Pruning

Was it as sad as it might have been?

Did you regret for more than just a moment

Do you still remember when?

I think my vision of you was just a dream

A person I had known from long ago

A part you couldn't play forever it seems

So God please tell me why

Why do You give to take away?

I know it's Your right

But when it happens, what can I say?

I don't understand Your ways

You're far beyond my comprehension

You're too big for my little mind

Yet You've paid for my redemption

Your ways are not my ways

Your thought are not my thoughts

But for just a moment...

Could You bend down to me?

Oh God of mercy and grace

Please show understanding on Your face

And listen to my cry

And tell me why I have to die

To truly live

Am I as forgiving

As You have called me to be?

Do I speak with my mouth only

Yet refuse to fully be?

Do You still know me?

Are You still here when I fall?

I think my vision of You is just a little thing

All that I can understand and whatever You bring

Why can't I refuse to make my own side of You?

To live and praise as wholly this day

As when things are going my way

Why can't my arms reach

As high as the sky You've made

To be as close to You now

As though I had stayed

Right where You've wanted me

Please close this distance

I can't run if I fall

I cannot stand on my feet at all

So lift me near

Please forgive my tears...

Is this daily life as strange

As I have made it to be?

The vision I have of You

Is blurred by my own reality

The more I think I know of You

The more questions I must ask

And the answers are that more must be given of me

I try so hard I make myself fail

I get so tired of listening

The sound of my own wails

I'm tired of fighting me as well as You

So Lord please tell me what it is that I should do

Your death brought life to me

You rose to set me free

So please break these chains of insecurity

And allow me to truly see

That You adore me

Just as I am, this broken thing

Who cannot see what's right in front of me

Who cannot hear Your voice for I am drowning You see

Who do You want me to be?

Please forgive me

And teach me to say 'Goodbye'

Hands

If I could imbue this simple hand

With strength beyond its skin and sinew

If I could halt its trembling and hold it securely

If I could melt the ice that has frozen its motion

Protect it from the pierce of the knife and keep it from bleeding

Then perhaps the all-encompassing weakness it portrays

Would not consume me

My hands have always been small

They've always been weak and ordinary

They've touched with kindness and cruelty

And dabbled in what they shouldn't

They've eavesdropped like a naughty child

And fought away what would save them

They have caressed and torn

Leaving me more bloody in the end than any temporary object of anger

If I could make them forget the winding pathways

The stamp that's marked into the skin

Where they've been, what they've done

What they have yet to be

Perhaps I could erase their haunted identity and let them leave an impression

Far more lasting and strong than before

In a simple embrace, a warm grasp

Lies your salvation

Lies your ruin

Which you will find, you have never known

Often risked, seldom gained

A mystery of infinity

Now gathered tight in a fist at my side

Let Mercy Fall

The ground is shaking beneath my feet
The dawn that's breaking is bitter-sweet
I know in my heart that You love me
But Jesus please...

Let mercy fall like rain
Let healing waters flow to my soul
Though grace is undeserved
Please don't withhold Your love from me
Jesus grant me peace
And hold me please

I know I am standing on solid rock
And though I am trembling, we'll withstand the shock
Sometimes life gets too harsh for us to see our way through
So I am so thankful that our hope is found in You

Jesus please...

Let mercy fall like rain
Let healing water flow to my soul
Though grace is undeserved
Please don't withhold Your love from me
Jesus grant me peace
And hold me please...

Monster Inside

There is a monster inside of me
That cannot be contained
It awakens from its slumber
And writhes inside me
Its claws tear at the thin skin of my soul
It's curved teeth takes little bites out of my heart
Like needle-pricks on fingertips
On lip, on tongue, on cheek

Reserved

You look at me
And sigh through your eyes
While I cry through my smile
I tempt you to love
To care more deeply than your life allows
Not a love that is profane or impure
But a compassion that supersedes understanding
You tempt me
To hold on and not to lose hope that was lost long ago

Love is reserved for you
Only in the confines of those few
Fated to be with you for life
Dare we not intrude on the rest
Your heart only has room for so many
And shuts out all those who would draw near

So on the fringes we watch
As you vow to love more
While shutting out love that might have been
Shutting out what is no longer convenient
To love more what had been neglected before

Is it the fault of those who you took pity on
Those you allowed inside your heart
That you made us a family
And denied your own?

But now cast off and forgotten
A martyr to your over-achievement and ambition
To an empathy you could not deny
But can now forget

Denied Truth

What I once denied
Has now been made true
What I was believed
Has been proven a lie
And what am I to learn from that?
What value am I to take away
That does not also rob me of my sanity?

Was there a time of vain conceit
When all the ills of the world could not damage love?
When I could love so much that love would never falter
And could over-come it all?

Was it foolish naivety to believe that anything was worth believing
That anything was worth trusting
And then having that faith shattered, trust broken
And my heart once more shattered into pieces at my feet?

I am old enough to know better
Wiser than what I had become
Now stripped eve of my dignity
Made the fool and the rebellious child
Who could not help but cling to the hand of one
Who was not father
Could never be
Who played the role, while resenting it in their heart
Knowing, but not knowing
Caring, but not enough
Seeing, but not acknowledging
Hiding instead of sharing

Should I die for what was not real
Or live for what is?
While a part of me has been stolen and sanctimoniously put to death
Another part still lives and fights to be free
A part of me fights against the pain and resolves to never love again
Or if I love, not to trust
Never to trust...not again

If I could cut away the part of me that still cares so much for you
Perhaps then that would be easier
Though it would leave our past irrevocably dead
But easy to let go of
Not clinging to me like a many clawed spider-web
That tears and rips and shreds at my soul

Love is not something I can deny
Nor is it something I can forget
So love you I will, and care for you in the only way I know how
Though your eyes will not see it
Your ears will not hear it
And only one sweet future day will it be fully known

Friendship was proven a liar
But compassion could never be
Where conflict and compassion dwell torn
Endlessly battling on another battlefield
Than the one we both knew

There are lies in your smile now
That did not exist before
There is hurt in your kindness
Where there used to be comfort
There is a wall... where once there was hope...

Forgive me... forgive me Father
For I sin
I sin in hating myself for what I could not control
For who I could not be
For what I never was
For what I held onto so tightly that I forced it away