Just Accept

I love to listen to my 4 year old daughter who, without being asked, recounts the reasons why I love her. In addition, she also says "Mama aren't you glad that God gave me to you!" "Mama don't you think that I am SO pretty!" -Of course all of these things are things that she has heard me say to her. Her version of them is much cuter. -Sweeter.

I always giggle when she starts going because her ego is often bigger than she is. But for as much trouble as that could be later, I hope that she never loses her confidence. -We all know how fragile a girl's esteem can be. I'm glad that she is listening to something positive that I am saying.

Here lately, I've been thinking about her faith in what I say and how that compares to our faith in what Christ says. How often we complicate what God has to offer. Mark 10:15 asks us to believe as a child. Yet we demand proof. Oh, how the world has stained our view of what is acceptable and good. Honest and pure. -Something must be earned in order to be given.

We struggle with forgiveness because either we are still sinning or because we can't forgive ourselves. So we can't understand how someone else can simply make white, what we keep trying to scrub and scrub and scrub away. Well, here's a news flash. You and I will ALWAYS sin. He is the only perfect one and if he had the power to make us, he can certainly make us "new". Maybe even shiny.

Maybe we feel so unloveable that we can't fathom why he would love us. Jeremiah 1:5 says that even before he made us, he knew who were and then still chose to make us anyway. Psalms 45:11 says that he is enthralled by our beauty. -"Enthralled" really! I mean just close your eyes and envision Jesus holding you in his hand marveling at your every action.

The Lord doesn't brow beat us with what he wants us to know. He waits patiently for us to just wake up and say "oh yeah!!" "I accept, I accept!" Do yourself a favor and start trying to accept today. It's hard. I know. But pour your heart out and ask him to show you how to do this.

The next time you're alone in the shower, turn your face up to the heavens and say I am forgiven. I am made new. I am alive. I am loved. I am cherished. -add to it any promise that you can. Repeat it. But make sure that you are facing him when you do it. Shame makes us hide away and look down. I was surprised by how much this one simple gesture positioned my heart so that I could get a bit more Jesus in. Turn your face up like you're staring at the sun and just close your eyes and imagine that you are looking in his eyes. Don't argue or make excuses. Just stand there. Facing him. Repeating his promises to you and let his love wash over you.

Villanelle

A little assignment to write a villanelle.

Written 10/12/04

Darling Dearest where've you been?
Your sweet kisses have been missed.
You were my lover. Not my friend?

All these days they set a trend;
It seems that "we" have been amiss.
Darling Dearest where've you been?

Dare I try to comprehend?
Before your bite, there was no hiss.
You were my lover? Not my friend!

I have to ask you yet again.
(Because the nights they were such bliss-)
Darling Dearest where've you been?

You set a trap and caught me in...
I can't believe what's come of this.
You were my lover. Not my friend.

And even still, all wants within.
Though I'll only lose my wits.
Darling Dearest where've you been?
You were my lover. Not my friend.



Note - I just felt the need to point some "old me". -posted 06/2015

Writer's Block

Written 04/04

I keep waiting for the words
but then I get distracted
and so I drift to someone else
and wait for a reaction

and soon I'll get a feeling
like I know what I should say
but when I put a pen to paper
the words just fade away

So I smoke another cigarette
and pour myself some tea
and pick up another letter
that was never meant for me

and soon I'll get a feeling
and I know for sure it's on
but before I get the pen again
the damned old thing is done

Eh, I'll pick it up anyway
and scribble down some words
just for spite or to provoke
a piece to ditch this curse



Note - I just felt the need to point some "old me". -posted 06/2015

Carnival

Written 05/00

It's been a long day,
spent almost entirely
missing you

Corn dogs and funnel cakes
great things to share
but your mouth wasn't there to reciprocate...
My lips noticed.

I'm strolling home now
somewhere between Garden and Main.
(Still blinded by the stage lights.)
Yet still able enough to see,
The lovers loving 
behind the Big Easy and
every other group has a couple
inside exchanging some
similar gesture(s)
I wish you were here.

The road home was long and silent.
I wonder how your day was.
Did you spend even a fraction of the same time
missing me?

I pretend that I'll go home
and open the door
and see you like the first time
and act out every lover's movement that I saw.

Knowing that instead, I'll crawl into
this big cold bed alone
and dream of you.




Note - I just felt the need to point some "old me". -posted 06/2015

Need To Quit Smoking

Written 04/00

With you there was always something to admire.
(As if you weren't enough)
There was the sunrise
after a late night
And the autumn leaves
for their change in color
Half-lit cigarettes because they were reminders that not just someone
but you loved me.
-And the stars because they made even the darkest
moments beautiful etc...

But that was then;
the sun. leaves, stars and love
they all fall
-And cigarettes...
they just remind me.





Note - I just felt the need to point some "old me". -posted 06/2015

Lightening Bugs

Written 05/99

I watch the gray faint lines
the paper burns
the words I promised to you

A thousand smiles flash
the warm feelings we ate
despite our true intentions

Lightening bugs
for children's toys
we wore our own behavior

Our desperate bodies
trapped in separate jars
that loudly clanged together





Note - I just felt the need to point some "old me". -posted 06/2015

Box

Written 01/98

My life consists of;
Rambling words
and sympathetic piles of paper.
But words that I've forgotten how to say
to anyone they ever mattered to our involved.
A mouth, I cannot use.

Feelings that change
like the tide,
the seasons,
the weather.
-Maybe a closet of faded disguises
or simply a child that
can't remember the difference between right and wrong.
Either way,
a heart that hasn't been served justice.

Vacant aspirations,
a put off list of 50 things.
Dreams like photographs in an album,
lost beneath the clutter of my closet.
A mind without directories of rules and reason.

People; like the days of the week,
they pass on with some sort of routine.
And I follow unmoved
A body that's lost all function.






Note - I just felt the need to point some "old me". -posted 06/2015