The racing starts

As soon

As I pull in

Why does

This place

Bring duress

Why does it

Initiate fear

They're just kids

I've done this

My entire career

But facing them

Facing co-workers

Daily

Freaks me out

I cringe inside

I quake

Fear overwhelms

How many of them

Share a portion

Of my story

My pain

My brokenness

Yet feel

All alone

In the midst of it

I see it

In their sad eyes

The windows

To their souls

I see it

In their desperate

Attempts at attention

They need

Someone

Maybe me

To notice

But

I can't bear

Their horrors

On top

Of my own

And that

Shatters me

Again

Every day

2/4/20

Heaviness

The weight

Of despair

Is a

Rhinoceros

Its armor

Blocking

Love

Friendship

Healing

Grace

Its horn

Threatening

Foreboding

Dangerous

Deadly

Heart burdened

By sorrows

Created

Long ago

Begging

To be

Released

Chest tight

Tears

Nearby

But

Armor

And

Horns

Keep everything

Locked

Inside.

2/28/20

Warm tendrils of breath

Where aching resides

Desire quakes

Promises are gnats

Swatted away

Dreams distilled in bottles of Jim

Where anguish blooms

Watered by tears and liquor

Accusations made

Truth festers

Emotions are gangrenous

Where is the healing

The prophet, the sage

In print and sixty six books

That people evade

Strength resides

Anesthetic pours

Free, free, free

Memories unfold

leaky savages in my pain garden

Sorrow creeps in gloved

pantomiming gentility

obscuring reality

Smiles shatter resolve

a pointless masquerade

All leaky savages in my pain garden

Dancing round

placating

posing

pointless

And I succumb

sour-faced and desirous

of something infinitely better

Power beyond leaky savages

and pantomimed gentility

Truth

That's it

I want truth

Don't you

Image by: Julian Bock

Deception lures us via innocence

It laughs at our ignorance

Dancing its schemes 

Chanting its fallacies

As we are victims of the ruse

Too good to be true always is

But what was the motive

Failure on our part

Distraction from the goal

Chuckling it leaves us careening

Stuck in mammon's grip

Tired of the plummet

We latch on

But thorns shred and energy fades

Strength to battle wanes

Hysterically fear giggles 

And hope collides with despair

Single motherhood leaves much undone

Everyday is a siege on peace

Angst renewed at sunrise

Doesn't dissipate at bedtime

Worn knees salty tears

Still alone

The fountain of dreams has dried

But the floundering continues on

Snide shadows haunt me.

In my room.

Alone.

At night.

They beckon me.

Come.

Fall.

Trip.

Grovel.

They are a snare to my sanity.

A bludgeon on my attempts at purity.

Shattering resolve.

Annihilating control.

Sneering at me from corners of my past.

They taunt.

They caress.

They deceive.

But I am alone.

In my room.

At night.

Alone.

Resistance is the only escape.

But frailty sometimes sheers bits of tenacity.

And fall I do.

Trip I do.

Alone.

In my room.

At night.

Those moments reveal the severity of grace.

The severity of devotion.

Without grace I am a snide shadow haunting myself.

So the light must come. 

It must redeem me.

Alone.

In my room.

At night. 

Sometimes on the floor tears streaming.

Sometimes in bed guilty and ashamed.

Always the light is the answer.

Always the light dispels the taunting snide shadows that haunt me. 

Always the light.

Always the light.

She cried the bitter tears

of failure and defeat.

They rained down her cheeks,

acid in her heart

burning, blazing, seething.

She raged within

knowing

no one cared to hear

without.

Futile, she sobbed,

It’s all futile!

Dreams dashed

on a cash register.

Why must it always

be about money?

Why did heart

mean so little?

Anger threatened to consume

and she raged back,

crying out for God’s salvation,

His hand to move

these insurmountable mountains

of mammon,

a god she refused

to worship.

Yet, Caesar still

required

what was his.

She’d cut her wrists

and bleed for them,

as that’s all

she has to give.

But they don’t want

her blood,

her heart,

her energy.

No,

they just want

to watch her fall,

to laugh as she

curls up in a fetal position

and shakes her head

wondering what else

she could have done.

Failure screams at her.

It calls her names

and

she responds,

having heard its voice

so many times.

Despair feels like home

and home feels like hell.

What if all God ever wanted me to write was as simple as “I love you”? What if that truth could sink in deeper than any sorrow we've ever known? Think about your daily inner dialogue, do you regularly tell yourself that you're unworthy? That you're fat? That you wouldn't date you?

What if the people who have hurt you stopped having so much power over you? What if you learned to wholly trust in Jesus’ name? Seriously, what if all God ever wanted me to write was, “I love you”?

Would that change the way you view yourself? Would it make you go on a quest to discover how God sees you? Would it make you actively pursue that vision? Could it have the power to rock your world back toward the power God intended you to have?

Why have we allowed the enemy to steal our worth? Why have we allowed him to convince us that the way others see us is bigger truth than God's perspective? How has he so cunningly deceived us? And why do we continue to let him do so?

What if all God wants you to grasp is how high and deep and wide His love for you is? Does that change anything for you? And if it doesn't, just yet, how can you allow it to? How can you open up your heart and let the fullness of Christ's love for you sink in?

What if all God ever wanted me to write is “I love you”? Would you take Him at His word? Or would you laugh at me?

The enemy blurs the lines until we are lukewarm and useless. Until we serve time and mammon instead of Christ.

These were my 2 am thoughts. 

Truth is not meant to placate but to stir to action. Yet, it is bent and twisted like a pretzel to represent folded arms of prayer, but no one's really communing with God. 

Concocted reality is far less painful than, "What is truth?" Aay, Pilate?

The enemy blurs the lines until we are lukewarm and useless. Until we serve time and mammon instead of Christ.

These were my 2 am thoughts. 

Truth is not meant to placate but to stir to action. Yet, it is bent and twisted like a pretzel to represent folded arms of prayer, but no one's really communing with God. 

Concocted reality is far less painful than, "What is truth?" Aay, Pilate?