The golden wane clings to day
Reaching its arms across the hills
Hugging the east as it slips away
One last embrace before the still
Greens explode in radiance
As light speaks to light
Flooding the gradients
With this beatific sight
Creation delights in-
Darkness marches in vacuum
Beyond the eastern horizon
It will fill this space as a smoky room
But darkness is never advancing.
It is in constant retreat
From the glorious light that’s dancing
Around us all on childlike feet

The light that’s been dancing
Since the earth took her first breath.

Thank you for trees:
Roots sifting their fingers
Through Your earth,
Holding steady to linger
To feed the heartwood-
The beauty of intricate bark
Weaving organic apparel
Coarse, austere, stark,
And also fragile,
Tactile and alive
Thank you for the limbs
That reach for the sky
As though in worship
For all You’ve made
Leaves bursting forth
In silent serenade
Always upwards and outwards

In fitting praise.

You installed Saul
So I will honor him as king
Until You depose him
In the justice You bring.
My allegiance is Yours
Your ways are above my own
Your timing is divine;
You are the Almighty alone
And You have shown me
You’re doing a brand new thing
In that moment of vision
I heard the whole earth sing
I bloomed in hope
And if I now grieve
Forgive my unbelieving heart
Show me again how to believe
As the beggar-child I’ve been
The grafted co-heir with Christ
Let what follows,
Regardless of the price,
Be a gift I can give You.
Help me be true

To You and David.

P.S.

It lingers in my thinking
And I feel the need to say
When I say You installed Saul
You were giving me my way
I, like Israel in ages past,
Demanded a king
I thought would lead, defend,
Protect me from everything
But I should have chosen You alone
I was so tired, and the world so unkind
I thought he was the closest approximation
To You I could find

But I was wrong.

I have wept my eyes weak,
And pulled the curls from my hair
If You want me to submit to these
I will purpose in my soul to bear it
Alongside the other burdens
That have long been mine
I know if I’m lost
You still leave the ninety-nine
Because You are unchanging
And You alone may save
I prayed for freedom,
But didn’t see what a slave
I’ve become over the years
If you want me to strive
Like Jacob, for a new name,
That You have derived
Like watchmen and widows
Refusing to be ignored
I will obey,
I will hold on until You have restored
The years the locusts have eaten away.

And an unexpected grace reminds me:

You’re the peace in my troubled sea
I will fear not tomorrow
You will carry me
Beyond storm and sorrow
Teaching me, if needed,
How to wrestle
Sending the leadership I need
As Your weaker vessel.

Omniscient, omnipotent God
Who is able to keep me from stumbling.

These years repeat
And I’ve been defeated by them.
Have You kept my tears in a bottle?
Are they not in Your book?

I know that I must
Pick myself up again
But I’m driving in
Mired in this end
And I can’t fight
To fix it, to make it alright
Over and over and over
Over again
I’m tired of being the defender
Of my owner’s land.
I need a husband
I need You to be my husband
Catch me ere I fall.
Be my all in all.

You told the watchmen
To give You no rest.
I’m afraid to test You,
But here I am.
Move for me again.

These momentary troubles
Tugging downward on the spine
Exaggerating their weight
To lay me supine
Delighting to overwork me
To leave me vexed
Wither within the reality
Of their true context:

They are eternally weightless.

In comparison with the unchangeable
Weight and substance of glory
These pains are earning,
Tangible, intemporally
Radiant returns.
The lightened levy
Purchases in exponents,
And if it feels heavy

That’s the lie.

‭‭2 Corinthians 4:16-18 NASB1995‬

Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

Empty halls and empty chairs…
You never know how much you care
Until empty days when no one’s there.

Forgive me my groanings.
Today I surrender
These repetitive strains,
These perpetual embers,
My lingering hopes
And unmet desires
Have I forgotten so soon
How to douse these fires?
I don’t need someone
To see my soul
When I know You see.
I believe You know.
And earth is a place
Broken and ragged,
And loveless,
And jagged,
But still under Your nose
And skillful hands.
My hopes may never be met,
But I must still stand.
I remember today
It’s not about me; it’s about You.
Give me what I need
To do what I must do.
I write off the loss
Of everything’s sum.
I hand You the grief that stings,
Remember me when You come

Into Your Kingdom
Oh Tender King.

Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
Why then has the health
of the daughter of my people
not been restored?
Jeremiah 8:22

I am broken down again.
This last revolution around the sun
Was costlier than my preparations
And by my seams, I am undone.
Isolation sent echoes, reverberations
Of reality, calculations, on and on they drone
In abandoned, sensate cerebral chasms,
But I am not alone
If You indwell me.
Keep me near.
I surrender any sin to scalpel,
Or any part of me that interferes
With Your everlasting kindness.
By my own eyes
I’m beyond repair,
Too much to bear, or to disguise.
Redeem me, Great Redeemer.
Lead me from death to life.
My sums come in: I’m insufficient
As a daughter, a mother, a wife;
Let me be Yours anyway.
Let Your countenance shine on me
So all my loss reflects Your grace,
All my ugliness, Your beauty.
I have endeavored to live for You,
But all my efforts have turned to dross
And all my love is trampled down
And all that remains is the gaping cost
And this is just my broken grief
Forgive me the manner in which I wail
Only You can do great things.
Only You can never fail.

Love me with Your everlasting love
For which I yearn, I hope, I sing
For only You can overcome
To love the unlovable thing.

Tender at the sailors’ knees
I heard the throaty tales
Of the mighty, masted vessels
Tossed by malevolent gales
Standing firm against the tide-
And oh! To hear the sailors brag,
Between a man and god, by hand
Pulling the ship back from the crags
When the warning beacon flashed
They could approach no more:
There be shipwreck here;
Do not pursue the shore.
The pulsing light an omen
Of the ships that crashed before.

But for the solitary soul
Abandoned to the sea
Punching waves with weakened fists
Pulled beneath the lee
The rays of light stretch forth
Like arms across the churning foam
Calling, “Fight! Do not succumb!
You will yet find your home.”
And the strength to fight,
To strive, to cope
Is fueled only by the nearness
Of the shining light of hope.

Father God,
The ones too strong upon their own
May turn by force at the first sight
Of Your shoreline, crags,
And streaming light,
But those of us too weak,
Storm-tossed by salty waves,
Call out under crests
To the True Light who may yet save.

And the thought will not leave me
Though my faculties stay poor
If You are who You say You are,
That I believe the more and more,
And if You love me as You’ve said
From before time and through Your core:

Then I am as safe inside the waves
As I am upon the shore.

Isaiah 54:4-17

O afflicted one,
storm-tossed, and not comforted,
Behold, I will set your stones in antimony,
And your foundations I will lay in sapphires.