Scattered Between Hurt and Healing

INTRODUCTION



Most of my life I allowed certain people to hold unrealistic expectations over me. Patterns forms and styles were placed before me, I struggled trying to find where I was supposed to fit. I did my best to adhere to the people pleasing perfectionist desires of those who convinced me that they knew what was best for me. Rarely did I have the opportunity to share what I thought or how I felt. On the few occasions I was able to share, I made sure to state what people wanted to hear. I expressed myself with words that were clear and quick to the point. To some degree I had allowed myself to stop thinking and feeling. I was raised attending church multiple times a week. Although I fell in love with Jesus at a very young age, I felt I was an outcast and would never be good enough.

It was 2013, in just two years I would be celebrating a milestone year, 40. Reflection tugged on me revealing just how scattered my life was. My heart, still in love with Jesus, ached for the promises in the Bible. Living unfocused and distracted, I realized that I appeared to have it all together, but I knew God had more for me. I knew I had to trust Him to a depth that terrified me. Tossing myself at the feet of Jesus allowed Him to gather the scattered pieces of me. This started a progression of pain, prayer and praise poems that shot out of me at unexpected times. I could hear the message in my poems but the words that formed the message were almost foreign to me, as if they hadn't come from my heart but rather from a deep calloused scar that I had been trying to ignore.

I struggled to read my poems, the words that I had tearfully written. Over time I began to accept the fact that God was stirring up thoughts and feelings that I had never been able to express. I tried to rewrite the words to give them the correct poetry pattern, style, and form. I was unable to change the way the words whirled out of my heart and on to paper. It became clear to me that God was breaking the pattern, form, and style that I had been living by.

The poems in this book are purely my pain, prayer and praise pouring out for God to use as a tool to capture, cleanse and create me. Thank you, God, that through Your Son Jesus Christ I don't have to follow the patterns, forms and styles of this world anymore that I can simply be Your daughter who has the desire to follow You and learn what love, Your true, pure, agape love, is really all about.

Hurt That Settles

Sometimes I laugh, sometimes I cry.
Sometimes it's hard to know which way to respond.
Many times I don't respond at all.
I allow people to mold me,
for their own convenience.
I don’t speak up for myself.
They are wrong yet I allow it,
letting it settle deep within.


Unrecognizable

How have I come to resemble this massive tumble that was hurled at me?


Survival

My world ended.
My dreams shattered.
No one, but me, knew.
I swept up the pieces under the shadow of shame.
Minimizing my sorrow, I soaked myself with determination.
One goal, to survive in a world where life swallowed me.

Wanting You

Watching the rain, streaks of pain, drain away my existence.
Pulling me further away from Christ’s covering peace I once knew.
Washed away from the presence of love where I used to dwell.
My heart bursts from the pain,
from the absence of joy when I am away from Your name.
I find myself wanting to wait for You.


Palm of His Hand

Give God my shame and guilt.
Continue riding on the path that
He has laid out for me.

I allow the enemy to hold me captive.
Honor my vow to God,
allow Him to live through me,
an instrument of His ministry.

I hid in my misery,
froze my walk with God in mystery,
now God use me.
Your ways, Your plans, are better than mine.
Not always easier, but I know
You will hold me in the palm of Your hand.

Drenched in Your Love

Rolling thunder, pounding rain,
gusting wind, crashing waves,
scorching sun,
needing shelter from this world.

Cascading tears, screeching cries,
tormenting touch, mournful sighs,
broken hearted,
living in a painful shell.

Burning blaze, candles glow,
sunset haze, glistening snow,
moonlit night, summer’s dew,
reminders of You.

Sheltered care, Fathers arm,
touched by grace, safe from harm,
restored, renewed, revived,
drenched in Christ’s saving love.


Your Perfect Love

I no longer wander.
Lost.
A simple gesture.
Kneeling at the overcoming power of Your name.
Present.
Every care, not my burdens to bear.
Receive.
God’s perfect love waits for me.

Broken

God, reinforce my heart.
Strengthen it to stand the storms on this earth.
Break me to fit Your plan.
Shave away my earthly flesh,
until I am unrecognizable by this world.


Barriers

My faith and hope can take me only as far as where I have built my barriers. The power of Jesus' blood shed on the cross will break my barriers. Allowing me to go as far as the path God has built for me.


Oh, for the World

Oh, for the world to see
their Savior's love.
Oh, for the world to know
the way He restores the soul.
Oh, for the heart to flock
to start a new Christian walk.
Desiring friends to share
their faith once aware.
Oh, for the world to grasp
His provisions will never lapse.
Oh, for the world to touch Him,
to feel Him in their hearts.
To know the Savior, He's a friend of mine.