I cry out to you.
every fiber in my being wills my cries
to reach you in the heavens.
Hear me, O God,
for I fear that you have not been hearing.
I am wretched and the only offering I have for you
is my sorrow-filled heart.
I spoke.
My tounge uttered words
as my thoughts screamed
echoing prayers.
No answer came.
So my mouth spoke again
and I received a tongue lashing.
When I bespoke my helplessness,
anger was poured out on my head.
My sins are many.
I swim in the mire of my past.
I face my demons
seeking help and health.
My friends were not my friends.
They did not like my new dance.
My new freedom.
They were not happy for me.
For they only loved my compliance.
They only held dear those things I let them make in me.
These things were lies.
These things were not me.
I need you.
I scream for you.
Is your silence your best love for me?
Or is that a comforting lie we tell ourselves to keep the story going?
Tell me,
or I shall die.
When I think I can take no more, more comes.
I am no victim.
Yet, I am ill-used.
Help, help, help, help me dear Lord.
You are my only hope.
Writen this past year, and republished, unedited, in all it's true colors, here from the other side of the worst year of my life.
This prayer reminds me of the Psalms of lament. They aren't easy to hear or understand when I'm fat and happy. Nor do they necessarily make sense when I am. But when life becomes tragic they're bread for the heart. Someone has written (sorry not to remember who) that when you are seriously sick, you're sick alone. In the end, no matter how much support from friends, it's a solitary journey through darkness and endless hours. Like you, the Psalmist turns to God, as a last source of light and hope.
I also thought of the disciples of Christ: is it I? Is it I, O Lord, they asked? I can hear freinds saying, did she mean me? Did she mean me? I don't think you intended that, did you? I assume this post is you being vulnerable, saying, this is where I was at?
However, because I'm so bad at "being there" -- it's a hope that burns in me--that God sees the suffering of others and somehow meets them in the midst of it.
I'm encouraged to see your spirit survived the worst year of your life. I also know this lament is only a slice of the reality you lived, and that on other levels there were gifts of love given to you and your family that helped them survive. Those gifts came to you through friends and community. And you don't despise those gifts.
that is the most beautiful, heart wrenching poem I have read. I think it's beauty lies in truth, and pain that through continuing on in it produces you now, which I don't think any of us would trade for anything, and yes people don't like other peoples dances when they're jealous because there booty is in the chair.... squirming with the beat in the air.... thanks for your words... the heart is a wretched and amazing thing, here's to keeping it cleaned out... b.
* i think of you.