Category: Encouragement

Beauty, In The End

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 1 Comment

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Beauty, In The End

Bold proclamations do not come easily to me
A tentativeness attends my tongue

Couched in qualifiers are my words
Shy with if’s and but’s

Strength and power are on the rise
And I can bravely say
Though whispering only, truly, to my God
In prayer

My eyes are set on beauty
Bent in the folds of deep despair and pain
Rising up from ash and cold
Bubbling up like Veuve Clicquot
Dancing in a narrow flute

Beauty, grace-laced beauty
Will find us in the end
Set my eyes on its horizon
Find me always searching there
For

Love, so beautiful through my lense
Lend me Your eyes
So tender, holy and Divine
Rain down your love and shower us
Drench us
With
All that is beautiful

In the end

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One Beautiful Mistake

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 1 Comment

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One Beautiful Mistake

Perhaps redemption looks a lot like this. Or a little like this. Or something like this. I’d like to hope that there is a splash of brilliant transformation on the mistakes that we have made. Brushstroke by brushstroke. Wet with the tears of remorse and cries for forgiveness and new starts.

Forgiveness and new mercies sent to Earth on the wings of His amazing grace. And I whisper the prayer, give me the eyes to see Your loving arms around each one of my own, Beautiful Mistakes. Made beautiful by Your grace. Washed clean. Changed into holy beauty, by Your unfathomable, unbelievable, unending, and unmerited grace.

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One Beautiful Mistake

Red bleeds pink from the sky
one night
Writing cryptic messages

Heaven’s hieroglyphics
I run to it
I run away

Catch what is lost
My breath

I see the beauty
In one beautiful mistake

Redemption
Written by The
Sky-writer
Lover of my soul

I nod a billion times
Each a nod of gratitude
They number,
Mirror every unseen star

Feel
You dry my leaking eyes
And hear
You whisper
At the start of night

There was a fire in the sky last night
Before the earth
Was wrapped
In skies of frigid cold
Remember long, the beautiful
Remember long, the warmth
Hold loosely to each gift
And wait for the Beautiful’s return

Red bleeds pink from the sky
One night
Writing holy messages

Reds – Guest Post: Michelle Ortega

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ Leave a comment

Welcome. Today’s offering is wrapped in beauty from my writer friend Michelle Ortega. Her heart and her art are bursting with loveliness. And love.

Michelle and I first met at Tweetspeak Poetry, a community and online trove of treasures for poets and artists and lovers of beauty, merriment, mirth and laughter. And all things poetry.

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Reds

when my longing

to belong

protests my need

to be free

the fracas

that ensues

impedes peace

I dream

this tree

branches high

above me

unsure how

to proceed

I look up

to see leaves
of fire
overhead
pentecostal reds
limbs stretched
wide
to meet
to greet
the beat of
autumn
wind’s
swirlingflutter
roiling dance

in the moment
holding fast
all too soon
the seasons pass

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About The Writer: Michelle Ortega IS. Her passions include mothering, loving on the meek and outcast, writing poetry and photography (in any given order as opportunities arise).”

Why I Long For Nothing Or Why I Want Intangibles This Christmas

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 2 Comments

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I ache for intangibles. I am longing for a filling in of the void. I am craving, in my empty hollow pit,  change and love come down and hope cracked open. Hope poured out. A drowning out of pain. I limp like the war wounded, dragging a limb with chronic pain. I limp with a ghostly pain for Love to seep into the cracked and bleeding places. Heal as aloe on our weary souls.

I look for The Healing Balm with the eyes of my Advent Heart.

I want with a weary wanting.

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And God is good to allow the empty hollow hunger. For me. I am moved. Pushed in my spirit by the Spirit to a place of chronic pain. To seek the unseen. Covered by the fog of self. Love wide open love Divine all Love out-dwelling. Love indwelling. Love Incarnate. Wash over us. This soul ache means I am made for more. For serving man and other.

If you wrap your love, which I too will do. Whisper prayers over paper and bows. Breathe the breath of prayerful change over boxes and bags of packages wrapped in love and lovely. Look out and in. And help me look in and outward too. To find the intangibles in their walking flesh and bone. And breathe new life. To heal the hurting. Calm the storms. Be the love lived out. Hands and feet multiplied. Oh Multiplier of Mercy.

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Oh but I am in my comfort. With the companion of my ache. And I am with my passion, words. I am not there. The Liberia’s with my serving servant friend. Or Haiti. Where the others that I know are walking. I am here. Longing for nothing. But a Christmas with an overflow. From the heart. Joy jumping high like hot grease in the frying pan, cooking up the Sunday bacon. Hope cracked open like the farm fresh egg, yolk of yellow nourishment. Healing spread like the salve of a mother’s kiss on a wounded blood-soaked knee.

Great tidal waves of salty seas. Of grace. Grow feet and walk up on our shores.

And mark the world with Love come down at Christmas. Love. Unfailing Love. And leave us change. By grace. Leave us changed by Grace. Love the battle winner. Love the conqueror. Love the healer of all ache.

Amen?

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