Sometimes, if I allow the dust to settle and become fully present to the moment poetic words arise. Sometimes I am able to write them down. Here is a #FreeFormPoem about the light of life within.
I’ll stay.
When the winds of doubt threaten to send me cowering, I’ll stay.
The light within me bids me, stay, so I will stay.
I always thought I could not trust myself.
I could trust others I had only just met.
I could trust experts who gave a well-reasoned argument.
I could trust God to be exactly who He says He is.
But I could not trust myself.
I was the one always letting me down.
I was the one never getting it right.
I was the problem, so changing me could be the only solution.
So I set out on a journey – a journey to get it right.
A journey of self-improvement.
A relentless journey.
An exhausting journey.
I thought I could know with absolutely certainty that all I believed of God was true.
I thought I knew.
I thought I knew.
I thought I knew God was strong as I knew I was weak.
I thought I knew God was everything I could never be.
Turns out, I do not know.
The certainty that held my life together for so many years is falling to ash in my trembling hands.
I look at what I once held and despair threatens to crumble me the same.
And so I sit.
Sit in the unknowing.
Feeling its pain.
Feeling the cold shard of hopelessness piercing the marrow of my bones and I imagine what will come next.
Surely, this undoing will be the end of all hope. How can hope and light resume once more?
Breath.
I sit and breath.
Feeling what I feel and permitting no distraction, I acknowledge the tightening of my shoulders and chest.
The cold wave.
The emptiness piercing my heart.
And I do not run.
I’ll stay.
This, here, right here in this moment.
When time touches eternity.
Now.
Just as sure as it came, the despair of unknowing drifts away.
Not too far but not so close.
And the routines of life resume.
Turns out I have something more powerful than the darkness.
I can stay.
I can stay in the moments of pain.
Choosing to be rather than to escape.
Choosing to make space for all the moments that come.
It is the only way to be alive.
I used to think God was certain and I was not.
I lacked too much. Fell too short. Broken beyond repair.
I cannot be certain of God, but I can know myself.
And I can stay.
I can say “He loves me” even when I am not sure.
I can say “I feel empty” when the arrows of doubt wound my soul.
I can hold emptiness and hope, allowing space for both.
I can stay with each moment.
I can stay with my hope of God.
When He is uncertain, I can stay.
The light within me bids me stay, and so I’ll stay.
I’ll stay.
The hidden strength of love and life and light within me.
All I have.
I’ll stay.
Thank you for reading these humble words. Until next time, may God hold us both in darkness and in light,
Jen
Here is part one of my three part #OCDstory, Waking Up to OCD
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