Poems of my Strange & Tangled Journey of Healing

 In my strange and tangled "journey of "healing" I have been receiving a deluge of loving words and cards and flowers and tangible love. But on a very different note, here are a few very unique and delightful examples of actual POETRY along with a comical response to an e-mail request I made. 

Someone named Rachel Devenish Ford (a friend, an author, mother, world traveler...) whom I greatly respect and who has an incredible gift with words took the time to write a poem for me...  I feel so unworthy of such a tribute for the little I did to "earn it"  but I'll simply receive with open arms because God actually loves us with such lavishness and speaks with such passion over and into us.  In fact, this Easter Weekend is the evidence of love that surpasses our understanding - radical, beautiful, outrageous sacrificial love.  "Love so amazing, so divine..." Today, on the Saturday between GOOD FRIDAY there is the profound, silent, agonizing, pregnant wait,  

Pregnant with hope...

So I sit in this silent place, my own pregnant, profound wait, but I am enclosed in the womb of hope and eager expectation.  Knowing that Sunday is coming,

on so many levels, SUNDAY IS COMING!

Resurrection and the knowledge that He paid this price to make ALL THINGS NEW...

These words are received from the heart of Jesus. As always, everthing He does for us is undeserved and yet He reaches out with hands dripping with love, His blood that speaks a BETTER WORD!

I love you so much. Oh, my heart hurts to think of you in so much pain. I want to share two poems with you:

the first I wrote just thinking about us and God. The second I wrote for you.

who is it, that holds me

that shelters? 

what immense bowl of stars

do i swim in? 

these planets

around this sun.

i live on the one that looks

like home, with clouds that move

over deep seas. only on one.

my feet can only stand on one

square foot of earth.

who is my father, my mother?

what great power breathes through me

made me into someone who dreams

and is much more than the shape

of any given minute or hour.

i am not my work

i am not my food

i am not the numbers in my 

bank account. 

i ask you to stay with me

these veins and muscles need you

this body that curls

or leaps or runs and runs and runs

needs its shelter. 

who is it, that holds me

in their cupped hand like a bird

just before flight?

here is the second:

for Karen

my sister lived with our friend, once

when we traveled back from India and 

our friend made space for us in her home

oh, how I love seeing people in my kitchen,

she said in the morning, wheeling her chair out of her bedroom

and into the space we were occupying like a pile

of puppies with harried parents. 

one child pretending they knew how to play piano

another spilling their breakfast, one crying for more

of something or other, another getting the dogs hyper.

she looked at us and loved us and those words

were more healing to me than most sentences i have

ever heard. some words bring you right inside

i don’t know how to tell you about her voice

about the infectious joy or how much she loves 

her daughter, or how she talks about God as though

the whole world was nothing but light through leaves

we played a concert on her lawn

lamps in the dusk, my sister arranged the details

we sat under the trees in her orchard

she rested in the afternoons when her body was hurting

but then, again, the next day, the joy.

we ate outside so we wouldn’t miss a moment of summer

and she knows how to live and we went to the beach

and i felt embraced, held, i felt like i was not a burden

with my large, unwieldy family

she is sick now and her body has already

been through so much. i would light every candle for her

we pray, we pray for healing

the faith and love and care, oh, when i have guests

and i want to make them feel welcome

i think of her, i think

how can i make them feel the way she made me feel?

oh God, your daughter is in pain

your daughter hurts

i had to come back for Jesus, she told me

He was all that i had in the end

there is no one i think of more

when i think of joy.

We love you and we are praying,

Love,

Rae and Chinua

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On the heels of this wild beauty is a response to a request I made today to s pastor, a friend, and a musician and wordsmith I deeply admire.  He brought me from  from tears to laughter with his silliness and reality... 

He responded to my request  in his hilarious whimsical style: 

"I agree our lives have been beautifully interwoven with our kids for sure. What a blessing eh?

If you asked me to stand on my head banging a coconut shell with a 3/4" wrench I would do it for you! So singing a song would be an honour of course.  Metro is yours for the asking if needed.  No problem there. Don't worry about it just tell Jan and David to ask. I hope and pray it won't be needed of course though.

Rest well and remain anchored in His love.  Happy Easter.  Our family will be praying for you today OK."

Lots of love

Graham and Natalia XX

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And lastly a unique and  creative poem from one of my "un-book club" ladies Sue.  She was in Africa at the time of finding out my diagnosis so perhaps that stirred up her creative juices with a cross-cultural flair! 

A Poem for Karen

February 9,2023

Tread softly here

On this great earth

Where God bestows

beauty all round

We walk amidst the joys untold

And sorrows so profound

Yet comes the day

When on we go

To a place where joy ne’er fades

And gently glance

To earth below

And the footprints that we made. 

But you my friend,

You did not walk

You wheeled from here to there

So when , from glory,

You look down, behold etchings from your chair

Trailing imprints now a picture make

Of His most glorious love

As you wheel about in His great

grace,

Delighting in His love. 

Blessings to you and all your family at this time!

Sue McGloughlin