Tissue Paper

By Faith Chatham - excerpt from Sacred Spaces - copyright 2009
I tell God: ‘I don’t understand?
Don’t know
what I should feel,
or do?’
Wonder if I could do
what “I should”
if I only knew!

I’ve asked you
to help me
put it into context,
to help me
understand.
Yet, for some reason
you can’t
or won’t,
and I’m left wondering
why I still seek your soul
when you flee
from mine!

I railed at God,
and asked Him
to “take this love away.”

He told me “No!”
He reminded me
that I’d told Him
if He ‘honored me
with some
of His love for you,
I’d honor it,
and you,
as long as He chose
to trust me with it!’

Now you’re gone.
You seem to have moved far beyond
loving me,
yet my hurt and anger
gets replaced regularly
with a glimmer
of God’s incredible
love for you!

I talked to God about “pride” one day.
He told me that “this time, your pride
is not the most important thing!”

When the words I had for you
weren’t very kind,
He filled me with His words
and called you “his innocent!”

O Magnificent Betrayer of my heart,
O Sweet Obsession of my soul,
I wonder how long God will fill me
fresh every morning
with prayers for you?

Will my soul ever stop
searching
for yours?

Will I be able to take some of the trust
and hope
and joy
I knew in you
and wrap it gently
in tissue paper
and lay it in the “keep chest”
until we reach that other world
where love knows no boundaries
and does not
grow cold?

Why,
when your love for me
has gone dormant
does mine
still tremble?

For now, I have to trust
that in God’s time
I’ll cease to weep
when I think
of what we shared
and what we miss
in the silence
of these hours.
-- by Faith Chatham
Excerpt from SACRED SPACES, copyright 2009