the great tribulation

what does this all mean
and why must we hold up our head
when we just want to lay it all down
at your

feet.

how can i help be the hands and the
feet
of your love
when all i know to do is
hug
and
pray
and say "i'm sorry"
for the umpteenth time.

where can i
go
to take it all away to
another place
so far removed
perspective is restored
that wasn't ever even there.

all these questions god.
and all these answers.
maybe they just can't make it through the time warp.
because i know heaven isn't above the clouds any more
than you are
in the city of gold
whilst we are in the city of dirt
and you watch and laugh from above as we stumble and fall.
no, i know better.
i just don't always know what.

i do know your love is unfailing
your hand holds me when i want to let go
you never show me anything less than an offer of mercy and a good future filled with hope.
these things i know.
let me then live.
it is enough.
you are.

on to the apologies

do you know?  this one little mistake

is eating me alive.

the guilt could survive on very little

does not need to be fed often

or more than once, really.

it can be left alone and unattended

yet it will flourish

not like a flower

or a carrot

but like a weed

a prickly, defensive cacti.

it consumes the smallest part of me that holds onto

regret and shame and dishonor

that i have strung up around my neck like

some pretty pearls.

but these are not to be adorned

or adored

they are to be shunned; blatantly reminds me of the 

choices i have made

not in that one mistake

but in every moment after ruing the decision plucked from a thought line

made only of and for myself.

this place is ugly.

i want to leave.  

but the only way out is where i entered.

back

through the regret and into the room i should have sauntered bravely into

the harbor that holds difficulty and peace side by side.

i cannot choose the easy life.

i cannot ever change that.  sorrys cannot make it better, but maybe they can make me think

more, next time.  will that the thoughts on the line be about them.  the others.  the ones i love

claim to

hold claim to

and push the block of self out of the way.

only with your strength god, only in my weakness.

find me not

in this shroud

of emptiness and torn flesh

i have not come to leave you yet

i will for always be inside.

the sorrow seeps, the weeping moans

my bone chance to overextend

for life itself is none too soon

the cost i brought shan't order me.

cross and alone

at long last he

the willow the only one

his shadow keeps

fraught up in pain the wormwood seeks

to swallow the truth, but never he.

sit down my friend

the deed is done

your coin is paid the morning comes

but not for you, your work is done.