Tag: like a child

God’s Poem

 

I learned an amazing thing today at my women’s bible study. We were discussing

Ephesians 2:10:

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Did you know that the word that is translated into “workmanship” in this verse is the Greek word, poiema which is the same word that we get the word “poem” from? 

That really made me pause. I am God’s poem? That sounds so lovely. 

Back up a couple days ago and I was lying awake in bed, insomnia visiting me once again. Over the past year as God has been doing an overhaul on my thought life, I have started learning how to put my imagination to good use when I have insomnia. Instead of making up all kinds of complex stories in my head to entertain myself while I’m just lying there, I have started imagining heaven. Imagining the throne room of God, and imagining myself there. Just inside the door. Worshipping. And just basking in God’s presence. 

So, it had been a long week of sleeplessness hitting me in the middle of the night, and that night I was awake but tired and I just wanted to sleep. I went back to my imagination and I felt like a child who had gotten out of bed and wanted to go sit in their parents’ room because they couldn’t sleep. I imagined myself walking into the room where God was, and I asked, can I just sit here and watch you work until I can go back to sleep? 

And then I was really awake because I had never thought about watching God work. And while I was lying there I felt like God said yes, and then he started showing me all kinds of people that I know, and showed me how he had changed their lives. How he had taken them from broken, angry people to people who were whole and healed and loving. How he had taken families torn apart by generations of abuse and helped them to reach a place of forgiveness. He showed me how he had taken the timid and afraid and made them bold. He gave me a small glimpse of his workmanship. 

Back to my woman’s Bible study. We finished up our nine weeks study of the book of Ephesians and then we went out to eat together as a kind of celebration for finishing. While we ate our leader asked us to share how God had taken us from being dead in our sins to alive in Christ,

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—Ephesians 2:4-5

And as I listened to these beautiful women share how God had taken them from the place where their lives had been dark, broken and empty, to the place where they are now, joyful, living full lives of love, I found myself in awe as I realized I was in the presence of some of God’s poems. Beautiful, complex, nuanced, sometimes easy to understand, sometimes too complicated and mysterious for comprehension, everything a good poem should be. 

Listening to these women was just like my nighttime vision except I was seeing God’s work in the flesh. Beautiful walking poems showcasing God’s rich mercy and love and grace. And I love the idea that I too am one of God’s poem’s walking around the earth, a living testament, an in-the-flesh example of God at work. 

I am God’s poem. That makes me happy. 

Flights of Fancy

On a rare warm day in February, I step outside,

Feet squelching through the muddy brown grass.

I pause and look up, the blue sky calling my gaze.

White clouds drift across the sky, and I am mesmorized, 

This temporary break from a gray, cold winter. 

Suddenly, three birds fly over my head. 

Small. 

Nondescript. 

But they are close. I can see them. Their wings flapping with strength, 

Their chests straining as they climb through the air. 

I watch them, and I feel the muscles in my arms and my chest, 

Straining in rhythm with theirs. And for one moment, I am certain…

I have flown before. 

I know this feeling. My body remembers the exertion. 

My arms begin to raise, as if, at any moment, they wil be capable of lifting me into the air.

I close my eyes and I can remember the feel of the wind hitting my face. 

I can remember squinting through the bright sunlight.

I can remember the exhilarating rush of climbing and falling.

And then I step back. 

Silly me. 

What flights of imagination.  

I am a logical woman. My feet have never left the ground. 

I bring my eyes back to earth, continue to walk through the brown grass. 

But one part of my mind rebels. It says, No, you are wrong. 

You have flown before. 

We remember. 

I wrote this poem because it showed up in my mind and needed to be written down. But, I sat here puzzling over it. Because, I do have this feeling that I have flown before. What is that all about? And as I have sat here thinking about it, I suddenly have this memory of me, as a small child, on a very windy day, running through a field. Certain that if I just run fast enough, lift my arms high enough, the wind will lift me off the ground and take me away. Maybe if I just take some jumps in the air, that will help the wind along. I remember running for the joy of it, my face turned to the sky, my heart pounding as I pushed myself as fast as I could go. I remember lying on my back, staring, watching the clouds sail past. Dreaming of living in those clouds, how soft they must be! Ah yes. I have flown before. 

Oh, to remember how to be a child and fly again.