Poems

God, help me. I can feel the condemnation pressing in,

The voices reminding me of all my past sins.

They tell me I’m a disappointment to God, a failure.

I want to be believe the truth, but the lies have a much more powerful allure.

Somewhere, somehow, the voice of Truth got lost in the sea of lies.

I don’t even have the courage now to look into your eyes.

My life is becoming a constant battle and I’m on the losing team.

When, tell me, did my life start dissolving at the seams?

Why fight a battle if you’re just going to lose in the end?
My life lays in pieces scattered on the floor, impossible to mend.

Sometimes I want to announce to the world, “Hello! I’m not okay.

I can’t keep living this lie for one more day.”

I’m tired of pretending everything’s dandy and fine.

Don’t look at my mask; look at the person behind.

Pray tell, am I the only one whose life is falling apart?

The only one exhausted from carrying a heavy heart?

The only one whose slowly dying inside?

The only one who, when I look into the mirror, sometimes want to hide?

The only one who wonders if there’s more to life than living like this?

A legalistic Christian who knows only rules? Not love, but a list?

God, give me the strength to realize how weak I am without You.

Give me the strength to ignore the lies and believe what is true.

Because your word says that in you there is no condemnation.

Being a Christian is about the journey, not the destination.

You are the only one with the power to destroy lies and offer me deliverance.

I-I took the road less traveled that that has made all the difference.

This poem was written at a time when I felt myself suffocating from condemnation. I felt like a failure in every area of my life and, even worse, a disappointment to God. With nowhere else to go, I cried out to God. And He reminded me what Romans 8:1 says, "There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." I also weaved in one of my favorite quotes by Robert Frost at the end of the poem, "Two paths diverged in a wood and I-I took the road less traveled and it has made all the difference."    

Fear

Fear is merely a deception; it distorts our perception. 

Fear is a hallucination of what we think.

As we grow to believe it, bit by bit we start to sink.

Fear paralyzes us, crippling us from being all we can be.

It clouds our vision and overtime we can no longer see.

What we believe about truth becomes distorted;

The beauty of love is contorted. 

Fear eventually invades every area of our life.

It is easy to feel, but is it worth the price? 

Fear is a result of humanity being cursed. 

We have elevated fear, instead of love, first.

Because the opposite of fear isn't courage-it's love.

A pure, perfect, passionate love from above. 

Scripture says perfect love expels fear.

How can we let fear control us if we claim to believe what Jesus said, "I am here." 

Perfect love is the answer to all of our insecurities and fears. 

Fears of the past, the future. The face staring back at us in the mirror.

I refuse to be controlled by an emotion.

I will not drown in a sea of fear, an ocean. 

We are prisoners and fear is our prison;

But Christ broke the bondage when He proclaimed, "I am risen."

Scars in a Broken World

They say eyes are the window to the soul.

Eyes reflect if the soul is empty or whole.

Stop for a moment and look into their eyes.

Because once you have glimpsed their eyes,

it is impossible to ignore their cries.

But we have successfully mastered the art of ignoring them,

too preoccupied with chasing after meaningless whim.

We are surrounded by extreme poverty, literally drowning in a sea of statistics.

But they’re sons, daughters, and lovers-come on, let’s be realistic.

The twelve-year-old over there is the same age as your sister, your daughter.

She lived a happy life until fate wrapped its cruel fingers around her.

See, she works in a brothel, trapped in prostitution.

She longs to be rescued, longs for healing and restitution.

Every night she sobs herself to sleep in her bed.

“This is all you’ll ever be,” says the voices in her head.  

Overtime, the faces of her “costumers” start to blur; they’re all the same.

She’s still a child, but her innocence is stolen, igniting her face with shame.

Mother Teresa said that each person is Jesus in disguise.

“Show me the truth,” the little girl pleads, “because all I know is lies.”

Confused, I ask God a question: “How can you let this happen if you care?”

Softly He answers: “How can you? You’re my hands and feet; that’s why I placed you there.”

God, help me love selflessly. Give me eyes to see eternally.

