Understanding | pictured words

BOXED

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When I label you,
I stuff you in a box, then
trim what doesn’t fit.

THERE ARE TIMES (AND WE ARE IN THEM)

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There are times (and we are in them)
when people communicate
without vision,
in every way in which that phrase
may be defined.

There are times (and we are in them)
when truth seems intangible,
and lies lie before us.
With us.
In us.

There are times (and we are in them)
when the enemy of our souls
thinks he has the best of us,
because we give him reason.

There are times (and we are in them)
when the God who created all
sees His creation through eyes
we cannot even glimpse,
much less grasp.

There are times (and we are in them)
when this same God
immeasurably loves His weak children
and holds our downcast, shamed faces
in His hands.

There are times (and we are in them)
when the need for one another
is greater than the sum total
of the sin we daily live.

There are times (and we are in them)
that crave recognition of
our Savior’s costly love for us –
to help us see ourselves and others
for what we are:
children
in need of love.

© Marie Elena Good, 2018

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FAVORITES OF THE HEART (for Uncle Ray)

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Years ago, Dad called me. “Did you get the news from Niles?” Those seven words made my breath quicken. No, I hadn’t. “You didn’t hear from Judy?” I gasped. I heard my choking voice say, “Oh no! Not Uncle Ray! Not Uncle Ray!”

No. Not Uncle Ray. Someone completely unexpected. Someone else I cared about.

God, forgive me. What was I feeling, in the wake of an unexpected family death? Relief? To my embarrassment and dismay, yes. Relief. I actually sighed long and hard with that relief, and immediately confessed to Dad what I was feeling. I don’t remember his response. I remember not feeling judged for my human heart. I remember believing this would remain between Dad and me and my God. But it didn’t. I’ve confessed it to a few others I love and trust. To this day, I still feel the guilt well up on remembrance. But, God …

Oh, the human heart
Which beat in Jesus, himself
For John, whom He loved.

UPDATE: This event I wrote about last year took place 5 years ago. Today, Uncle Ray actually passed from this life to the next. 09/10/19.

❤

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July 21, 2016

logs (a sonnetina tre)

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Photo credit: Wikimedia

“And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own?” ~ Mat. 7:3

Another checkmark in our verdicts’ log –
Our record of the judgements we decree.
We haughtily embrace the demagogue
Whose words lynch those with whom we disagree.

Rose-colored glasses will not help our plight –
We need to clearly see our world “as is.”
God’s eyes spill love despite His perfect sight.
Oh, may He help us eye our world through His.

So quick to judge. To loathe. To vilify.
So blinded by the log in our own eye.

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July 5, 2016

Crayola and Me, 1958

Photo credit: Today I Found Out

I began as Flesh,
But only because it was 1958,
And they didn’t yet understand
A white baby may have a tint
Of Raw Sienna.

No understanding that changing Indian Red
To Chestnut is not only untrue,
But negates a child’s ability to learn
That Indian Red describes a pigment native
To India,
And not the skin of a Native American,

Or for that matter, the ability to learn what it meant to be
Prussian.
Was it easier to change Prussian to Midnight,
Than to teach us the blues of history?

And sixteen new colors were added that year, and
When I turned four I was no longer Flesh,
But Peach.
Peach with still no tint,
And no understanding that Peach is not white,
And I am not white, and I am not Peach.

But colors are sharp,
And when the summer sun shines
On sixty four colors left on Grandma’s porch,
They can run together
and
Permanently
Mingle.

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