This is a poem that I wrote when I started reading Jerimiah. I was so confused in how the Israelites could choose not to love God, he said that they were ”prostiting themselves” that they “didn’t have the decencey to blush.” They kept running from God even though he called himself there husband and begged them to return, he would do anything just for their love.
So I began writing, trying to understand the Israelites. And then the Lord asked me how many times I had run from him, chosen to spite him, my selfishness over him even though I am his bride and he is my father.
So this is my poem:)
Israel
A heart longing, longing for belonging.
A heart longing, longing to be sought for and fought.
A heart longing, longing for ease and to please.
A heart longing, longing to stand up, stand out, not be lost in the crowd.
A heart longing, a heart looking, looking for home.
A heart loooking, looking to not be alone.
A heart looking—it’s looking away. A heart looking away from it’s first desire the king of passion and God of fire.
A heart looking for the things she wants to hear but hasn’t heard before— that she’s not a chore, a bore, not just loved because she looks like a whore, she simply wants to be more.
A quick fix that’ll do, she runs arms wide open for a moment of fleeting pleasure that holds the promise to last forever.
The pain grows greater—hurt and shame—as the void gets deeper, she clings to anything that numbs the pain: the hurt, betrayal, and burning rage.
Trying to forget she was created by a creator with a heart made for longing, belonging, bounty and beauty.
Repress the distressed memory of a masterpiece made unique, promised a place at the table invited to partake in a feast.
Failure. That’s your name, that’s your future, your only claim to fame.
So forget. Forget your hearts longing for belonging, to be seen, to be known, an adventure, a delight.
Oh Israel, those days were just an illusion, you’re used and bruised. You are a curse in the making, forgotten and forsaken.
Live for the moment, in the moment, and in the moments you feel the longing call it perverse, a childish curse.
In secret, the seconds the pain can’t be tamed and it all comes crashing down, caving all around—when you weep and cry and mourn, tear your clothes for the days that are forlorn.
That the days for praise, prosperity and purity are torn.
When the longing wasn’t a childish wish, when you didn’t worry and were called worthy by the knight in white, fighting for you, luring you out, into the wild, an adventure await..
Whispering your name,
Throw the ash,
Alluring, untamed,
Calling his name.
Night no more, the knight has come bringing Day.
Come, come closer still, further down the isle—my bride— my beloved child.
His beloved, dressed in white. White, you’re pure in my sight.
Shame forgotten, lies forsaken,
Freedom found—all else set down.
The trumpets resound with the sound of rejoicing, his daughter found.
Slowly falling, falling into place.
Hurt, sin, betrayal erased.
Slowly falling, falling in love,
With my abba above.
Realizing all worth comes from above.
Worth it all. I am worthy of it all—
All the shame, all the pain.
The high king slain—
He died using the last of his breath to breath my name—Israel—
