Will You Still Love Me?

Will you still love me when I’m old and gray?

When my eyes are no longer doing myself or

 anyone else any good?

Will I still hold any value to you in the eyes of your youth?

Hoping your coming to see me will not seem like

having to pull another tooth.

When you do spend time by my side,

And find me with a glob of peanut butter on the skin

 of my ever-sagging chin...

Just remember, I’m praying right now that by then

 neither of us will fret,

And that you would graciously just wipe it off and forget...

But within your heart being grateful we both learned that being

vain was such a pain. 

© Sheri * November 2010

About the “Will you still love me?” poem...

Pride can hide in the deep crevices of aging skin, and so it is that our vision usually also betrays us in our aging years. I used to think that was just one of God’s mercies for vanity addicts like myself : ) Now seeing the effects of aging with my own eyes, of my own eyes, I now look at that differently...especially while trying to read labels.

Needless to say, I did not grow up unscathed in a world that puts so much value on the superficial aspect of a person, especially for women. In our youthful years it is very easy to look at life and think one has “forever” before getting “that old”; investing considerable time in pruning the outer person, not setting precedence on cultivating the inner person...deceived in planting superficial seeds of vanity through our own hidden or blatant selfish pride. The laws of time do not let us escape the reaping of our harvest though. Pride has deep roots that can obstruct God’s grace from opening us up from the inside; preventing us from the growth in becoming the person God has called us to be...keeping us from accepting His true love for ourselves and the ability to share His love with others.

Truly, God knows what’s best for us; to seek His face and not our own.

I am not suggesting that we do not take care of our bodies, because we should. Our bodies house the Spirit of our Lord, and we should worship Him by taking care of the gift of life He has given us, but we should not worship our bodies, for they are only temporary. We should do our part in taking care of ourselves to be able to do what God calls us to do, in His strength, right now in His kingdom.

My writing this poem has to do with the process of letting God’s grace change me; allowing Him to show me the need for continual growth in helping me to be who He has called me to be. And also, to be able to accept the things that cannot be changed...and relying on His wisdom for discernment. He has helped me let go of many a hindering things and ways...and I am coming around to seeing things more through His eyes, with His love.

Next to God, the love my sons may have for me is something I treasure, something I don’t ever want to lose. And that no matter how old I grow to be in this life, I pray they will never outgrow their love for me. And that they continue in their lives to grow and allow their Savior Jesus Christ to help them become the men our Heavenly Father has called them to be... to never give up or lose hope in God’s love, truly sharing that with those in their lives.
 

Reflection

When we are looking for ourselves,

then that is all we will see.

When we are looking for Jesus, we will find hope. 

Though there is only one Christ, our Messiah,

our Savior...

When we step into faith in Him, we will see ourselves as
God’s sons or daughters...

We will see we are inheritors of our King.
We will see the love of our Father.

Thank you Jesus...Amen 

© Sheri * 2010

About the “Reflection” poem...

I was inspired to write this poem because of how easily we can lose sight of who we are in Christ...to subtly start listening to the enemy, the deceiver. We have to be careful how we see ourselves and what we should be looking and listening for; how we think about ourselves and our self-talk. When we are having a hard time accepting others as they are, there is a good indication that we are not seeing ourselves as we should be; making it difficult to accept others as they are through God’s grace.

The picture I used for this poem are two overlapping, applying the hand releasing the butterfly onto the other, to be with another. They represent how we are transformed by being born again in Christ. How we are to dwell in His love so we can learn to love others as ourselves. Also, how we need to step back and view the bigger picture at times in our lives, especially when we are having a difficult time seeing the hand of God in our lives; to keep seeking His will.

I like the look of the picture.... looks like the Lord's hand has come through and entered the garden...crinkling the paper as He entered...showing that there is much, much more beyond what our vision can see.

Memory of a Broken Heart

Your pain is my pain.
“Because underneath it all...the color of our skin...

the body mass clinging to our bones...
from dust to dust...we are all the same.”

