Showing posts with label Absent Yet Present. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Absent Yet Present. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Tuesday's Trust - Heaven...Remains Closer Than We Know




Tuesday's Trust

Heaven...Remains Closer Than We Know...






Out beyond the silence of eternal night,

within the void of voiceless echoes,

between the folds of dark and light.

In somber streams of starlight.

In the waves of ebb and flow.

Heaven exceeds eternal planes.

Though, it remains closer then we know.


~John French


In John's words:


...Brandon passed away in August of 2009 from an undiagnosed heart condition. The devastation of that one single moment has crushed our view of reality and cast us down into a state of perpetual winter. I’ve been writing all my life, though not publically. Brandon’s death has so overwhelmed me that I can no longer contain my thoughts.


Although my stance is undermined by despair, and frosted by the bitterness that follows the loss of my son, I will labor to plant some seeds of promise in the barren future that I'm so unexpectedly tilling.



Perhaps something beneficial will stem from my mourning. If you can gather even a grain of hope from my reaping, it may help to sustain you through your own emotional storm.


~John French





Thank you to John French for another of his inspired poems.


Readers feel free to click "Comment" below and make a comment or share something about your own grief. I love my readers and would love to get to know you better. (If however, you prefer to just read and glean what you can quietly in your grief, that is perfectly fine too. We care about you in your quiet grief as well! Trust me, I am there quite often.)






John French: http://bit.ly/aUItcb

Friday, January 29, 2010

Friday's Faith - My Child's Lifeline to Me: The Cord



Photobucket





Friday's Faith


My Child's Lifeline to Me





The Cord


We are connected,

My child and I, by

An invisible cord

Not seen by the eye.



It's not like the cord

That connects us 'til birth

This cord can't be seen

By any on Earth.



This cord does it's work

Right from the start.

It binds us together

Attached to my heart.



I know that it's there

Though no one can see

The invisible cord

From my child to me.



The strength of this cord

Is hard to describe.

It can't be destroyed,

It can't be denied.



It's stronger than any cord

Man could create;

It withstands the test,

Can hold any weight.



And though you are gone,

Though you're not here with me,

The cord is still there

But no one can see.


It pulls at my heart

I am bruised...I am sore,

But this cord is my lifeline

As never before.



I am thankful that God

Connects us this way

A mother and child...

Death can't take it away!



Author Unknown




******




Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses...


~Hebrews 12:1a NIV




(Jesus replied,) "But about the resurrection of the dead--have you not read what God said to you, 'I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'?

He is not the God of the dead but of the living."

When the crowds heard this, they were astonished at His teaching.


~Matthew 22:31-33 NIV




(Jesus replied,) "...and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God's children, since they are children of the resurrection. But in the account of the bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord 'the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.'

He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to Him all are alive."


~Luke 20:36-38 NIV




(Jesus answered,) I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life. I am the bread of life. Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven.

If a man eats of this bread, he will live forever...


John 6:47-51a NIV




Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life.

He who believes in Me will live, even though he dies."


John 11:25 NIV











Holy Scripture - NIV - New International Version
graphic from photobucket.com:

http://s917.photobucket.com/albums/ad19/lom_2009/Decorated%20images/?action=view&current=heart-quote-1.gif

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Losing My Mind


Losing My Mind


God, my family thinks I’m losing my mind,

And some days I have thoughts of the same kind...


They’ll tell me something, and minutes later,

I’ll forget...my mind filled with things graver...

Like death, dying, and where’s my baby girl?!


My mind is spinning; my brain is awhirl—

Nothing’s no longer right in this wrong world!

I don’t belong here, without my li’l girl....

Into a living nightmare I’ve been hurled


Where thoughts and beliefs and feelings just swirl,

But no matter how I pine and ponder,

My mind cannot rest, but starts to wander:


Is there some thing I can DO t’ make it right . . .

To end this horrible state of my plight?


And please don’t tell me she’s not coming back;

I cannot take a life filled with such lack!


We went through Father’s Day; she wasn’t there—

It felt so wrong ...our fam'ly circle, square?

Voices so lively, yet SHE wasn’t there!

On a day so special, her place was bare...


How do I go on, a hole in my heart,

A knife in my gut? My world falls apart...


So, no, I don’t think so clearly just now;

My mind can’t conceive of just where or how

Life should go on; who am I anyhow—


A counselor with no heart? – We can’t allow

Clients to come in, to talk problems out


With the counselor whose heart has been ripped out!



So I guess it’s going to take awhile

Till my heart, soul, and spirit reconcile

That th' horrible absence that is present…


Is just part of our heav’nly investment—



She is now wearing her heav'nly vestment…

Though absent here, she is very present…


In the stillness, we will feel her essence

As she blesses our hearts with her presence.


But if we’re not quiet, we might miss her...

Quiet our minds...for by faith we’ll see her!



Quiet me now, with Your comfort draw near,

Till that Day my baby girl will appear...



Picture: Angel & Butterfly card.jpg

Written 6/22/09 - Poem – Losing My Mind – Angie Bennett Prince