This pain is not forever.
It will pass away in time, as
seasons change.
It will be healed,
touched by the one who
tasted death on our behalf.
Or it will be taken away
one day in glory,
when eternity outshines time.
We cannot now say which it will be,
but we can be certain of
its end, and
its redemption.
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
I fear you are a disappointed Father,
For I am just an ever-failing son.
My life should be a blessing, not a bother.
I should be held together, not undone.
O Lord, correct my misconceptions of you
And all my misconceptions of myself.
Help me to truly know you and to love you
And in so doing know and love myself.
Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash
I remember feeling off the morning I originally posted this poem. I went for a run to try to shake the feeling, but it wouldn’t fade. I thought I needed to take the poem down, so I did, then I didn’t post on the blog again until July 22, 2022, over a year later.
Shortly after I started posting again, I started thinking about finding this poem and sharing it. Now that I know it was OCD leading me to take it down initially, I feel free to share it. And as I read it now, I see two things of interest. First, I see a snapshot of my mind and heart in the early stages of an OCD flareup. I’d already hurt and confused some friends, and I was struggling to make sense of life in the midst of a difficult and busy season. While this was not written during the worst of my experiences, the first stanza here captures my thoughts and feelings during the struggle pretty well.
Second, I see a prayer that I believe God has answered, one that he’s continuing to answer as I continue to learn and grow in my walk with him. While things would get worse before they got better, God used the journey to reveal some underlying issues that needed to be addressed. He was at work through the entire season, and through the processing and work done with a mentor, he’s taught me more about himself and about myself. I believe I now can recognize many of the misconceptions about God and about myself that I lived with for years, and I now believe I can better know and love him and myself. I think God’s answered this prayer in ways I couldn’t have imagined when I wrote it.
When I read this poem, I see evidence of God’s grace. He saw me at my worst. He heard my prayer. He delivered me. This is the story told by all who know him, the story presented in the Bible and echoing on for all eternity. The Lord saves. Blessed be his name.
I once saw a Chick-fil-A employee yell at customers in the drive-through line.
The employee sounded frustrated. It was around lunch time, so Chick-fil-A was busy. Employees were outside taking orders on both lines before the customers merged into one lane to wind around toward the window to pick up their orders. As is the nature of drive-through lines, the traffic was very stop-and-go, so a lot of customers were on their phones while in line, resulting in a number of customers caught off guard when the line started moving.
I heard the employee yell, “Pull forward!” as she motioned for the cars to keep moving, but her overall tone was more peeved than patient. She made a couple of other remarks that further reflected her mood, each one surprising me and, admittedly, somewhat disturbing me. Her comments and tone seemed out of character for a Chick-fil-A employee.
Experience has taught us that Chick-fil-A employees behave differently than employees elsewhere. There’s a calmness to their demeanor, a patience to their interactions, and a genuineness to their service. We know them to be held to a higher standard, and we’ve come to expect that high quality of character when we visit a Chick-fil-A. So when I saw an employee who seemed to act in a way that ran contrary to that standard, the experience struck me as wrong. Things aren’t supposed to be this way, right? Something’s off here.
You can find the same kind of experience when you pay attention to how we as Christians sometimes act online. Christians, those people who are supposed to look like Jesus in the world, the group that is supposed to reflect a different set of values and a different approach to life, sometimes act in ways that seem contrary to the way Christ acted. Rather than reflecting humility, we demonstrate arrogance. Rather than embracing lowliness, we fight for power. Rather than loving the body of believers, we slander and bite and draw dividing lines within the fold. When we consider the standard, however, we should feel the same sense of surprise as we feel when he hear a Chick-fil-A employee shout at customers. We should be a bit disturbed at the dissonance between the character of Christ and the behavior of his people.
And I think the critique should start with oneself. I am often a fearful man, doubtful of my Lord’s goodness and unfaithful to his commandments. I am often an arrogant man, desiring recognition and glory and kicking against anything that might reveal my weakness. I am often a sinful man, choosing self over God and others.
By grace, however, I’m not lost in my sin. The Lord has saved me and remade me, and he enables me to follow him. I fall short, but I find encouragement to keep walking. I fail, but I find mercy for my failures. As I see all the varied ways I fall short of the glory of God, I find fresh ways the Lord meets me with love. And I pray I will be conformed more and more to the character of Christ, that I might better reflect him day by day.
Photo by Alex Knight on Unsplash
If your power is made perfect in weakness,
then why do I feel only
the greatness of my weakness
and do not perceive
your power here?
How long will I feel
lost in my lack
instead of found in your love?
How often
will my faith give way
to my fear?
Could all this be
part of the process
of progress?
Photo by Mike Erskine on Unsplash
The train is now departing.
I stand upon the platform and I wonder,
Did I choose rightly when I chose to stay?
