She gave

I hurried down the street

Alison Krauss playing through my earbuds

Stresses from customer demands

And company pressures

Tangling my thoughts and joy.

Why does life have to be so hard?

I thought as I walked to pick up

My meal. Nice boots clicking on

The pavement, new skirt swishing

In the breeze.

How am I going to handle this stress?

Can one person meet these

Demands of boss and customer all

In a day? My eyes on my feet and

The questions taking control.

I look up to cross the street and

Our eyes meet. Her cloudy eyes

In a disfigured face, her limp on

A deformed body. Clothes dirty and

Crumpled, hat askew.

She smiled. At me. We were from

Two completely different planets

Passing at the same second, the

Same brick, the same street light.

She smiled. And she gave.

She gave to me a sign of joy. She gave

Warmth on a cold blustery day. She

Gave from her nothing to me who has

Everything and I took. I took her smile

And sealed it in my heart.

A seal to remember that I received from her

Who had nothing to give. A seal to remind

Me that I always have joy and warmth and

And a smile to give, even if the day wears

Me out. I have much to give.

the whisper of his grace

He makes all things new
In the midst of my failure
He raises me above it all

His grace makes small my mistakes
And His mercy overlooks my guilt
I am made new

He asks me to walk away from the mess I helped create
Draws me away by His great whisper
To leave behind the heap
That I am inclined toward

His healing grace a dart into my soul
And His breath washing me clean from enemy's filth

But I want to go back
To the heap
To the muddy puddle
Forgetting that a King's playground awaits

Energies directed and spent in focus of the smallness
     I am owed by another
Forgetting the enormity of my dept wiped clean
     by His breath on me
And the higher places to which He beckons
By the whisper of His grace

By the whisper of His grace
I am drawn into His space
Letting go of what I want to cling to


found recently in an old journal, written in March 2011

sometimes hope

sometimes hope
strings me along
asks for audacious trust

i find myself
reluctant to hope
a wispy cloud on the horizon

we're told to hope
for things unseen
in the heavenlies and here on earth

i want to hope
but i don't
i don't want to put my heart on the line

sometimes hope
seems a mocking
cruel, disappointing, shallow friend

sometimes hope
calls us into a
vast wilderness of trust and faith

sometimes hope
burns brightly
sometimes barely flickers like a small flame on an old fire.

written for a friend, with echoes from my own heart.