November 11, 2003
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Recovered Poetry
I’ve decided to start a new segment in my xanga – to feature a past poem I’ve written – once a week. I can’t guarantee that they’re any good, but it’ll give you a peak into my past.
What Really Matters
May 14, 1998
I’m often too self-occupied!
What matters to you, Lord?
Does nodding off during lecture
disappoint you ’cause I’m bored?
I’ve probably disgusted you
by my half-hearted offers to serve
and in my moments of refraining,
when I have lost my nerve.
Your gospel – so great to me,
gets lost inside somewhere,
like I’ve selfishly hoarded it, -
a treat of mine, so rare.
Oh Lord, I’m full of mess-ups,
trivial stresses and concerns.
I think of so much as “important”
but they’re all things that’ll burn.
I’m filled so much with longing,
in a heart too small to hold.
There are burdens heavy-weighted,
weakened limbs from heavy loads,
and people lost, confused and crying
in a pointless world that scorns.
“Hope”‘s a word long-forgotten,
where hearts are wrenched and torn.
I want so much to love them!
to give them Love they’ve never known,
but I am lost in weaknesses,
and vain conceit of my own.
My inadequacies don’t matter much,
my failures are erased.
You’ve brought me here – that matters most,
a place I thankfully call “grace”!
A gift that lasts for all my days
and extends like vines of leaves and stems.
Oh Lord, you’re sifting me, my heart,
now shift your Love to them,
to they who keep on plodding on
with no joy in the end.
Only you can fix their hearts,
unsever, attach, amend.
Oh Lord, I love your kids so much
because they come from you.
Don’t let me lose sight of love.
Please teach me what to do.
Reflection: My first year in college, I was plagued with deep agonies. I understood the powerful enormity of God’s love. I understood that it was so wonderful, I needed to share it. But I was deeply conflicted because I was paralyzed by my fears & limitations. These stupid fears kept me from doing what God wanted me to do. How I struggled! But if I had never wrestled with these two things: who I am vs. who God is, I would not be where I am today.
Where am I today?
I want to live for Jesus and forget about myself. I want to throw off anything in me and of me which hinders me from being as much like Jesus as possible. I choose to throw it off. I choose to push past what I know my limitations are, push past what I know I’m not in order to embrace who He is and live life according to Him.
Between the time of writing the poem and now, I’ve tasted many times what it’s like to let God make me more than I am, and I now… I simply can’t go back to what is “naturally” me…
