Jesus gave us instructions on how to speak. He told us that the tongue is like a flame that can set fires. It is dangerous. But, yet...our words can build...they can mend and put together..
they can act as honey to soothe...
I wrote the following piece about a month or so ago....It's an introduction to a poem..and a poem...
I know that Jesus wants all marriages to suceed...but I also know that Jesus doesn't want wives or husbands, for that matter...to be lied to..cheated on....put down...etc. The bottom line is that it takes two.....
the intro...
Life for stale love
…….a long time ago, I wrote a poem about my marriage…It was becoming very dull and monotonous…there was an insane amount of lost trust, boredom, broken promises..etc..etc…..this poem illustrates some of my disallusionment ..but also shows that there is Hope!
I have been separated for a year. I believe that God wants marriages to work. I know he does. Marriages are unbeliveably hard to keep together these days. It seems that corruption is running rampants in people’s hearts, minds, and souls….
Many people don’t believe in the Bible. Many people are disallusioned with “religion” and church..because of the hurt that people cause. I haven’t always lived a Christian lifestyle, but I have had so many experiences with the supernatual…the more I seek, the more I find….
Marriages….I believe that God can use His Light to thread together what has been ripped and shredded…the hurt that emanates in people’s lives..
the question is: Will we let Him? It’s hard to forgive. It’s hard to let go. I have found a true beauty in letting go of the hurt and anger that once consumed me! There were nights when I couldn’t sleep. I seethed with anger and resentment. I plotted revenge. I hated! But Jesus showed me that I am worth more. I don’t have to endure abuses, adultery..or any mistreatment for that matter…but He still wants things to work..
He wants us to surrender our lives, give ourselves wholly and totally to His care and command…He will lead us into Truth..and Light…and in that Light is the most surreal sense of peace..and a divine depth and beauty that no words can express…
I hope you enjoy my poem…I am going to try to recreate my past in words…and then introduce the Light…the Light that cures all, sees all, and wonderfully threads together brokenness…..
The poem....
Dear D,
There was such hope for our relationship. Mexico, traveling ….Glamis..
I bought two ATVs for our little dream. I thought we would rip the sandunes in half.
A long road was paved in my mind. A road of possibilities and dreams. I thought the road was carved with yellow bricks, winding and carving like a freshwater river…leading into great and wonderful places.
But it seems that the river was only a puddle of mud and the yellow brick has evaporated and turned to dust.
Bone dry.
I feel as if you left me a trail.
A trail of breadcrumbs…broken promises…that you wanted me to follow. Broken promises…. the strength of words…words that leave a trail of hope..they are like a carpet being pulled from under the feet…I am left sitting in the dirt.
So, the trail of rotten breadcrumbs led to a dead end..a place where airports seemed to be closed and all travel ceased.
Mexico, it seemed, had been blown off the map. Lost, somewhere in space and time…
But is all lost?
I know our love was a dead, stale thing…it had changed. Metamorphasized..turned into something green…and putrid
The wine we drank, our special cup of promises, had turned sour….We had turned to mold, the substance of all things sticky and green..weighted down with a slime that smothers out life…
and changes the composition of things….
We chose darkness…and it killed.
The fruit, D. We chose to eat from a tree from which we had no business eating from..
I can see us..waltzing into Eden..to the sound of invisible flutes…We were like adders summoned to dance by sound…
so..
We coiled around each other..and gained knowledge…but we somehow managed to squeeze the life from one another. ..The coils were like vines that pulled from the gut the smell of rot….
dead leaves, turned dry..only used for burning.
Fire, D.
I longed for fire. For the colors..the dazzling reds, the full, bright oranges…the dancing of the flames….
It seemed we tangoed into an oven for want of colors but found we were singed by the licking of the flames.
Isnt’ that what darkness does? It lures like bait..then destroys..
But is all lost?
D, we became content in our routines… the daily cogs that spin..the rusty cables..those mechanical things that mete out time in measures of 30 minute sitcoms.
Cheers, D.
Salud…a toast to a lifeless marriage.
The wine, D.
We watched.
We watched life flitter past, but we chose not to embrace or sail on its wings. We were lost in the “knowledge.”
Dumbed by it somehow.
We were bats with photophobia, fearing Light.
Fearing the Son.
Fearing Mexico
and the sound of our own voices.
Our voices were lost in the coils of our bellies.
