Streams of Comfort

Peace is an odd feeling to have this early in the year. The past few years I have never felt that. The beginning of the year usually goes like this for me: celebrate the new year, be happy for about a day, and by the third day of the year I’m hearing everyone’s resolutions. Then I usually become disconnected from it all. The hope and happiness of starting a new year loses its steam. I realize now that it was because I didn’t have much hope in myself. That the year would be any different. I would keep repeating the same patterns. This year, however, I do have hope. God has been doing a lot of work in me and my circumstances are so different from years prior. Better. Jesus was with me through the worst and He is with me right now in the peace.

This poem is inspired by the parable of the sower in Luke chapter 8. Jesus talks about the propensity of different soil types to hear and believe the word of God. For years, I wasn’t too excited about the new year because I was like the soil that heard God’s word and was happy for a short while, but did not have roots, so fell over in the first storm. Every trial I faced, I tried to hide away, pretend it didn’t exist until I couldn’t anymore. This year, I want to be like the good soil and have fruit because I know and trust God will fulfill His promise. May you also have hope and freedom this new year. Plan for the good things and hold on through the storms.

Enough sheltering of our reality
That only leads to more misguided pain.
Through the woods I make out Your shadow.
The shadow of Your wings as they cover my body.
A body made of stone and broken promises.
The moon calls me away as do the noisy stars,
As You hear my cries
For salvation.

To the one who holds the universe,
I beg:
Pause the time for I can’t keep up,
I’ll shift like the sand under my feet
And drown in the deserts of obscurity.
I ask:
Where did the ground come from?
At times, I’m thankful for the hard earth
That breaks my fall.
At times, I weep because gravity keeps me grounded
When I want to fly.

Enough sheltering of our reality.
Let us live true lives, and walk the narrow path
With our eyes open let us see.
See that God already marked this path.
A path that leads to life
In the end.