Mourn-ing: Sorrowing or Lamentation

It can be jarring to come home from a funeral service.
Eyes dry and burning
from endless weeping

and hear children playing outside.

Sitting inside the closed tomb of my house
I throw open the windows
to let their joy and laughter

come inside

To fill the newly empty place
inside me
with

Hope.

In the midst of life
is death.

In the midst of death
is life.

Breathe

in and out

Creation’s song
of life.

“The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me; he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted…to comfort all who mourn…to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning…” 

(ex. Isaiah 61: 1 – 3)

Me and My Good Friend, Job, Sitting in the Ashes…Again

Jacob’s Blessing*

Is that IT?

 That I want someone to tell me

that this gets easier?

 This wrestling with the Word

This wrestling with God

Wrestling with what I believe

or

do not

believe

on any given day.

 

Each and every day

faced with

 Choosing…

 again

and

again

 Choosing…

 

Choosing Faith

Choosing Hope

Choosing to be vulnerable

Choosing uncertainty

unknowing

bewildering

and baffling

 

unclarity

 

Choosing

to follow

 

Jesus.

 

JESUS!

 

Will it always be this

wrestling match

through the long night?

 

Sometimes surrendering

Sometimes resisting

 

Always

 clinging

with grim determination

 

Always

walking away

wounded

 

Always

 aching

and broken

 and sometimes…

 

……and sometimes….

some

 times

 

walking away

 

Blessed.

*”Jacob’s Blessing”

A “Fabrication” by C. Steinbrecher

Genesis 32:22 – 29

         Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.  He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had.

          Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.  When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 

          Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.”  But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.”  So he said to him, “What is your name?”  And he said, “Jacob.” 

          Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.”  Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.”  But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” 

 And there he blessed him.