Trapped in emptiness wider than canyons run deep. Our bat cave, D. Our humble abode. The little white trailer, where weeds ran rampant and flowers refused to grow.
Or perhaps, they grew….I just didn’t notice.
We lived in our own little cavern of darkness….
I had a want of Light but I was stubborn and refused to fly toward it….
we were bats, D.
Bats drowning in the stale wine of broken promises….eeking out little red bubbles of lies..
I HATED!
I’m sorry, D but I hated.
I hated the pools of drool by your pillow. To me, they were little puddles of lies seeped from a dark heart…pools that carved rivers of tears across my face and kept me up at night drowning in anger…
Hating. Hating the broken promises….
hating Mexico, for fear of never feeling the sun on my back or the wind in my hair….
hating the television….it seemed like I was replaced by episodes of shows….
you left Cheeto fingerprints on the remote..but no fingerprints on the still of my back..on the delicate parts of my shoulder…or perhaps you did….
Perhaps, I didn’t notice..the lies drowned out so much….the sound of white noise….drowned out too many sounds..
Life back then was life an endless game of Chinese water torture.
Drop. Drop. Drop…
but there was no water falling on my head…..all was dry…ash…reminding me that nothing sacred lived in our little white trailer.
I dreamt, D.
I dreamt.
I dreamt in color…My life was black and white.
Old reruns of shows. Nothing new. I longed for the ocean….I loved the waves…simply because they progressed. They seemed to move forward…towards something….They seemed to embrace the Light..with strong strong arms…they held it to their watery chest…
D, when God beckons the waves to move…They Move! They Go!
D, I tried mushrooms once. The slimy fly covered concoction that grows from cow dung. I thought I could squeeze out a song. But no song came. Well, songs came..but they had no meaning..they were cloaked in futility…dead words on a dead page.
NO song…only confusion, D.
And a fuzzing of the walls…The fuzz that grows on things of rot….
D, I remember when I wanted my life to end. There were tiny white pills…little white disks of death..a few found their way into my gut..and summoned death…but funny, they acted like little boomerangs…that somehow flew into my still beating heart and woke it up…
funny how sometimes being so near Death, bids us to Live…to reach out for the Light…
D, Is all Lost?
No, D…it isn’t… You see, there has always been that Light…It is a Light that is pure..and when it is embraced, it metes out time in measures of eternity…
D, It shines like rivers of living water into dry and dusty lives….It longs to flood the canyons, D.
That Light saved me, D. The Light has a name, D. Jesus. No, He isn’t the man they ridicule on sitcoms…He is the Son of God and In Him, there is a true power.
He takes the dead things and makes them live again.
He made me forgive you, D. Even when I didn’t want to forgive. But He showed me that I don’t have to live in the shadow of lies and I don't have to walk the trail of broken promises. He showed me that I am more than the substance of rot…that sharing love makes good things grow…
D, Jesus showed me Mexico. I haven’t looked back. That place of promise and beauty, where the sun shines and birds make nests in all places under the sun.
I can see Him, shaking out my life like shaking out dusty linen….and breathing something like prisms into my very core…that is part of His power….
D, when I went to visit you the other day…..I want to thank you for your kindness..for handing me the Dr. Pepper and offering me a place to stay….
I began to wonder….if simple, tiny acts of love can act as a needle to thread together all that has been broken.
For, it’s no wonder, that my Jesus wants marriages to work! I am sad that people have quit altogether over lesser things than I have endured….I’m sad, D…
Because the past still exists and the hurts still remain…I can see us….we are standing on opposite shores…Jesus, is on an island in the center….If we look at Him together, our eyes will meet…..and the Light will produce a rainbow in our lives….but if we look in opposing directions….then, we can remain friends and call it a day…..but, D..I will never go back into that cave.
I know where my eyes are, D….They are on the Man that showed me Mexico…He loves you too, D… Find Him…He’ll take you out of the cavern and show you sunshine.
Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.
1“Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.
2Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.
3Give ear and come to me;
hear me, that your soul may live.
9“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
10As the rain and the snow
come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
11so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
12You will go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
will clap their hands.
13Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree,
and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.
This will be for the Lord’s renown,
for an everlasting sign,
which will not be destroyed.”
See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.
1“Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.
2Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.
3Give ear and come to me;
hear me, that your soul may live.
9“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
10As the rain and the snow
come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
11so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
12You will go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
will clap their hands.
13Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree,
and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.
This will be for the Lord’s renown,
for an everlasting sign,
which will not be destroyed.”
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