POEM: Jeremiah 29:11-14

NIV -- Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you," declares the LORD

I’ve been stretched out
Broken on the rack of life
Had the pieces picked up
And put together again
Only to be wrecked once more

I’ve watched my dreams shatter
Seen them ground away
Become sand on the endless shore
Windswept and lonely in the storm
Where broken yesterdays fall

I thought all those yesterdays
Would be my only ever futures
Repeating… repeating… repeating pain
Fire raining ‘pon my dreams
As I danced on the edge of a volcano

’Til at last the sandy shore
Brought me to this protected harbor
Where the storms cannot batter me
And I have learned that the fires
Are the forge that has made me

I look back ‘pon those yesterdays
Now I know they were creating
A space of endless gratitude
For the joys of my now… my future
I see Your mighty plan writ in the past

I know the promise fulfilled
Of Your great work for me… for us
I know now You heard my every cry
And used the fires to Your purpose
To give me hope and to prosper

“And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history”money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery”the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.” -- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

“I sought to hear the voice of God and climbed the topmost steeple, but God declared: “Go down again - I dwell among the people.” -- John Henry Newman

Image c. 2010, poem © 04 September 2014, by D. Denise Dianaty