When I cried,
When we broke up,
When I saw her bedsores,
When my father died.
When I binge watched that show,
When you married,
And then at the funeral,
When the Holy Spirit squeezed my heart,
and tears flowed like a torrential downpour.
“You keep track of all my sorrows.
You have collected all my tears in your bottle.
You have recorded each one in your book.” —Psalm 56:8
This is the 5,000th day
Ophelia rolled out of bed,
walked into the wind,
swam a river upstream,
biked up a steep mountain,
then ended right where she began.
She’d like to buy some hope,
but when she woke up,
she had negative five bucks,
now she has negative ten,
She calls it “life”;
they call it depression.
Ophelia wants you to see
why she’d prefer to stay in bed,
pull a sheet over her head,
and drift off to Never-Never Land,
After all she dreams in color,
but only wears gray.
“I counsel you to buy from me gold refined
in the fire, so you can become rich; and white
clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful
nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you
can see.” —Revelation 3:18
He likes watching life on reel,
Wait—listen to his appeal,
TV problems aren’t for real
so they are not a big deal,
which makes emotions safe to feel
and possibly to even heal.
He admits it and won’t deny
he will mourn and sometimes cry
when characters say goodbye,
but now you will know why
his eyes will be bone dry
when real loved ones fall ill and die.
I say, “It’s okay to live—
to hope, dream, and forgive,
You don’t have to be passive,
if you trust the Lord is active,
He’ll apply the balm of Gilead,
Take my hand—now it’s collaborative.”
“The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer;
my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield
and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” —Psalm 18:2
*Draw Near’s most recent free ebook called Menagerie: An
Anthology of Christian Writing is now available HERE.
I stare out the window pane on New Year’s Eve
into the blackness of night, interrupted
by the burst of crimson light from a bottle rocket
and the hoots of horns and bangs of pans,
Slurred songs carry muffled merriment my way,
Yet it only makes my heart pang even more.
My Lover has not returned or sent word,
His promise sustains my heart with hope,
This wretched blackness will fade to light
like a drenched watercolor bleeding paint,
But for tonight, I will close the shades,
And sob louder than the world’s clamor.
*Have you read Draw Near's latest free ebook called Blessed Creation: A Christian Poetry Collection? Read it HERE. Learn more about the poets HERE.
