Let Me Grieve

Let me grieve,
And let me sob
Allow me to cry
Let me be distraught

Let me mourn,
And let me sigh
Allow me to lament
My dear one has died

Let me in silence sit;
Let my tears run their track
Down my cheek, each one from my eyes,
For the sweetest one is no longer in my sight

Allow me to grieve
With anthem and sing
When my mouth needs an outlet
For this pain I am in

Let me be silent,
Without a word;
In the quiet of your presence
Let my heart be heard

Let me tell you, I'll feel joy
Once again;
But in this moment,
Just let me hang my head

I will be alright,
Though I'll always be different,
Not always from the trauma
But changed because of the moment

Let me grieve,
And let that be okay;
For the one I love is missing
Now from me every day

Poet's Lament

For once in my life,
I don’t have the words to tell You
How much it hurts.

My prayers feel short,
In ratio to the turbulence
In my soul that will not stop.

A piece of my heart has been stolen,
The isolation of rejection
Is more than this spirit can bear,

I need to know You are there.

For in this moment,
Even these tears are
More than I can bear

I want to be there.

Where Your Spirit sings,
The place where golden streets glisten
The Heaven where this sweet baby was taken.

My soul thirsts
For the spring of Your life,
The rest of Your pasture, my Father,
How long must I long for You, my Peace?

How long must I tell myself,
That I am blessed,
When my heart simply cries for rest?

Remind me of Your victory,
Speak Your life over me,
For in this death, I only feel the sting.

I apologize for these words;
A poem filled with the poet’s laments
Do not lift the soul as something simple should.

Yet these simple words,
Are the only prayers this poet can utter
When her heart is torn
In response to the grief of losing one, just born

So, Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit, sing!
Over me the mercies of a new morning.
For my spirit fails

Renew my faith, until on the new day
I can proclaim,
Why are you downcast, O my soul?
For the Lord, who is God,
Has been good to the one you love

In His arms she sleeps,
In His arms she rests,
Fully healed, and at her best.

So sing to the God of Hope,
Who renews Your soul
Who gives wings to dreams,

Let me feel that
Even amid this pain
This poet’s lament,
Can be a hymn of praise

Be Thou Exalted

Be Thou Exalted

Far above my many fleeting crowns,
Far above any earthly pleasures
And above all the others I walk around,
Wholly above all else
For You are holy, God

I Surrendered

To the One who gave it all for me
So I give it all to Thee
And through these gifts,
I will exalt Thee.

For You are my greater crown,
My reputation
For all around does Your glory resound
So I surrender,
Wholly to You, God
And in my life, I will exalt Thee.

Yet this I also pray:
Dear God, be Thou exalted,
Even in me

Lily

Like a lily, You clothe me,
Homespun in Your glory,
Handcrafted like a flower;
You are, and You are making me
Be
Even sweeter than before,
Purity is Your fragrance,
Intimacy is Your friendship,
Pull me closer; hold me tighter
In an embrace that draws me nearer, my Father;
For You are
Even greater

You desire me with love,
You fashion me in loving-kindness,
You cover me in grace,
You beckon me in forgiveness,
You fill me with rain
To spring a garden in my being—
You are
And You will keep me,
Delicately.
You hold me, clothe me
Like a lily in the grass,
From the Land of the Great I Am

Morning

Even in the darkness before the dawn,
We speak of the morning;
Because of our faith that the sun will rise
That something more lies behind the horizon
Even when it’s hidden from our view,
We have faith we’ll change
Like the leaves of fall or the butterfly
That sits on the wall,
We have faith
That we will turn from
Broken to beauty
Empty to whole and full—
Fully alive, it is from death we rise;
Washed clean from waters cleansing
Smiling sunshine descending from Heaven
The dove of the Lord God,
Speaking and echoing through the
Darkness of night,
Bursting through,
To morning we rise.

Delighted Poetry

     Robert Frost once said, “A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.”  I absolutely love this quote, and find it fascinating, mostly because I am a poet, and partly because the concept sounds absolutely beautiful.  Whenever I read a poem, I start by smiling, then my heart surges when I begin to connect to the story or message or analogy.  Then something shifts, and my eyes squint as the lines begin to blur and I have to understand what is truly being said, and after thought, by the last stanza, I often have tears in my eyes and a song on my heart and the desire to write something of my own.  Because poetry is delightful and quite amazing in the sense that I can read a poem, in my own heart with my own perspective, sitting next to a person with a completely different story than the one I have; yet we can both be moved to tears.  One reason I love poetry is it allows people from different walks of life to be on the same page, on the same line, in their own lives.  And every time they can learn something from what they’ve read.  Poetry is wisdom and beauty tied with the bow of delight, I should think.  It all starts with delight.

