An Intimate Picture

Yesterday I was sharing with someone a bit about something I'm struggling with right now. Sometimes it's really hard for me to remember how much I'm loved. I was telling this friend about how during my youth I was bullied enough to question myself for a long time afterward; do people really want to be my friend or are they just pretending? As I shared this, the pain of being 13 came back to me, man those are awful years even without being bullied. After I had explained these things to my friend she said that it seems like so many unfortunate things have happened to me and that she couldn't believe how far I've come (knowing a lot of my history)it's amazing how resilient I am."It's like there's just something in you, that keeps you going." But before she could continue I stopped her. When I let people know about all of the experiences I've had and the home I grew up in, they are often a little awed by where I am now. But it is good to remind them that there is only one reason why I was able to overcome; why I am on the road I am on today. And that reason is that God, out of His mercy and humbleness, not only reached out and changed my circumstances, but continually reached down to me with open arms-even though I had rejected Him so many times before-and embraced me with a love that knows no bounds. No, it is not because I just have this special power to pick myself up again, or because I read some self-help book, or because I went through years of therapy that I am where I am today. It is only because of a God whose love knows no bounds, and will stop at nothing until He brings His son or daughter home to Him. I remember right after I came to know Christ, reading the story of the prodigal son many times, each time my eyes dewy. It is such a beautiful picture: a father who has every right to be disappointed, to reject his son who has run away from him in search of something better, but who instead runs to meet him and celebrates that he has returned. And the son cannot believe it; he is expecting to be treated no better than a servant or slave, but instead his father treats him as an honored guest just so delighted that he has returned. That of course is the love of the Father, unquenchable and overwhelming for each of us. It is by Him that we take each breath.

Poetry of Pottery

I used to think
poetry was just pretty words,
strung together like beads on a string.
Likewise, I thought life,
would be the most beautiful
if it were composed of only
the prettiest, cleanest, most perfect things.
I thought my lot,
all I could hope for,
was a little perfect suburban life.
Until the paint began to peel
and I saw what it really was.
Nothing short of horrid
and full of contempt.
I turned halfway around
and drowned myself in feeling
thinking that surely poetry must be
all grit and real raw emotion.
It must be dark as the future I saw
for everyone around me.
I thought for life to be beautiful
it must be filled with filth, dirt, broken things.
The only way I could bare it would be
to full it with things as dark
as the depths in me, and tunnel in front;
But the light found me in the end.
I was so wrong, I admit.
Poetry is not just pretty words,
nor is it profanities
smeared on the bathroom wall.
Neigh, it is something richer, deeper
it tells something prose cannot.
Molds the words like clay,
and then fires them into something solid
paints them with details,
sometimes intricate and dazzling
sometimes functional.
Likewise, with my eyes wide open now,
I see that life is most beautiful
when we see ourselves like clay.
Brown, plain, miry clay.
Nothing special, and unable of changing itself
unless it's put in the right hands,
then hardened and tested through the furnace
painted and glazed with care and intimacy
then filled with the right substance.
For a vase meant for flowers,
will never be content with ashes
likewise a jar made for oil
will not welcome flowers.
And like poetry things that are forced
to be beautiful, never seem to turn out
just so,
but when the right purpose, circumstance, reasons
are behind it, it will be so very wonderful.