For I know how it is, that pain of a broken heart...

your whole world seems to stop within you,

while the rest of the world keeps moving on,

without any meaning or hope for the future...

you just wished it would stop so the pain

would go away...but...

you have to keep going, cause life does go on,

and sooner or later, hopefully sooner but usually not,

little surges of life begin to jolt you back

into the mainstream of life once again

(probably angels giving us

emergency heart defibrillation : )

And life will once again have a purpose for you....

To some extent that is part of

the process of grieving,

as long as it stays within healthy boundaries...

but one could slide into self-pity rather quickly

if we’re not careful....

and that is when we can let our poor judgment from

a broken heart make unwise decisions for us,

entrenching us in bitterness...

and when we give Satan any kind

of foothold in our lives...
you can bet he will take advantage

of every opportunity we allow him to have.
to not let our hearts beat as one,

to make us “think” that he has won.

But the battle belongs to the Lord.

A battle that Christ has already won...

For us to be as one.

© Sheri * September 2010

About the “Memory of a Broken Heart” poem...

I cannot recall coming to know someone that has not experienced a broken heart from some kind of relationship or other in their lifetime. Some though, go through the experience more gracefully than others. And there are those that have seemed to have gone through so much in their life that their survival is truly a miracle.

We do not need to wear our pain, past or present, as a badge, but we can share the good along with the bad, to show that with God all things are possible. There are circumstances in our lives that happen, and we may never understand why, but if we keep laying them at the foot of the cross, the Lord will heal our wounds and restore our soul...we can know that we are loved by God even in the midst of our pain, to trust in Him to see us through it, that we are not alone.

The quotation in the poem is a combination of some things I had previously read. Partly from an art project that a group of art students had completed a couple years ago, but I am not sure of the source of the idea's originality. The “dust to dust” is from the Bible.

Being a mother myself, knowing the pain our children go through themselves can be heart wrenching, something we must also lay at the feet of our Lord...knowing that there is no greater love than our Father’s. The main purpose of this poem was for that reason. That when we love others, their pain is our pain...just like ours is to our Lord. For us not to forget what the Lord has done for us all because of His love for us...that we all would come to Him and be one in Him.

(Photo from Google Images)

Our Master Pruner

Once upon an evening, I was loading lopped off branches into my cart to haul off and burn. I had pruned them a few days prior...long hanging dead straggling branches. And some still with life and leaves, but they also were hanging too low to the ground, becoming obtrusive, to my head.

I had separated and piled the dead leafless branches from those laden with green leaves. The limbs were from a tree that the limbs seemed to grow out downwards, instead of out and up. Their growth reminded me of how as people, when we do not keep our focus on our Lord, our Tree of Life, we will not grow up closer to Him in His love, causing us to look elsewhere for a substitute. There is nothing higher or greater than His love, so that would mean we would begin to look for something lower than His Way, something less, which would cause us to grow in a way we were not intended to, to not become the person God has called us to be in Him.

I had the hardest time getting the dead branches loaded onto my cart. They all kept clinging to one another, making it difficult to transfer them to the cart. To my recollection they were the spikiest branches I had ever dealt with. They had multiple stubby branches off branches of branches. They made me think of how my life may have seemed to have been thus far. All those short run-offs from the main branch... little detours off from God’s Path of Life. They were short, stunted growths...resembling spikes...like I must of turned back to His Way shortly after trying to go my own way...again...doing so repeatedly, before finally having a long stretch of growing healthier and stronger. As if I was consistently being inconsistent in walking with Him on His path. Sometimes this was done knowingly, and sometimes unaware, or insensitive, of choosing to saunter off on another lone debut. Those must have been the years when it seemed like I would never learn from my mistakes... “You can’t keep doing the same thing expecting different results” ---Albert Einstein.

I finally got them all loaded; the last load was the most uncooperative (I finally took Einstein’s advice and tried doing it differently). Every attempt I had been making to get them into the cart seemed futile, and just when I thought I was making progress, I would get hung up in some other area from another spiky stubby branch. I just wanted to give up and walk away. I was growing impatient and frustrated with myself and those stupid branches. "Lord, what is wrong!!? Please show me what I am doing wrong...give me the strength and wisdom to do this...help me to learn from this...help me to finish what has been started..."

