God Within Me

Lately I’ve been struggling with a constant feeling of brokenness. Every time I feel I’ve regained my footing, every time I feel that I’ve picked myself up and dusted myself off I get knocked down again. The past few years, namely those I’ve spent at Gordon College, have been filled with blow after blow. And each time I get knocked down, even if just a little bit, it gets increasingly harder for me to get back up. I allow the world to shake me. But what I most often forget is that I am unshakable because I walk with an unshakable God. Sure, this doesn’t mean I’ll never face hardship, it doesn’t mean I wont have setbacks or hiccups or bumps along the way. It simply means that every time I find myself kicked down again, I can look up and the Lords hand which is extended to me, picking me up, and carrying me through. I’m never alone, and I’m never hopeless. Because of Christ, I am given second and third and fourth chances. Because of Christ I can stand back up, I can face tomorrow. I am strong in the Lord if the Lord is strong in me. I am redeemed. I am made new. I am not abandoned. Because the Lord is within me, I will never fall hard enough, of fall low enough that I can no longer get back up. God is with me, I cannot fail.

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Falling

Maybe fall is my favorite season because it most closely parallels my own life. Girls in sweaters stand in awe of leaves as they loose their pigment and turn brilliant shades of red and orange and gold. Boys in jackets watch as leaves float through the sky, kissing the ground. Most everyone awes at the beauty of it, the goodness of it. But fall is not these things. Yes, fall has been perceived this way, a sight that ought be seen, but it isn’t reality at all. Fall, actually, is death. One after the other, leaves dying, fighting to hold on but inevitably failing, falling. Yet so many look on with longing eyes and hearts are filled with joy at the mere idea of leaves that shake and rattle. But the leaves—they are dying, they are dead, they cease to be anything more than a shell, a thin and fragile thing. Maybe I am the leaves. Those who cross my path generally tend to be touched for the better and I’ve seen my fare share of smiles ignite because of the work of my own hands and mouth, but I am fleeting—and I’m dying, slowly at first, but quickly in the end, inevitably failing, falling.

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Going Away

Going Away
Howard Nemerov

Now as the year turns toward its darkness
the car is packed, and time come to start
driving west. We have lived here
for many years and been more or less content;
now we are going away. That is how
things happen, and how into new places,
among other people, we shall carry
our lives with their peculiar memories
both happy and unhappy but either way
touched with a strange tonality
of what is gone but unalienable, the clear
and level light of a late afternoon
out on the terrace, looking to the mountains,
drinking with friends. Voices and laughter
lifted in still air, in a light
that seemed to paralyze time.
We have had kindness here, and some
unkindness; now we are going on.
Though we are young enough still
and militant enough to be resolves,
keeping our faces to the front, there is
a moment, after saying all farewells,
when we taste the dry and bitter dat
of everything that wen have said and done
for many years, and our mouths are dumb,
and the easy tears will not do. Son
the north wind will shake the leaves,
the leaves will fall. It may be
never again that we shall see them,
the strangers who stand on the steps,
smiling and waving, before the screen doors
of their suddenly forbidden houses.

My Once Friend

I can try and blame it on summer as much as I want, but when it comes down to it, a season had nothing to do with it. In the end, we were just too different to ever coexist. Our strengths did not align, and our weaknesses collided. We had a beautiful friendship for oh so many months, but we were never meant to be anything more. We took something that didn’t have to be damaged and we damaged it anyway and now all that we could have ever been is lost. There’s nowhere to put the blame except on me, for I know, once again, I’ve done someone wrong. So believe me, my once friend, that I’m done hurting people the way I’ve hurt you and so many in the past. Like a candles flame, I’ll turn to smoke, so be at ease and know that I’ve gone away, this time for good. 

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A Collection of Short Snippets

I’m caught somewhere between not wanting to leave and wanting to never look back. I’m hung in suspension by these forces, the nostalgia of it and the hatred for it.

Everyone says that time heals the broken, but I’m starting to wonder if the adverse is also true. Does time not only heal but hurt? Does tie cause rifts to burst open between those who were never broken to begin with?

They say opposites attract but am I just too different than you to ever make it last? Different people we’ve proven to be, but does that mean there can never be a you and me? I’ve been captivated by your smile and laugh, but I’m not sure that’s enough to cancel out the past.

There’s something undeniable about our island summers. Sun kissed skin and water logged fingertips, wind blown hair and sandy feet. Though the routine has been the same for nearly two decades, there’s something unique in that each summer feels new.

Happiness is an allusion, and those who disagree are just too far behind the mask they’ve put on to remember that they ever put one on at all. 

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