A real change from yesterday! Today has been a thoughtful, reflective day so far as I have pondered how God heals us, and how long that process can sometimes take. I found a poem today that I wrote last September. I haven’t written much poetry since, as I go through “dried-up poet” phases quite often, but in the poem I ask “how long?”, as I was struggling with so many unruly thoughts and feelings at the time. Yet when I look back, it was after writing this and other poems that I began to embrace God’s will for me and to move forward. 10 months later, I feel like a different person ~ at home in my chosen vocation, actively wanting to be holy, rather than being a rebel. God has tamed me during this time, and I have been willing to be tamed.
I think there have been times during my spiritual walk when the “old” me has still been very apparent; when I have chafed against the bit wanting to live a life of liberty and freedom to do what I want (because God’s way is so often much harder than my way!) But I have discovered, like many before me, that God’s way is the way of true freedom, and that I can never be truly free until I am prepared to be a servant, to Him and to others. Reading this poem, I remember being on the crux of a major shift in attitude; the word crux means “a vital, basic, decisive, or pivotal point”, but it also means a cross. All our life changes revolve around the cross, and involve sacrifice of one kind or another. We are asked by Jesus to take up our cross daily, and in doing so we become changed people. Thank You Lord for my cross; help me to continue to change, and become more like You ~ Amen!
How long Lord
must I wrestle,
like Jacob wrestled
with an angel?
How long must I
wrestle with self?
My temptations;
my desires;
my wants;
my needs:
me, me, me ~
Mine
Mine
Mine.
How long, Lord?
Must I fight ’til daybreak?
Will I bear the scars?
Limp for the rest of my life?
Yet scars are sanctified ~
they speak of Christ;
His feet,
His hands,
His head,
His side.
Will my limp
make me like Him,
and not just a cripple?
Posted by Cathy on June 23, 2009 at 7:16 pm
This was so very good! Thank you!
Posted by marcy on June 23, 2009 at 10:43 pm
This was strikingly beautiful and so reflective of our need to be constantly healed in some way!
blessings and hugs,
marcy
p.s. Thank you ever so much for taking time to comment on Tamara’s blog site…Jesus truly shows through you, in this, as well as many other ways.
Posted by Alexandra on June 30, 2009 at 4:01 am
“..and I have been willing to be tamed.” That’s the key. I was reading a meditation about this very thing today – rebellion. I can’t put my finger on it, or I’d quote the scripture. Thanks so much for sharing. We all struggle, but when we acquiesce we can do all things in Jesus! Anything is possible. We bear fruit.