At last...I was on my way to toss them into the already blazing fire (old as sin scrap wood from previous “self”-help projects...pride + vanity = highly toxic and flammable material).

As I was going through the gate the branches seemed to try and hang onto the chain link fencing, like hands gripping on for dear life, grasping with its fingers, making the cart and I come to a standstill. They were so desperately trying to avoid going any closer to the fire, not wanting to give up their stubbornness, even though they had been void of life for some time now, no longer serving its purpose (other than their own violent attempts at combing my hair as I mowed under them, painfully clawing at my scalp and face).

That is kind of like how sin can be in our lives; taking away from our purpose in life, causing us to travel down wrong paths, destructive ones that lead to death and despair, leading to a life of hopelessness. We can lose sight of His truth, His eternal life within us....

Glorious God that You are...
Only You can save me from my wretchedness.
Thank You Lord...for Your life...
Faith, hope, love, mercy, grace, and peace....
Help me Lord...plant within me

A burning desire to know You.
Because where You are,

That is where I want to be...

Living in You.
Help me to awaken each new day

Anew with You...
Your life in me, becoming one through You.

Lord Jesus, help me not to be stubborn as those branches. Help me to let go of those things, those ways of living that do not give forth life, that are keeping me from becoming more like You, the person You have called me to be in You...Because You love me, and there is no greater love than Yours.

© Sheri * August 2010

Illustrated by: Jeremy

"A Rose between Two Thorns"

Why the painful thorns with such beauty of a rose?
To protect and prolong the life of the rose...
Likewise, like Jesus wearing

His crown of thorns...
For the fall of man.

Though He was crucified,

with two others (like you and me),

One on each side...
And descended into Hell...

Then on the third day...from the dead He rose!

Glory be to God, His Glorious Son,

Our Savior has risen!

In doing so, He crushed the head of the serpent...
Taking with Him the keys to death and Hades...
Which Christ our Lord offers to unlock for

all of those who believe He is Lord.
What the enemy strikes at us for evil,

the Lord can turn to goodness and beauty.

Let Christ Jesus redeem and sanctify us,

through the glory of His cross.
Surrendering ourselves onto Him...
And accepting His boundaries of love...
Even those that feel as prickles

of thorns to our flesh...
To transform us to be in awe of

His merciful love and grace.

As part of His body, His Church,

like the thorns of a rose...
We are to help and protect one another until

He calls us home.

© Sheri * July 2010
Inspired by my dear friend Helen.

About the “A Rose between Two Thorns” poem...

My dear friend, Helen, shared with me an experience she had had the day before, suggesting that maybe I could write a poem about...about how a person in Christ can be protected by their brothers and sisters in Christ, how the thorns of a rose are for that purpose, to help and protect the beauty of the rose.

Soon after, I started to write...thinking I would just get started on Helen’s poem...maybe just the title...embellishing it a tad in finding some thorn pictures to crop, using the thorns as quotation marks (could not use with this blog format), which ended up resembling more like the nails that pierced our Lord’s hands on His cross. Then I found (Microsoft Word) and edited the cross with the rose picture, and also the serpent with the rose’s picture. Then....I prayed.

The cross with the rose picture represents our Lord’s beauty and the sweet and gentle smelling fragrance of the fruit of His Spirit, His love. The thorns, or prickles of a rose, protect the rose, though most see them as an unfortunate nuisance. Likewise, sometimes we see God’s principles, His boundaries, as keeping us from enjoying “the good life.” When in reality, God does not always give us our hearts desire, because our hearts are not always in a place they should be...thinking and doing things that bring glory to Him, because He is God, and He is good. He knows what’s best for us, and we need to know Him to enable us to love ourselves and others, with His love.