Because once you have peered into their eyes, once you have listened to their heart-wrenching cries, you cannot remain silent.

Speak up for those with no voice. Don’t relent.

Listen to their sighs for deliverance.

Do something with your life of significance.

Because pretending they don’t exist won’t make them go away.

Tell them dawn comes after darkness and night transforms into a new day.

Proclaim liberty, set prisoners free, bind the broken-hearted.

Love the untouchable, the lonely, the guarded.

Pierce the darkness until it bleeds light;

Love completely, give everything, fight the good fight.

Life isn’t measured by what we thought of doing, but what we do.

Because if not you, then answer one question, then who?

Truth and Lies

Jesus, tell me who I am, who you created me to be.

I feel so unworthy. Give me eyes to see eternally.

I want to believe to your truth, but when I look into the mirror, the lies are the only thing I can hear.

Give me strength to choose truth over lies.

I am tired of wearing this disguise.

I refuse to be defined by the mirror on the wall.

I want to believe who you say I am, but I so often fall.

I refuse to be defined by lies I hear.

I choose to trust who you say I am, not to be imprisoned by fear.

I refuse to be defined by who the world’s standard of perfection.

I am accepted and loved by Jesus; I do not fear other’s rejection.

So I am saying good-bye to the lies that have been choking me.

I refuse to be anyone other than who you created me to be.

 

Good-Bye

I went to visit your grave today.
Crushed by the reminder you took yourself because you sincerely believed there was no other way. 
It wasn't right of the kids to laugh at you because you were gay. 
But all I did was stand on the side and watch them mock you.
Sometimes I even joined in the laughter, too. 
But it was the so-called "Christians" whose sting hurt the worst
They told you to go to hell, that you were cursed.
"Tell me," you scream into the darkness, "is that the way it'll always be? The pain is suffocating, sucking the life out of me. 
I'm trapped in a prison, but I'm longing to be free.
Your eyes meet mine, but you stare right through me. 
So that's it! That's all I can take. 
Your Christianity facade is a fake.
I'm done. I'm tired of playing your games.
Tired of you pushing me around, calling me names.
But let me ask you a question: did you enjoy it? 
Your sick, twisted game? Guess what? I quit. 
Did you feel satisfied to watch me cry?
Fine. YOU win. I can't take it anymore. Good-bye."
Let me ask you a question: why?
Would it really have made a big difference if I just said "hi"?
I went to visit your grave today.
If only I could have told you there was another way.... 

Suicide is one of the things that breaks my heart more than any other. Every thirty seconds a teenager around the world commits suicide. One hundred homosexuals commit suicide everyday. This poem was basically written about how we can't just sit and watch it happen. We can't just sit on the sidelines and let it happen. We must do something...anything. 

Black-and-White Photographs

Black-and-white photographs of a little boy hang on the wall.
His first swimming lesson. Building a snowman. Playing baseball.
Blonde hair. Green eyes. Rosy cheeks. A mischievous smile.
But the picture whispers a secret: the little boy's been dying for awhile.        
He’s dying before he has the chance to truly live
because terminal cancer is the diagnosis the doctors give.
Before long, he loses his locks of blonde hair.
No matter how hard I try, but I can’t seem to utter a prayer.
I watch as he grows more fail each passing night.
I want to scream to the heavens, “Why are you letting this happen? It isn’t right! He’s just eight, God. It's not fair. Why would you let this nightmare happen if you really care?
He should graduate, go to college, find a nice girl to marry.
But this is simply too much for a little boy to carry."
Even though his final days are drawing near, the little boy decides not to live them in fear.
Day by day he slips away, his face turning the color of grey.
But he softly whispers, “I love Jesus. Everything will be okay.”

