I want to be a new person
With a new name even,
If that’s what it takes;
But to get there I have to go through God.
He makes me fight to strengthen me,
While showing me the only real avenue is
Surrender.
It is such an oxymoron!
I must fight to surrender???
Dear God, let this long night come to a close
Sometime soon.

The shadows gather round again,
Like vultures in my mind.
They come to view my weaknesses,
To see what they can find.

God, I am crying out to You
For strength that I don’t feel,
To run this race, to stay the course,
To trust that You are real.

Despite my weariness in heart,
I want to cling to You.
I need to see with clearer sight
Your wisdom that is true.

Though darkness tries to hide Your face,
I know that You are Light;
And though I struggle with myself,
I want to do what’s right.

Dear Jesus, give me breakthrough; please,
Help me to do Your will.
Replace this heart of stone with flesh,
Transform, renew, distill.

Lord God of love and mercies new,
Please purify my soul.
It’s by Your blood and grace alone
That I give up control.

Holy Spirit, silence all
The voices in my mind,
So I can hear with clarity
The truth that You defined!

O Lord, it hurts so deeply when
Someone I love walks away,
Cuts me off, puts up a wall, and
I’m left with nothing but questions…
What made the relationship so
Utterly, unrevocably, unbearable for them?
All I remember is one impatient exchange,
Then it seemed like no time at all and
They were gone!!!
I feel absolutely bereft.
I found myself scrambling to reconnect,
Only nothing is working.
All my attempts meet unresponsiveness.
A part of me is crying
Like an abandoned child,
While another part is so enraged
That I am not allowed…
Not allowed to make amends,
Not allowed to talk things through,
Not allowed to apologize even
For all the things I thought
I could possibly have done wrong…
Then I am spent, worn, exhausted,
Thinking, praying,
“Jesus, please help me let this all go.”
Maybe one day I can,
But right now…
I’m still grieving.