Tag: Spiritual Gifts

If You Will Walk Beside Me

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 12 Comments

Image

Will you walk beside me

On the level ground

Of the holy cross

Not out front, ahead, so slight

My view is of an eyeless back

Forging fast ahead

And I can see your imprint

Leaving me behind

When I see your back

I see no face at all

Just someone rushing fast ahead

Fixed on a mission of their own

There are no portals of your soul

Gazing back at me

The words are lost

And I am deafened

By the silence

On the path of one who walks

WIth single-mindedness

And do not walk behind me

I cannot see your face

Or heart, your voice, your soul, your cries

Or wipe your salty tears

There is no sister to my left nor

Even to my right

When I am weary and  alone

Grab my hand and hold it tight

And walk beside me to the cross

To grounds of level fields of grace

Where dark rich soil of mercy waits

To hold or bear a million strong

Or even maybe more

Sojourners on the journey

Who walk not proud

Nor out in front

There’s power in a strong wide berth

That presses forward facing storms

That choose to stand on ground en masse

Encouraging and holding hands

So grab your life, your gift, your pen

You writers of the words

And walk with and beside me

As we cross the ground

Headed toward the sacred place, the cross of common ground

And with our words

We’ll all be heard

We ‘ll walk and stumble, not alone

March or crawl

Together, shoulders side by side

If you’ll but walk with me

My aging hands are reaching out to link

With sisters on the road

Would you  humbly go with me

Sojourners on a common road.

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Joining Jennifer Dukes Lee

Encouragement: A Prayer, A Poem, A Cry

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 8 Comments

Mercantile MCVL

One phrase haunts me, chases me down daily.
There is nowhere for me to go but stare at it steely eyed daily.
Wrestle with it, sit with it, stare at it, and ponder what it means for me,
To do.
My recent past dredged this up, dredges it up from the silt daily.
Once I penned some words here, scratched out some heart thoughts.
They have taken on a life of their very own, a heart, legs and off they ran.
All around this interwebby world.
Words can run fast as the wind.
Lace them up with care and grace.

One phrase echoes daily on these pages, behind the scenes in the land of stats.
I can’t come here without seeing them there.
I wrote a piece one time or two, boldly with the words
encouragement, tucked in or standing out front.
That is it – the beginning and the end of this prayer, poem, cry.

When I ask Him what to do with my words
They become my true north but I stray
Clothe in grace, wrap in love, encourage.

The number is big, so I won’t say it, it changes almost daily.
Someone finds me here,
My words and me
Googling, encouragement
A letter of encouragement, encouragement for a friend
Words have wings and I pray
They find good here.

Prayerfully, thoughtfully, deeply I cry out
Oh Lord.

Take the clay of my words, Maker of My Soul.
Grab my pen and guide it while it glides along the page.

She is writing
It’s a work of Wordsworth and poetry and nature and High School English
And I can stand in my mother stance over my daughter dear
And say these words to her
We are two and it is intimate and close
Write it like you want to, just say what you mean
You can do it spills from my heart to hers.
She makes art wobbly shaky on a page.
And I know.

If you came here on a trail of encouragement, following bread crumbs
Find it, friend and grab it
He is standing over you, before you and around you.

God is loving, reigning, holding you in the heavenlies this day.

She is writing,
And it is a work in progress
Clothe her in grace and love.

I am the launcher of words, clothe me in guided grace.

We, lover of You and lover of words, steady each mark of our pen and infuse it and us with You.

Encouragement, may it always live here.
Tucked within the lines of poetry
And prose.

Amen? Amen.

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Joining my precious and encouraging friend Jennifer Dukes Lee today.

When Writing Feels Like Breathing

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 20 Comments

I thought I wouldn’t write today.

But it felt like I was holding my breath.

And then my writer me wanted to pop my holding my breath me like I was a big balloon.

So I stuck the sharp pin in and let out all the air. It felt like there was something there that needed to be released. And it came gushing out, like the whoopie cushions we used in grammar school.

Like walking without seeing the all along the way, was moving through the day without breathing — that writing part of me.

The words became little oxygen holders, like place the mask on yourself before you help your children, or the passenger seated beside you. Like miniature oxygen tanks on wheels for the sick.

Like an asthmatic needs an inhaler the words became vital, life-giving.

Maybe when He lights the passion He doesn’t intend for you to hold your breath. Maybe if you were meant to encourage and give and serve and love, that if you stopped you might pop too. Or feel like you’d explode.

Maybe you get your breath back when you are obedient. The steady breathing resumes and the heart finds a peaceful rhythm when the artist gets on with making art or the servant gets back to serving. Or the doctor keeps on healing.

If doing the passion thing He gave gives life,then stopping may diminish it in some way.

Like the film went from color to black and white silent in a flash.

I thought I wouldn’t write today. I worry readers tire of the black marching words like ants at a picnic. They tread where they’re not wanted.

But then I recall the One for whom I write. And the one who called me to.

And I trust that He both steadies the hand and the heart. And the one lone traveller on the journey would stumble here if they were meant to come. And He could say you popped, you breathed, you are no longer blue from holding it in.

That the details rest with Him and the marching words bring back to Him a worship from an uncertain hand. The writer.

Who found that writing felt like breathing. And that not was not an option.

Just for today.

Until we cross back into tomorrow and He leads me back–to the page. And breathes words and thoughts and the what to write. To honor Him.

Or until He says, stop, wait, rest, no.

Joining Kris at Always Alleluia dot com