Do You promise?

Do You promise it will all go away? Because, I can't seem to grasp heaven. Can't seem to grasp a place where all the worldly things go away. I have faith, real true faith, but I'm worried. Worried because I cannot possibly imagine a place where I don't feel the weight of this world.

The weight of illness, addiction, lies, guilt, death. These are constants in our world, and it's only getting darker. I stumble through the shadows, looking towards my final day.

A day where I will see You, and I hope You can promise me.

Lord,

help me understand

what in the world did I do

to deserve your love

Hmm, interesting. Let me process. It's not that I don't believe you... But believing you doesn't come naturally.

It must be a hard wrap, being God. There's this delicate balance to keep. I guess it's like being a teacher. You want things to end up well, but you've placed the ball in their court. Independence is bittersweet.

Does it enrage you, seeing choices be made? Can you find ways, like the rest of us do, to look away from the violence, the narcissism, the cruelty?

If there's a reason for all this, I'd like to know.

I'm curious god about the forbidden fruit.My guess it's a fig.Didn't jesus curse a fig tree?What a strange thing to do.And also back in the day,didn't Adam and eve sew fig leaves to cover their nakedness.My question is.What happens when a fruit is pulled from a tree?Leaves fall.Didnt Adam and eve eat from the forbidden tree?Well they had to pull fruit of the tree in order to eat it.

Lord, I ask for aid with this prompt. I can only think to compare it to writing a personal prayer on a chalkboard. I've only said the scripted prayers before in public, the Hail Marys and such, that you memorize and sit next to the National Anthem and the Pledge of Allegiance. I can't possibly speak how I do in private with You. I can't cry the tears or sing the praises that one only loses themselves in in Your presence. But, to tell You the truth, there is one little thing bothering me. Confessional is a little sacrilegious, right?

I once dated a man who was obsessed with the song Ave Maria. It should have been the first and last red flag. But true to form I churned the image of him into art. Something deeper than he was. Which is where my story begins. And dies. Just does my hope for love, everlasting. I think, sometimes, that I have given up, or perhaps I never started. Not really. Pipe dreams and unrealistic fantasies borne from fiction and make-believe—but only it was my imagination, she said. High for just a scream. I sit here now, sound— bottle: half empty; memoir: unwritten. What a failed fatale I have been unto myself yet alone to others. Echo alone, alone. Gone, gone she blows lost drawn by the wind, dust begotten is the now. Mist under sun. Breeze-sneezed. Scattered and strewn. And missed.

Are we all different versions of Job? I thought the wages of sin were death, but from where I'm sitting, it looks like we're the wagers and sin is how we make our wages, with death inevitable no matter how we live.

I've done a decent job with the Commandments, not because You said so, but because it's what decent folk do.

I’ve noticed the fastest way to get decent folk to behave indecently is invoke Your Name.

So tell me, am I Abraham or Isaac, because I'd rather be the one holding the knife if I have a choice.

The howl that bellows within my spirit

Singing the sound of my deepest despair

Echoing from ancient eons across the air

Bathes my tongue in the words of riot

Those words spit from my mouth like a bullet

Laying the torment within my soul bare

Bridging the void of nothing and nowhere

I have the strength to finally tell it

Where the seeds of my fury first were sewn

In the deepest soil of my own silence

Helplessness slowly sprouted and took root

Now the strength within myself I have shown

There will be peace where once was turbulence

No more does silence my true spirit suit

Winter befalls the trainyard

Where engines come to retire

Icicles dangle from a signal post, mangled

Flickering bulb soon to expire

Then come the sparks and the grinding

The frictional shriek of the rail

Wheels against steel, the racket conceals

A train hopper’s agonized wail

Fallen from his boxcar

Drunken to fight the frost

A piteous mess, in mortal distress

Stinking of blood and exhaust

Hand over hand, slowly crawling

Dragging his ruptured entrails

Indifferent trains go on hauling

Chugging along down the rails

Back and forth, metal on metal

Orchestra of grinding and screams

A frozen nightmare in which nobody cares

When a man comes apart at the seams

No one speaks up, if they notice

That a life has been destroyed

That’s what enables the narrow time tables

Keeping trainyard employees employed

So ends the life of a vagrant

Crushed between rail and machine

Just-in-time shipping, frozen flesh ripping

As the engine atop him builds steam

Not for one life, nor a thousand

Will operations be compromised

Worth an iota compared to the quota,

That schedules need not be revised

Blood goes into one end, Gold comes out the other

An unceremonious trade

But gold loses some of its luster

Once you’ve seen how the sausage is made

Her name was Rachel. She worked for an e-commerce company & had the most important job of all(at least that's how it seemed to her.) She wrapped the items intended as gifts.

Her hands lovingly folded and taped each corner, expertly tied each bow. She gave it her best no matter how bizarre the item or how mundane.

Slowly the company became more and more automated. Robots did most of the work now and flesh & blood employees disappeared. "Not me," Rachel thought. "They can't take my job it needs a human touch. It requires a caring soul and these machines don't have that!"

That proved to be true at least for a while. Ultimately though one day she was called into to talk with the boss. He was a firm man but not unkind. It was with no trace of enthusiasm that he informed her that the soulless, mechanical, bipedal things with bland, prerecorded phrases would be taking her place now.

"I'm sorry, Ms. Rachel. I held off as long as I could but this is from the top down. Honestly I'm surprised they haven't automated me yet."

So two days before Christmas, her favorite time to wrap gifts Rachel left work as the latest casualty of futuristic innovation.

It began to snow fiercely as she walked dejected past the honey yellow shop windows with their yuletide displays. The streets were practically deserted and she felt alone. One of those new fangled police cars that looked like a oversized tent peg stopped beside her. The door raised like a dolphin waving good bye with its fine. "Ma'am," said the husky voice beneath the tactical helmet,"There’s a major winter storm coming. I must advise you to go home and stay indoors until the all clear is given."

"Yes home. That's what I shall do, go home."

The storm was as ferocious as twenty-three starving lions. The winds howled like lost souls & blotted out the scenery with snow. The next day a body was found in the park. It was a woman and in her frost bitten fist she clutched something. "That's peculiar, mused the rescue worker. It's a scrap of wrapping paper."