     A few months ago I was lying in bed, not sleeping.  I had looked at the clock and it was three in the morning and I still hadn’t fallen asleep.  I think a lot, and so some nights I will barely sleep at all because of my thoughts—I suppose that is what happens when you are an introvert. However, when I do fall asleep, the sleep I get makes up for it—I always sleep deep enough to dream.  But this night was something different.

     It was mid-school year, a normal day and nothing out of the ordinary was happening in my life; however I desperately needed sleep.  But sleep wouldn’t come—my heart was excited. Yet it seemed as though I had nothing to be particularly excited about.  Nonetheless, I smiled into the darkness as I talked with God, and out of nowhere, I don’t even know what prompted me to say it, but I whispered aloud into the darkness of my room, “I am so excited.”

     You know that moment when you are sitting with a good friend or family member, someone who really knows you well and you say something without trying to be funny.  And for some reason whatever you said, or whatever your face looked like in that moment, it so reflected you, in an exclamation of endearment, your friend starts laughing, with the look that says, “Only you, my friend; only you”?  Hearing your friend’s laugh makes you giggle; slowly at first, wondering what was so funny; until you finally let go of your questions and just laugh—delighted to simply be in a joyful moment as this with someone close to you?

Well, that’s what it was like that one night I couldn’t sleep.

     I could almost hear God’s giggle—even now I have chills—it was a moment of pure joy.  Possibly one similar to when a child first sees snow, when someone suddenly realizes they are alive and everything seems new, at the exchange of vows between one and their love, the first smile of a newborn, a first kiss, the first breath of a baby—it was sweet, and it was intimate and true, because it happened between Him and I.  It was a moment of reflection in which, among the quietness of night, my childlike joy and silliness was open to Him at the foot of His throne.  It was beautiful. And pure and true. And it was one of those moments that I distinctly heard His voice upon my heart and what He said was, “I so delight in you.”

     Even now when I think back, my heart seems to remember that it has wings and it flutters at the sound of the King of Kings delighting in me.  That He molded me, crafted me; all to His liking.  That I am a handmade masterpiece, created by Him and for Him.

     Can you believe He delights in you, in me?  The God of the universe who has within His hands, creatures and the created, that are so much more interesting than me; things like the petals on a flower, the creatures of the deepest ocean, things with wings or things with multiple eyes, oxygen and water; tomatoes and piano keys—yet you and I are the ones He said He delighted in, in that moment.  It is astounding; and heart pounding. It makes me smile.

You and I are His delight.

     In Zephaniah chapter 3 it says that we are God's “great delight” and that He continually rejoices over us with singing.  His love for us is so great, that at the sound of it, He will quiet us at the magnitude of it.  Ephesians 2:10 declares, “We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”  The word workmanship actually translates in Greek to the word poiema, which is where we get our English word, “Poem.”

We are His poem.

     I wonder what the world would be like if each of us realized the power of what this means.  The joy of being loved by the One, true God; I wonder how that would change us.  To realize that we are valued, worthy and bought, purchased and treasured by Jesus, the Son of God.  That we are cherished and beloved; held and desired by the King of Heaven, the One, True God; we are wooed and desired and sung to through the whisper and the love of the Holy Spirit.  That we are His.  That we are His desire, and love; His perfect and cherished poem in whom He delights.

     This brings me back to the words of Robert Frost, “A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.”   This thought of Robert Frost’s did not pertain to the verse in Ephesians 2:10, however, I think it can be applied.  We are His delight, and when we realize this, we grow in wisdom.  To know God, to fear Him with a holy and awe-inspired fear, is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10).

     Yet so often I believe we are stunted in the fact that we truly are delighted in.  We profess that Jesus loves us, yet I wonder if we, on a daily basis, grasp what that love looks like—the extent of it.  His love isn’t just love that tolerates us.  On the contrary, it is a love that is so great, so wonderful, so lovely and perfect it completely and utterly delights in who you and I are.  So much so that Jesus Christ was nailed upon a cross in order to remain with us forever to continue the work He began.  He bled to give us, as His poetry, color and beauty to who He designed us to be.  That was His act upon the cross, save us in order to show us His delight and love for us; and therefore continue the good work He began in us.

