Sickness

We are in Your presence
We who trust in You.
We bring our pain and suffering
and place it at Your feet.
Great are the sacrificies
that You have made for us.
Worthy of power and glory
yet You find Your joy in us.
No difficulty is beyond You
to bring glory to Your name.
First of all we seek to place
Your will above our own.
Secondly we seek the joy
of lifting up Your name.
No matter what the obstacle
we strive to bring You praise.

In our limitations
to overburdened hearts
Oh, Father send compassion
as You are wont to do
but this time also healing
If it will serve Your purpose.

Grief and Tears

I cannot bear the weight of it,
this burden I have chosen.
My legs tremble and my mind reels.
Surely the Mighty One is stronger.
this sorrow will not bear Him down.
My eyes tire of all their tears,
for who can hear the cry of the wicked?
The one who has refused to see
the angry countenance of their God.
The have turned from acknowledging their debt,
From the One who has given them life.
What is their portion, save darkness?
Confined to the cell called despair?
No relief from loneliness is there
and wisdom turns to rend them.
The innocent will not remember these
the ones who sought to devour them.
None can deliver them from distress.
They have chosen to be cut off.
Might I be the one to speak?
To ask that mercy and compassion
place obstacles to halt the rush?

This Present Darkness: A Meditation

My mind has been pondering the puzzle of suffering and poverty specifically as applies to those who belong to You. I've had the persistent belief that the children of the King deserve only the best (So true!): That if You truly cared, we would never have to feel pain.

In this educational time that most call life, we are given opportunity to act on our theories; To research our faith. I believe You wish us to understand what it was that destroyed Your child Lucifer. Your give us the chance to choose, and to help us there are our perceptions of our experiences. We can choose the emptiness of power and material things or Your love. You want us to witness and experience the consequences of what evil has wrought and cry out for more! Your desire is for us to choose what is of more value rather than this physical world. To come to know You and having Your glory developed in us is a treasure beyond words or price.

Our sacrifices are temporary. All we give to You is compounded till we see You face to face. Tears now bring everlasting joy later.

Finding Identity as.......

In submission
I become
not less
but more.
Prostrated,
I am
exalted.
Created as
a conduit of:
Your mercy
Your compassion
Your love.
In humility
I find
my calling.
Limned in light
Your radiance
shines out.
Effective now,
Your servant!

Dark

Outside Your house,
What passes for love
is greed, disguised.
Pride is more valued
than understanding.
The lives of innocents feed
the machinary of power.
Gentleness and grace
are sacrificed for
material and political gain.
Ears are closed off
to suffering and pain.
A hand stretched out
in supplication
is cut off at the wrist.

Master

I know Your touch.
I hear Your voice.
I recognize the work of Your hands.
My Lord, my Love,
My Life, and my Light.
My most exalted purpose
is to bring praise to Your name,
Either from my own lips,
or when others see You in me.
I have learned the shape
and texture of True Love,
How it feels to
receive that tenderness,
that campassionate response,
to my expectant vulnerability.

Profitable Service: A Meditation

We are given a limited sum of years to invest our soul for Your kingdom. Faith makes it a priviledge to serve in the work to which You have called us, working under the authority of Your spirit. The joy comes from the knowledge that even in the midst of the most difficult circumstances, victory has already been realized and affirmed. Our temporary pain only makes our joy in You more profound. To honor You truthfully, even in the midst of that pain, I must glorify and praise You. Only in this am I a profitable servant. It is a task thrilling beyond words. What starts as a self imposed discipline ends up being a realization of profound and absolute truth. I surrender all of my limited life to the cause of Him who is life, who is eternal, for the glory of His name.

The Unseen

You are the love of my life and my soul.
My relationship with You is estatic:
Exhaustingly euphoric.
A wild and thrilling ride
of blessing and discovery.
Your might and wisdom lure me
as a moth to flame
comsuming, purifying flame.
My physical bonds restrict me.
I look around, high and low
but I cannot see You!
My heart pleads for more
My Life and only True Friend.
Love of my life,
Where might I find You?
Show Yourself to me,
as a lover would,
in the private language we share.
Let Your truths come to pass,
as You have shown them to me.
I will rejoice in You forever, because
You have called me by name,
and have not neglected
to share Your heart with me.

End to Beginning

My youthful strength is spent.
Beauty has faded to dust and ashes.
Power and enthusiasm must be replaced
with knowledge and determination.
As I feel the cold looming shadow
I realize that the transition is a doorway.
You are far larger that all my fears.
For what other barrier is there,
than that one You decree,
to seperate me from seeing Your face,
save my eyes of flesh?
Should You call me to abandon this temple,
as the mockingbird now sings to me
of the peace of Your presence,
so allow that I might hear the angels
as I approach the threshold, singing
so my soul may understand
and experience immeasurable joy
in the last victory over stuggle and pain
traded for glory and freedom.

Kingly Works: A Meditation

For such a one as me, who wonders how You accomplish such overwhelming good from such seeming evil, You have offered a key to understanding of the way You choose to work. The concept is embodied in the word "redemption." It means to buy back what was lost. The price, no matter the cost, has been met. My right to the inheritance You have determined for me is infinitely secure in You. No violence can move me: Hatred has no power over me. I am free to emmulate You. I have been redeemed for Your use. This is how You choose to express Your omnipotence. It is why, no matter how extreme seems the pain, that YOU HAVE THE VICTORY and Your name is GLORIOUS, ALMIGHTY, VICTORIOUS.

Mercy's Child

You know me more intimately than any lover,
my sister, or my mother.
You inhabit the temple of my flesh.
Your Spirit permeates my body,
enclosed in and surrounded as I am
in the sea of Your love.
Ribbons of warmth radiate ouward
from my fingertips,
a tactile representation
of my powerful feelings of wellbeing.
If we never feel the lack,
then we can never experience the wanting.
What a blessing to clearly see our sad condition!
To realize our need is to become involved
in the birth of our own passion.
To put passion into constructive action
developes a soaring joy
not bound to or limited by earthly laws.
I live, right now, in a story
of Your glory and love in action.
Your extraordinary essence
is revealed in ordinary people.
I share this heritage: Work progressing :
An education in humility and honor.
There is nothing that can be offered to me,
nothing found that is equal,
to the immensity of Your person
and the gifts that You give to me.
You are worth any price.
I serve the Ancient of Days
In return You instruct me on how to truly live
and deepen my understanding.
I have learned this:
The pain and strugle of the now
only serve to make Your ultimate victory
more complete and all encompassing.
You want us to share in Your joy.
My spirit is gratified to abide
in the knowledge of Your love.

A Consuming Fire

Your beauty is far greater than flesh can stand.
My thoughts burn continuously and will not rest.
You are my Epiphany and my Profound Revelation.
The glory of Your visage shatters stone
and causes the massed scoffers to cry out in fear.
Your patience outlasts the mountains, yet
Your methods are more subtle than the air lifting a butterfly's wings.
You consume me with a passionate intelligence
intent on holding You up for all to see.
Your creative energy is called Love.