Is this the better way?
What life would now be starting
If I had stepped aboard and joined the thunder
Of racing steel and distant storms, away
From where I stand today?
But who could say?
Life is a series of decisions,
Of written words without revisions.
I wish I never made mistakes.
I often do.
Yet on clear tracks and in collisions,
You meet our needs with good provisions.
Through all that mends and all that breaks,
You remain you.
Photo by Stefan Kunze on Unsplash
Note: A quick Google search revealed that the line “Life is a series of decisions” has been used in many other works. While I didn’t have any specific source in mind when I decided to use that line, I recognize that the wording isn’t original to me.
“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’”
2 Corinthians 12:9
His grace is sufficient. But sufficient doesn’t mean that grace makes weakness and suffering nonexistent.
Consider Paul’s life. He writes verse nine immediately after describing his pleading before the Lord that a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, would be taken from him (2 Corinthians 12:7-8). The account of such pleading follows an extended list of Paul’s many sufferings (2 Corinthians 11:23-33). And the letter in which we find these sections begins with the admission that Paul’s sufferings were once so great that he and those with him “despaired of life itself” (2 Corinthians 1:8-10). God’s grace sustained him, strengthened him, and enabled him to fulfill the work set before him. But Paul’s life was still filled with tremendous suffering.
I’ve written recently about the longing for rest in difficult seasons, for relief from burdens, for peace in the midst of fear. Life hasn’t been easy for some time. But in the midst of an extended, hard season, God’s grace has been sufficient. He’s given strength for the work, provision for the day, and sweet moments of rest in the busyness. He’s consistently proven himself faithful to be strong in my weakness, often in times when my weakness has seemed too great, the season too hard. He remains wise and good.
I’m learning that sometimes grace doesn’t feel sufficient, but it is. God’s grace may not deliver you from the season you’re in, but it may sustain you through it. It may not keep you from suffering, but it may provide what is needed to endure it. You may be tempted to despair; God’s grace can enable you to hope. You may feel downcast and brokenhearted; God’s grace can cause you to rejoice.
I’m grateful for God’s grace. At times, I wish it did more than sustain. I wish I could be stronger than I am. I wish he would heal and deliver in ways that felt more comfortable. But as I learn to rely on the grace of the Lord, I learn to trust him more fully, to follow him more closely, and to rest in him more completely. And I think that growth is more important than my comfort in this season. So I pray for grace to trust him more, to follow him more, and to rest in him more, thankful that he sustains me.
Photo by Mathieu Bigard on Unsplash
Make me the man that you want me to be
E’en if I do not want to be that man.
Teach me to trust you when I cannot see
The purpose in the details of your plan.
Help me to hope when tempted to despair
At circumstances greater than my strength,
To trust that, in the darkness, you are there
With love beyond all height, depth, width, and length.
Show me myself, and make me truly know
The greatness of my need and of your grace.
Remind me you are with me as I go,
And lead according to your path and pace.
Lord, search me, try me, know me, make me new.
Let all my life be lived in love of you.
Photo by Robin Spielmann on Unsplash
I make my pray’r to you. You answer, “No.”
And I don’t understand your reasoning.
I ask to stay, but you call me to go.
‘Tis daily bread with bitter seasoning.
I try to turn my grief into a gift:
My heart’s desires become my offering.
But I can’t see the rescue in the rift,
And sov’reign love feels much like suffering.
In seasons such as this, my faith is stretched,
A stretching that is needed though it hurts.
And through the test, your grace and truth are etched
Upon my heart more deeply and convert
My ignorance and fear to trust in you,
The God of love who’s making all things new.
Photo by Benjamin Huggett on Unsplash
The psalmist waited patiently for you
And then bore witness to your care and grace.
Relief followed the waiting like the dew
After a night when darkness hid your face.
Though you are never absent, we may not
Detect you in the time before the dawn.
Your promises—oft doubted, oft forgot—
Prove true, a hope long hidden, never gone.
But patience is required, for though the end
Is certain, yet it does not come too soon.
You use the time we wait to break and mend.
In silence, we learn how to sing in tune.
So hope, though time be now a source of strain.
Our waiting on the Lord is not in vain.
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
Some things are lost never to be recovered.
Some absences are gifts shrouded in grief.
Apart from pain, some truths stay undiscovered.
Some losses point the way to true relief.
But future glory does not make less real
The sufferings we meet from day to day.
Christ does not minimize the pain we feel;
Christ knows it best and shows there is a way
For loss to pave the road to greater gain,
For suffering to serve a holy end.
We mourn in hope, for nothing is in vain
In service to the ever-faithful friend.
Count it all joy no matter what you face.
Feel deep the loss, then rest in perfect grace.
Photo by Ryan Parker on Unsplash
as i learn to walk 