Tuesday, July 10, 2012

YES by Ann Kiemel


YES
hurt is a part of life, of mine...
of everyone's
Hurt is one of God's most wonderful
opportunities to teach us his love and care.
To show us areas where we need to grow.
To teach us to forgive.
To remind us how easily we have hurt others.
Our ability to cope with hurt proves how much
Christ is in control of our lives.

Yes to hurt.
To God's love that wants to work
good even through this.
To accepting life as life...
not some utopia...
and fitting into the cracks and crooked spots
and rolling with the punches.

Yes to beauty of pain.
The golden hours...the golden spaces of my life...
have been the time when I know no answers.
Didn't know what tomorrow had for me...
felt battered...and broken...and lost.

Times of pain are so hard.
They take so much courage.
Like today
But pain is important.
dreams are made from conquering pain...
from the ability to draw a PLUS across it
to cancel out the black and instead
fill it with color...what ever that experience is.


I've known good times and I've know terrible times.
When things are too smooth,
I have all the right answers.
My priorities get shifted. scrambled. put in bad order.
My eyes see without feeling.
My heart grows lazy and casual about God...
and about God and me.


In the dark, ugly times...the pain is so intense...
the grief so great...that the fog is cleared.
I come face to face with truth.
I am stopped, immovable. frozen. an then melted
and crumbled. reorganized.
and remade
and refined and NEW.
The winter goes to spring,
and spring to summer,
and summer to fall.
The wounds are healed and the darkness
turns so sunrise.
I know how weak and small I can be...
and have rediscovered how
Omnipotent
And warm
And all wise
God is.