I’ve been waiting
to hear God’s voice
in the stillness
my needy soul
scared of the dark
expectation demanding
that His voice come gently
and love precede obedience
I am finding that
revelation feels more like birth pangs
the chrysalis of childhood
changes me, unwillingly
God does not speak
He pulls
closer to the edge
faltering steps, I follow
water, like fear, laps at my toes
rising as I struggle
to breathe
the bottom fades out
uncertainty is an ocean
reaching for healing
I find more broken pieces
longing for assurance
I encounter that old friend, Doubt
who sang me to sleep
so many nights
but maybe fear is the proof
I’ve been searching for
peace always seemed
a surer sign
but perhaps too much certainty
is the same somehow
as a lie
faith is a gene
I was born without
[there is a kind of positive doubt
…what if?
it *is* real]
was God the thing
behind me the whole time
and I’ve been afraid to see
maybe God is in the fear of everything I’ve never done
every good thing I ran away from
and following
isn’t real
if it’s easy
your road looks different, surely
I weep that i cannot walk it with you
my path deeper
looks lonely
stubbornly, I would choose
to stay on land
I love safety more than God
it is now
the twilight of the idols
throwing them down
crushing them to powder
beneath weary bleeding feet
makes way for new gods to rise up
i know
I can never love Him perfectly
good thing
making the first move was never my strong suit
I don’t have even a mustard-seed
words are evasive
dodging behind trees and blending in amongst muddled thoughts
my white stag
[I pin them down, chisel them out of marble, finding precision, this is my worship, my penance]
meaning echoes in my mind
God is doing something strange and wonderful
it hurts
maybe this time
i don’t pull away
from the hammer that pounds relentlessly
until change
unlocks the door to fearlessness
I haven’t been the best
of daughters
I come one step closer
to shout across the gap
“give me strength
for the next”
the decision is mine
[every voice says the same thing]
because if it belonged to anyone else
i’d have someone to blame
guilt is an easy companion
a comfortable bedfellow
I turn to
for reassurance
that i will never be good enough
or worth loving and saving and dying for
the wind is furious
around me
not angry
but determined to move me
it demands surrender
instinct is white-knuckled, clinging
but I am stillness in the middle of chaos
transfigured, briefly
into someone i don’t recognize
somehow separate, maybe lost
maybe blindly choosing to keep moving forward
what if it destroys me
what if…
i find God
I was so convinced I’d find him
in the buttercups
the warmth of the sun
on my eyelids
lulled me into uneasy belief
momentary surrender
[but I want a lifetime, something sturdy not just for when i pull away from the noise]
I stood
up to my knees in cool water
and shimmering rocks beneath the surface
quiet hours alone
thinking that God, too, had withdrawn from the crowd
to find me
in the bitter loneliness of
rejection
now i stand on the brink
of trains and waiting tables and a fire escape
smile wryly
because God doesn’t play by my rules
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