When I get to heaven, I want to climb on God’s lap and ask, “Why?
You could have stopped it, God. Explain why you let that eight-year-old die.
That’s all I want to know. I’m listening-now speak.
Do you not care? Are you not powerful enough? Or are you just too weak?”
How can we claim that God is great when there’s a boy dying of cancer when he's only eight?
This question plagues me, a question I’ve come to wonder often.
How can I believe God is good as I watch an eight-year-old boy lowered into a coffin?
It’s in the stillness I finally hear God’s voice.
 “Faith is not a feeling; it's a choice.
I know how it feels to lose your only, precious Son.
Have you ever wondered how I felt when Jesus whispered, ‘It is done’?
It was for you that I didn’t save my own Son.
Because of Jesus’ death, to me you can always run.
Have you ever thought how it breaks my heart when I see the suffering and pain?
So I sent Jesus to the earth. By you, my Son was beaten. Rejected. Made lame.
Dignity and fame He knew not. His companion was that of shame.
But He willingly died so that you, who mocked Him, could call upon His name.
Remember that pain and suffering didn't spare my own Son.
It was only thru His DEATH your victory was won."
With those words, the picture is suddenly painstakingly clear.
Life is hard, but I know that one day God will wipe away every tear. It's often in our times of pain we see our Father the clearest. It's often when He feels like farthest that He is, in reality, the nearest.

Black-and-white photographs of a little boy hang on the wall.
His first swimming lesson. Building a snowman. Playing baseball.
These photographs are now merely frozen snapshots from the past.
But the memory of an eight-year-old with an unshakeable faith in God will forever last.


“WHERE, O death, is your victory?
    WHERE, O death, is your sting?”  ~1 Corinthians 15:55

One of my friend's recently told me about an eight-year-old she knows that was dying of cancer. This little boy...dying before he has the chance to truly live. I wrestled with why God would let such a tragedy happen. That's the inspiration behind this poem.

Tell Me Your Story

Her life seems perfect...until you hear her story.

Raped at fourteen by a man who used her as if nothing more than a toy.

Her past causes her to burn with humiliation and shame.

“It’s not your fault,” she says, but still it is herself that she blames.

But she can’t share her secret, won’t for anything tell.

So she endures it alone, her own private hell.

The person she is is not who you see-the bleached blonde, got-it-together prom queen.

That girl was stolen when she was raped at fourteen.

She’s trapped and suffocating in a living, breathing nightmare.

“Is anyone there?” She shouts in the silence. “And if you knew my past, would you still care?”

And the man over there has a story of his own.

How his old man used to beat him, until he could barely utter a groan.

He lie there, beaten, bruised, and battered with no strength even to moan.

The Father would beat his young son every night.

Who cared that the neighbors say? Who cared that it wasn’t right?

The son would lie, wanting to die, hoping to see the soft glow of a heavenly light

He vowed to get revenge on his Father, hoped that one day he might beat his old man with all of his might.

And when the Father finally died, the little boy-now a man-broke down and cried. 

If only the Father, now lying in grave, could rewind and start anew, tell the son the words he longed to hear-"I love you."

Now the son stands beside his Father's grave and wonders, "Is anyone there? And if I showed you my scars, would you still care?"

The girl trapped inside is falling.

Afriad to reveal the true colors of her heart.

She's drowning in an ocean of lies

And as she grows to believe them, bit-by-bit she dies.

Lies like, "I'm fat," even though she's just size three.

Or, "There'll always be people better than me."

She wants to believe the truth, but look into the mirror and the lies are the only things she can hear

She buries her secret farther and farther and tries to hide. She's laughing outwardly, but dying inside.

She's told she's beautiful but believes it only in her head.

Come night and she cries herself to sleep in her bed.

Afraid to be hurt, she refuses to let anyone close.

It's the sting of rejection that hurts her the most.

So she whispers quietly into the dark, "Is anyone there? If I told you my secret, would you still care?"

And there's one final man who enters the picture now, the one hanging on a tree.

God's own precious son took the sin of the world on his shoulders, the sins of you-of me.

It was his life, his blood, our freedom cost.

Still, he freely died for all of the lost.

He came to make the blind see. 

He came to set the prisoners free.

But on the cross he whispered something. It is something we must remember in our times of darkness, even when we feel nothing.

He said, "In your times of darkness and doubt, I am there. And the times when you feel lonely and lost, I care."

Or you can go and watch it on YouTube! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b90yoP-jmJY&feature=plcp