view from a dark place

this is something i wrote from a very dark place. a pastor friend of mine told me it was not complete because it lacked hope. i disagree. in its own way, it has hope. and, it is complete because it is complete. one person i spoke to said, if it had the happy, sappy brand of "hope" christians usually slap on their messages, it would not have reached her in the place of pain she found herself in. i agree.

this also happens to be an excerpt from my manuscript: from the abundance of my poverty. forgive the woeful justification of my poetry...


Genesis 3:9


I am lost
find me again
I have wandered
into the wilderness
I hear You calling
come find me
I see Your face
understanding
I am sorry
for everything
I need You
to find me again.


Adrift

"One does not discover new lands without consenting
to lose sight of the shore for a very long time." Andre-Gide

There are times, like now, when I feel adrift. Tethered to no thing, certain of nothing, headed for nowhere. These are the times I want to crawl into a hole and stay there. These are the times I want to run away and never look back. These are the times that have frequented my life and punctuated my story. These are the times I dread. It is not that God has forsaken me, it is just that He has not revealed anything more than a glimpse of the future. Each time I catch a glimpse of where I am headed, my heart swells with hope. Yet, it remains just a glimpse. My actual experience is more gritty and difficult. I have ceased weeping at the pain of my aimless drifting, but today the tears come unbidden. I am uncertain why they come today except to accompany my loneliness.

I have friends aplenty, more than any one person could need. But they do not, and cannot direct my course. They do not have the answers I need or the salve for my aching soul. So I drift. Apart from fellowship and community, I cannot find the shore. My service is requested and rendered more out of obedience than any commitment or feeling of belonging. So I drift.

Once I felt anchored to something, but it has given way. No thing has come to take its place. No certainty has come to quell the lingering doubt and dismay of my circumstance. I drift far from the reach of rescue and beyond the ability of human aid. My soul rises and falls upon the tide.

There are moments when the fog lifts and I can see the horizon—then I hope again. I hope the dawn has come and land is near. But no. Not yet. Never yet. It is always somewhere beyond me. So the day stretches out into a week, the week into months, and now, years later, still adrift, I have begun to find some routine to the rhythm of my exile. But there are days, like today, when the black cloud settles upon my soul and I merely drift. Unable to hope in tomorrow or see beyond the blinding uncertainty of today.

I need a glimpse today. That somewhere this voyage will end and my journey will take a new turn. I need to be recommissioned, for my original calling has faded into the yellow parchment clutched in my hand. I need to be redeemed, for I am adrift.