     We have that love at our finger tips, yet we do not look deep enough in it to understand it.  Almost as if we are driving through the mountains, or rolling hills or wheat fields and all we see is the bugs on our windshield—seeing but not perceiving the beauty that surrounds us.  It is like viewing a magnificent, awe-inspiring painting and only seeing the plain wooden frame that surrounds it.  It is like going to Hawaii and hiding in the air-conditioned hotel.  It doesn’t seem right, like a heart that doesn’t love.  A sleep that doesn’t dream.  We need to live in the reality that we are His delight.  And that reality is found in Jesus Christ.

     This realization of His delight brings forth wisdom, because we are known and know the God of the universe.  This leads to doing the good works we were written for; the ones we were created for; the ones in which He breathed His life and beauty into us in advance for us to do.  We can do what we were created for; we need only to realize that we are alive in His delight.  To really know that as our reality.  How crazy it would be to remain stagnant, only viewing the bug splattered windshield and to risk missing the relentless and striking beauty that is just beyond it.  If we remain in His love, we will grow and He will bring forth much fruit (John 15:1-17).  Therefore, fulfilling the things He prepared in advanced for us to do.

     So let us speak. Let us love.  Let us write, dance, sing, run, rejoice, laugh, smile, talk.  Let us live, and realize that we are the living, breathing, handwritten poetry of the Everlasting and Eternal Poet.  His poetry, His desire; living in His reality—the realization that we are alive, and His delight.  Lovely poems, indeed.

The Great Exchange

We were on the outside,
Your temple just a breath away;
Your throne—how great and magnificent was the scene—Oh, how beautiful.

Then I caught a glimpse of You; there You stood, O holy are You, Jesus—
Your righteousness shined, Your beauty sang, Your love on display in the holy of holies.

Standing on the outside of Your throne room, my filth never seemed so dirty, these rags I thought were enough just disgraced.
I wasn’t enough; I needed to hide myself, my shame, my pain, my dirt and filth, these rags and this disgrace from Your perfect and holy face.
Closing my eyes in avoidance of my own sin, I tried to cover it up, all in a false attempt at a breath of beauty.

But I knew, when I glanced into Your face, I would never be the same.
I’ve been an abandoned child in need of a father,
A victim in need of rescue,
A homeless beggar in need of shelter,
Cold in need of warmth
Hungry in need of Your food,
Searching to end the hurt,
Hunting for something to fill the hole,
I knew, O God, I knew, when I heard the name that the angels proclaim—I caught a glimpse of Your handwritten cursive on the heart of man
And I heard You call it grace

You opened my closed eyes; You touched me, and in that moment I saw
All my pain rush from me—and as it transferred from me to the nail-pierced hands of my Savior
Water rushed over and it disappeared.

You made an exchange:
My filth for Your purity,
My sin for Your grace,
My shame for Your name,
My disease for Your love,
My need and despair for Your righteousness,
My dusty, dry and lifeless bones for life abundantly loved

In an instant I was clean You welcomed me into Your feast,
You clothed me—a mirror of Your royalty—
Because You took the blame
To bear it on a cross for Your name
We were made new to give You praise,
To bring You fame through this Great Exchange.

We exchange our boat for a life in step with You,
We become the wheat among the weeds,
We are the smallest of seeds, giving You our leaven so You can become the yeast to rise above our iniquities
Because You complete our incompletion and call us good,
Enough for You to take upon perfected shoulders, the sins of the world,
And at the tear of a curtain and three days later;
You welcome us in and name us Beautiful… Child… Beloved.

Even when what we had was not ours;
We came down from our tree and exchanged our gold for a seat at Your feast
We sold the passions, the gold, the pain, the old, the dreams, the fear, the filth, the wear, the sin, the disease, the rags, the unclean
All in exchange for a single pearl in Your field
For a renewed, right spirit,
For Your gold and Your kingdom,
Your righteousness and perfection,
Your joy and Your mission

Because I’m the one who has been changed
In this Great Exchange
Therefore, I will proclaim it all for the praise of Your name.

So when you step through those doors,
It is not just the church porch
You are stepping lightly over
When you step over the threshold,
You are wandering through the designs of Him
And His hands are spread open, to take the filth and the sin
And replace it with His Son—the Righteous One

So, Father, here we stand, with hearts burning like a flame,
You took our place,
Like the sun rising to give the moon a break,
You shed light on our darkness, bringing us to life.

Now we need only to open our arms to reveal the change within
And then Your light will burn amid the darkest night sky
To replicate Your galaxies and reflect Your light—the light of the Brightest God,
The Hope of our souls, Alpha and Omega, The Lion of Judah, O Rock of Ages, El Elyon,
Yahweh, at the sound of Your name; under the shadow of the cross
Was this Great Exchange.

Amen.