The serpent slithering amongst the roses represents how Satan tries to entice us into sin, to serve him instead of our Lord, making the ways of the world look so satisfying, wanting us to crave his “innocent charm” of self-destruction through instant gratification, and once caught up in its lies, feeding us another that there is no hope left for us ----> instead of believing our Lords promises of mercy and grace when our hearts seek Jesus’ spiritual strength. The enemy has been defeated by our Lord, and we should live like we know that, and help others see and believe that also.

From one of the recent books I have read in seeking God, “The Passion of Jesus Christ”, by John Piper, containing and referencing to Scripture throughout, has contributed to me in writing this poem. The book was excellent in helping me have some understanding of Christ’s crucifixion, His death, and resurrection; enlightened me to the point of inspiration, I pray I hold on tight, using His truth and might : ) Although the book has 50 chapters, each only about two pages long, just over around 120 pages or so in all to read...I recommend reading it to all.

Serving His Kingdom

When dining from the world’s banquet...

To then be asked to serve God
And give thanks and glory to Him...
Could give the self-serving a bellyache...
Not wanting to share their plateful of arrogance.

When we have corruption within us...
From the ways of the world...
The word “serve” may not be
Too appetizing to one’s taste...
Unless the tasty dish to be served is for oneself.

When we seek to know God
And embrace His loving bounty...
Serving Him as Lord of our lives will bring us into
His mercy and grace...
And He will flow from within and through us
To those whom we serve...
Out of gratitude for our Sovereign King.

Thank you Father...Amen.

© Sheri * July 2010

About the “Serving His Kingdom” poem...

While contemplating how people grow in Christ, I was taken back to memories that were made back when I was 22, when I was born again, accepting Jesus as my Savior. From unknowingly harboring many misconceptions about God, I struggled with walking with Him for many, many years to come; mainly due from not understanding His unconditional love.

Back in those earlier years of being transformed, the concept of His grace, not living in condemnation, but through His forgiveness, and not being saved by works, but by faith in Him, to say the least was very confusing for me. Anything that had to do with “self” seemed to me like operating in the flesh instead of in the Spirit, like trying to work one’s way to heaven, trying to earn God’s love. Without learning godly self-control and establishing healthy boundaries, becoming passive and spiritually shipwrecked was inevitable. Joyce Meyer has a saying that I think of often... “God has a part, and you have a part. He will always help you do your part, but He will not do your part for you.” ................Awesome!

From learning of God’s unconditional love (a lifelong process), we have been set free from being slaves to sin. Though we are filled with His Spirit, we still have to make choices to who we will serve, because God has given us a free will. From choosing to live the life He has given us by trusting in Him, leading us to Him when we seek Him, the world’s corruption will fall away from us, no longer having a hold on us; we will long for Him, and nothing else can quench our hunger or thirst.

Time

Why do I live like there is always tomorrow, but I plan as if there is only today?

Did I retain anything that I learned from yesterday?

It’s time for the present...

To discover the unwrapped portion of His gift...

Shaking off the clinging bondage from the wrappings of the past...

Bringing forth any sweet memories, and time-tested knowledge...

Especially those learned from our mistakes.

Let His gift of truth navigate our lives...

Becoming wise stewards of the time and resources given...

To sow seeds that will reap a harvest of good fruit for our days...

Towards His plan for yesterday, today and tomorrow...behold the Body of Christ.
We must always be on guard, to plan and protect...to not waste His sacrifice.


© Sheri * June 2010

About the "Time" poem...

Our lives are a gift from our Creator, God. We were not meant to live through our life journey without Him being a part of us. We were created out of love, to love...to be part of the Body of Christ. We need to let God be our navigator, allowing His Word...His Holy Spirit, to guide us in our journey of life, to have Him be at the helm of our vessel...our body, mind, and soul.

From the seeds we sow, we will reap. Even in as short of time as a second, or the harvest may come later...minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, into eternity...sooner or later the consequences, or fruit, of our choices will be evident - the seeds we sow, how we spend our time...our thoughts and actions.

He made the ultimate sacrifice to have a relationship with us, because He loves us. We need to take the time to get to know Him, to let Him show us how to love ourselves and others...to not waste the gift of life He has given us.