God

Anxious Minds

/ joethewaller / Leave a comment

O Lord, be merciful when I reduce
Pray’rs to compulsions and repeat the lines
Like incantations till my mind lets loose.
I love you, but obsession undermines
Abiding and I get stuck in the steps,
Working to breathe instead of breathing free,
Approaching rev’rence, bypassed to precepts.
I struggle not to strive. But you know me.
You formed me in the womb and there could see
Each struggle I would face. I’m understood.
When I can’t do, you give me grace to be.
When all feels wrong, you still can make it good.
Remind me of this truth when scruple binds:
The Maker’s still at work in anxious minds.

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OCD and Grace

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Mine is a life of much anxiety
Such that I scarcely know a state of peace,
For its pursuit oft entails other ends.
I second-guess my sense of piety
And journey with the rarest of release
From fear and tension, for the state attends
So much of life and ever doth give chase.
The hounding of my mind may never cease,
But in this sojourn, God in love extends
Provision through safe havens in the grace
Of friends.

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Origin Story

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I have been formed by faith and OCD,
The former giving language to the latter
That quickly learned to chatter and to batter
My mind and heart until I could not see
That what I thought was freedom charged a fee
And pseudo-peace did cut, curse, cripple, shatter.
The tapestry was torn until a tatter
Became the whole of my theology.
But faith in God does not require perfection,
And grace abounds the more in misperception.
In his good time, he trimmed the troubled vine,
Redeeming days I lost to the infection.
Truth triumphed over every deception.
My peace and freedom now are his design.

Photo by Abram Goglanian on Unsplash

Third Place

/ joethewaller / 1 Comment

In the corner spot of the bench seat, I
Met with God and with great thinkers, studied
Past papers and pages. Pimento toast
With bacon and a cold brew, glass sweating—
I keep napkins underneath to catch the
Condensation—kept me fueled and focused,
That and the eight-hour YouTube video
Of coffee-shop sounds and soft jazz, because
The real thing by itself is just a bit
Distracting. After studies, or before,
I open a journal and a notebook,
One for prose, one for verse, and I reflect
On life, its beauty, its difficulties,
And on God’s great faithfulness through it all.

Photo by ian dooley on Unsplash

Postcard

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I thought to write a postcard to myself,
The present to the past with some advice,
But chose to put the card back on the shelf.
Some plot points might be changed, but at what price?
For God redeemed the long and sleepless nights
And answered pray’rs I did not know to pray.
For ev’ry six wrongs, there were seven rights,
And ev’ry dead end then led to today.
My story is made richer by the hurt
That taught the truth of healing and of grace
Abounding, resurrection, flow’r and dirt
Together, both belonging to a place.
My life’s been far from perfect, but I see
The blessings of the road that made me me.

Photo by Murat Karahan on Unsplash

Though the Earth Gives Way, Though the Nations Rage

/ joethewaller / 2 Comments

I believe in a light overcoming
And that good will endure to the end.
I believe there’s an end to this running.
When I feel most alone, there’s a friend.

I believe in a hope not unfounded,
In foundations untouched by decay,
In desires fulfilled, grace unbounded,
In the imminent breaking of day.

I believe that assurance is granted
Despite all evidence for the lie,
That the future’s a seed that’s been planted
And yet grows under God’s watchful eye.

I believe the existence of trouble
Doesn’t mean that the trouble will last,
That a garden can grow from the rubble,
That good days are not just in the past.

I believe in a rescue from ruin,
In salvation that’s certain and sealed,
In a day with no sorrow to rue, when
What is broken is finally healed.

Photo by Wes Hicks on Unsplash