This morning I am thinking about being a tree and roots and branches and producing fruit. In the times of emotional drought, my roots had to reach deep, deep, down beneath the surface to find water. In my poetry in the winter, I would describe it like a flicker, a little light of lingering hope. Today I think of it as an underground river and a few slight tendrils of my deepest roots finding my Living Water and slowly drawing it up through the roots and into my center, but just enough to keep me sustained. When I think of my being this way, as a tree, purpose becomes clear. A tree forced to send roots far into the earth will be strong and stable and withstand wind and storms and famine. It will remain. I will remain…In Christ.
So, I can declare, with confidence, there was great and beautiful purpose in all the pain. Oh, how difficult it was to see then! Oh, how I longed to feel streams of joy flowing around me! How I craved a gentle rain or even a torrent! I wanted relief from the relentless dry of nothingness. I was sustained but not appeased. And I waited out the drought. And I watered my soul with my own tears, while my spirit was sending subtle subterranean branches to my Source, Christ alone.
Today, I will share with you a poem I wrote two years ago while I was experiencing a very difficult time of depression. In sharing these desperate words, it is my hope and prayer that you be encouraged to seek hope in the One who knows your pain; who, for the joy set before him…endured…the cross…for you.
Willing tears to hold their place
Not yet time for dampened face
Sowing now a field of sorrow
Begging for a crop tomorrow
Waiting for the weight to lift
Feeling lost, a boat adrift
Sour belly, swollen eyes
Tired of fighting off the lies
Bitter taste and broken dreams
Falling apart at the seams
Messy Karaoke 