Today it was a challenge to record these poems. I haven’t been sleeping well, my mind seems to think going to bed is the signal to start planning out how to change the world or take on a new career or renovate my childhood home and turn it into a retreat. Wonderful thoughts to contemplate but not helpful when you need to go to sleep. Thank you for taking the time to share my journey, we are all imperfect works in progress, how precious is it that our God loves us just as we are.
Tag: faith over fear
Day 28: The Blue Notebook
I’m feeling a little lost. I’m searching for something in my relationship with God. I always thought it was possible but today I am not sure. It’s so much harder on medication.
At least I can search again. For so long the medication made it impossible to even look. Cas
How do I write words capable of entreating a King? Cas
“My heart is inditing a good matter: I speak of the things which I have made touching the king: my tongue is the pen of a ready writer.”
Day 18: The Blue Notebook
I want to crawl into your arms and cry a little. Please forgive me for not staying in the pasture. You are my shepherd. I am the sheep who follows you home at night instead of staying safely in the fold. I have escaped and stand by your door and belt incessantly, waking you.
You take me back to the fold, but I find no rest. I wandered through my souls dark night, past dragons and wolves and angels and demons seeking the door to your home.
I cannot bear to be apart from you, my Shepherd King. Please open the door and let me lay warm beside the hearth fire of your own room. Let me live closer than your skin. Allow me to know the secret scent of your inner chambers.
Do not ask me to stop seeking you. Cas
“1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil:
for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:
thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.”
Day 16: The Blue Notebook
I am a bride waiting…
Where oh, where is the groom? The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world? Where is the most loving Lord Jesus Christ our royal bridegroom? The saviour and redeemer of the church?
I long for the wedding day. I am nervous and wonder what we will wear?
Why do you tarry Lord? What more must be done? Please blow the trumpets in Heaven! Call a solemn assembly! Tell the angels to ready themselves! Prepare ‘the marriage supper of the Lamb’! come to the clouds! Please, please, please.
Oh that I could make my words arrows that would pierce your heart oh perfect God with such sweet, burning passion that you would gasp and grasp your heart and say: “Enough! You have captured my heart, my sister, my spouse! You have captured my heart for all eternity!”
(The truth is, I am the one whose heart has been eternally pierced. I am the captured one.)
“7 Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready.”
Day 15: The Blue Notebook
It is as though the world is a popcorn kernel in an ever heating pan of oil and any day now, pop! The signs are so plentiful it’s overwhelming. Please hold my frightened heart in your mighty hand Lord. Cas
There’s terrible emptiness inside me. When I feel you very close, it is filled. I long to have it filled all the time.
Why do I still feel the need to seek if I have found? Why is my heart still knocking if you have opened to me, Lord?
Why am I still asking, if I am truly receiving, all the fulness that is my portion? If I am, please increase my portion.
I seek to besiege the very heart of God. Oh, mighty God of all, I love you. Cas
“My flesh and my heart faileth: [but] God [is] the strength of my heart,
and my portion for ever.”
Day 14: The Blue Notebook
It’s hard to know what you desire of us? I try to obey your commands and do the ordinary things. I try to pray ordinary prayers, but my heart yearns to make extraordinary promises. I would vow vows and rend my heart in two. Somehow turn my blood into ruby stone and offer it as red fruit to your perfect lips.
‘Oh, soul of my soul’ it cries out in hope and longing, gasping for divine air, grasping at distant possibilities of passion. ‘Love, my love! No one need ever know how much I love you, just please, I beg you, let me love you with all my desperate throbbing heart. Please do not turn me away.
May the offering of my heart be acceptable in your eyes. May angels step aside to let my love through to you. May your Holy Spirit scent Heaven with the perfume of my peculiar love for you.’ Cas
“13 And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.
14 Who knoweth if he will return and repent, and leave a blessing behind him; even a meat offering and a drink offering unto the Lord your God?
15 Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly:”
Psalm 19:14
“14 Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight,
O Lord, my strength, and my redeemer.”
Day 13: The Blue Notebook
I would create a home for you, Lord. I am just one woman, but I would make a beautiful place for you if I could. I would surround you with comfort and warmth. Shower you with love. Prepare delicious food. Invite friends and family, the elderly and children. Fill the rooms with laughter and music. There would always be fresh flowers and clean, soft sheets. I would give you the joy of simple human context. Ordinary wonders, like hugs and kisses. I would tell you stories by an open fire late into the night. I would lay by your side in the dark and let you rest. I would light one candle and gaze at your face in its light. For you, Oh Lord, I would give all I could to make you feel loved. Cas
My favourite Bible passage.
John 14:1-4
“14 Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.
2 In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.
4 And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.”
Day 8: The Blue Notebook
Please LORD accept my passionate, undying admiration. You are the most mysterious, delicious being in all the universe. I long to be your friend. I want to discover your secrets. Who are you when no angels or humans clutter your view? Are you always thinking like a king, or are you sometimes just a man who happens to be God?
Before the creation of Heaven and earth who were you then? I know you are the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, and you are all that’s in between, but before the Alpha and after the Omega, in that brief eternity alone, who were you then? For it is you without all your creation that I long to comfort. Cas
I long to love you always, so I ask to love you now.
God and I before the world began, by faith, I love Him then. Cas
“Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,
And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.
I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.”
Day 7: The Blue Notebook
“How can I reach you, Lord? How can I entreat you? As a daughter to a father, I implore you! As a bride to her groom, I beg you! As a creation to her creator, I shake my head in fear and confusion and say: “Ahah, Ahah! Surely now he will have mercy!” I twist my insides about, hoping the answer will pop out. Please have mercy.
I had some deep moments with God the other night, almost too deep, and then last night my prayers wouldn’t float above my pillow. Nothing! When things with God feel deep and real, I worry I am mentally unwell. Then when there’s nothing, I struggle to feel that life has any meaning at all. The question of how personal does God desire to be with us is one I keep coming back to. Cas
‘I have nothing peculiarly to recommend me but this, I dare to ask, and I dare to believe.’ Please indulge me Lord and allow me to know you better. Cas
“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find;
knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
For every one that asketh receiveth;
and he that seeketh findeth;
and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.”
Day 3: The Blue Notebook
God couldn’t rapture me to Heaven to hear Uncle David play ‘How Great Thou Art’ so He brought Uncle David’s guitar to my son. Now Isaac plays that hymn so beautifully. Amazing to hear it in my home. Wonderful to see and hear dad and Isaac playing together. Cas
I don’t know if it means my medication is being less effective, but I have actually felt some connection with God. I have had some truly profound moments. I need to start writing about them instead of hiding behind endless colouring in and Netflix.
‘I need God more than air!’ This is true.
‘Don’t give me trinkets of sanity and take away my connection with you Lord!’ I did pray this. I have spent a lot of time apologising. After all, I want sanity, it’s not a trinket, and I desperately don’t want to end up in the mental ward again.
“Existential Experience!’ I want to experience my spirituality with God.
‘Us.’ I want there to be an ‘us’ with God and I. I want connection, relationship, meaning. Cas
8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.
Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.
Psalm 73:28
28 But it is good for me to draw near to God:
I have put my trust in the Lord God, that I may declare all thy works.
Cheryl Reeves Writing - from my shelves of journals 