I Know Why the Angels Cry

Okay, this time I decided to write a poem. This concept (mainly the title) has been buzzing in my brain for a little while, and I knew I wanted to write a poem. However, just a warning, I am not a great poet. In fact, you may notice that often the only really poetic thing might be the rhymes, since I decided to toss the idea of having a consistent meter. So don't expect anything great.

This will likely be the only poem I post for a while, if I post any up here at all after this. Hopefully, you enjoy it.

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I Know Why the Angels Cry

Here I sit in church this day,

Listening and watching worshippers sway.

I try to smile and sing like them,

Though doubts and sorrow from my heart do stem.

And while these singers’ hearts do praise,

And sing along with musical clichés,

I know something they do not;

Something they’d rather leave un-thought:

I know why the angels cry.

There sits a girl in an alleyway cold

Enslaved in so many ways untold.

With drugs, reality she tries to ignore.
When she runs out, she sells her body for more.

Though no one looks past how she appears,

Unseen hands hold her unshed tears.

Some use her for cash,

Others see her as trash,

And silently the angels cry.

He sits in his room, the lights all dim

And hopes his parents won’t notice him.

While they slam doors, argue, and fight,

On computer screens he looks for delight.

But what he finds poisons his soul

Until searching for pleasure is his only goal.

Art at its worst;

It can’t quench his thirst.

Mournfully, the angels cry.

A mother sits by a hospital bed,

Clenching her fist at the disease that spreads

Through her child, so young, so small.

She’d do anything to take away it all.

If she listens to what the doctors said,

Very soon her daughter might be dead.

She bows her head, she sobs.

She questions God while her heart throbs.

All unseen, the angels cry.

He lives alone in an empty house,

Ever since he lost his spouse.

To death? Oh no, she did not die.

All she did was say goodbye.

To his job, she said, was he truly married,

And she released him, though it made her heart bleed.

His hard heart now revealed,

Can it become soft and healed?

This question the angels cry.

Now I know I must turn back my eyes

Inward, and puncture my own disguise.

I am a fraud, a hypocrite, a fake,

Building a mask with every lie I make.

Smiling constantly, never showing need,

Yet inside I rage, I burn, I bleed.

This lying tongue, this spinner of tales,

Will it ever tell truth, or is it damned to fail?

I bow my head as the angels cry.

A man there is hanging on a tree.

I know His blood and death is for me.

His agony, His heartfelt cries;

Oh, with each one my own heart dies.

But when he says, “It is finished”,

I find glory undiminished.

And though now I can see

That tears of limitless joy they be,

I know why the angels cry.

 

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Holy is the Lord, and most worthy of praise.

"I'm Still Yours"

Greetings, readers.

I guess I should apologize.

(Sorry.)

Here I have been complaining these past few weeks about the changes in my life instead of trying to meet them. And I write here groaning and moaning, and making a nuisance of myself. I feel so stupid!

Ironically, I was chastised not by any of my readers, or my family and friends, but by a mostly-unknown song. It’s called “I’m Still Yours” by Kutless. It seems silly, but the song asks a few questions that pricked my heart and showed me how wrong I have been.

The chorus asks, “If I lost it all, would my hands stay lifted to the God who gives and takes away?” The rest of the song develops this theme, and it convicted me.

I have had to deal with quite a bit of change these last few weeks, yet (though I might have said otherwise) did I actually go to God and rest in Him?

No.

Instead, I looked to other things. I retreated. I spent my time reading books, or engaging work. I avoided the places where I might be reminded of all the changes. I hid. Worse, all I did was complain to God.

I feel as though listening to this song and some other worship songs told me that, through this change, God wanted me to come to Him, to rest in His permanence, His unchanging-ness (yes, I believe I made up that word, but I don’t care). But I didn't.

Trust me, people, there is a BIG difference between standing before God and complaining to Him, and lying at His feet, begging for comfort, waiting for Him to lift up your chin. There's a difference between looking at Him, crossing your arms and telling Him to fix the problem; and lifting your arms to Him, asking for Him to hold you and give you comfort.

I was in the former camp. But I feel like God has been asking, “Nathan, if I took away what you thought was your home, and your life became unstable, would you look to Me for stability? Would you run to Me for hope? Would you use your words and voice for My Glory?”

Shamefully, I think I have said, “No.”

“No, not until You fix it. After it is fixed, and I have stability again will I praise You, and only then!”

I feel ashamed at myself. I said I would rest in Him, but instead I ran, looking at anything, everything else that I could for normalcy. And yes, I succeeded for a while, but that didn’t change anything. In fact I bet it made it harder on my family. And even worse, I felt far away from God while doing it. Like God wasn’t answering my prayers for deliverance from the pain these changes wrought. But then, I guess when you consider my attitude, it makes sense, huh?

I didn’t praise God or His goodness. I didn’t try to find His Will in my situation.  I sulked. I pouted.

No more!

I refuse to do it longer. I will praise Him! My heart will sing of His goodness and grace. I will go to Him. He is the source of my normalcy, my stability. When all else fails, He is constant. Utterly and completely.  He is always faithful, inviting us to come and talk with Him about anything.

He wanted me to come to him for comfort and to find joy in His stability, not my own. (Yes, I’ve been using the word “stability” a lot. It fits and I like it, so there.)  He wanted to come, comfort me and give me peace, but I refused Him.

Now I won’t. I will raise my hands, and my heart, to the only One who deserves my praise. And I will remember, though everything else I hold dear is stripped away, and everything by which I gave myself identity is gone, I can rest in this: I’m still His. Always and forever, I will always be His. (Romans 8: 38-39.)

And so, I end this entry with an uplifted heart and say,

“Holy is the LORD, and He is worthy of my praise.”

P.S. Here's a link to listen to the song I mentioned. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3fr2Kl4Fcs

Façades and Veneers

In all honesty I’m not sure what to write tonight. Right now I’m wrestling with an issue that I cannot shake. It doesn’t help that I’m terrible at wrestling. Ask any of my friends and they’ll tell you the same. But as funny and ridiculous, not to mention off-topic as that is, the issue I’m struggling with is not.

Of course, I could try to write a little sermon or devotional, which was the reason I created this blog in the first place. But the funny thing is, the more I’ve searched myself and tried to figure out what I’ve learned, the deeper and more personal I have had to get. Now, I have no wisdom to impart to you, my readers. Just brutal honesty.

I keep getting these messages telling, “Nathan, quit living in the past, ‘cause you might miss what God has for you in the present.” While that is true, it still doesn’t help. In the not-so-distant past I found wonderful friends. I felt like I had a new family that supported me while my family at home was busy. Now, I’m home, and I don’t know what to do with myself. I feel lost, or worse, trapped.

And let me tell you, trying to explain to your family that you feel trapped is not fun. But that’s the sensation I’ve had, and the thing I’ve struggled with. I want to go back to the past, where my life was freer and easier. Or the future, when I go back to college and can put this summer behind me.  The present is suffocating.

Just the other day, I had to leave the house, very suddenly. I felt that if I did not get out and away from absolutely everyone I knew at home, then I would have a meltdown. I was almost panicking in my desperation to leave and find someplace to be alone. My mother finally let me go and I left in our van for four blessed hours of peace.

First, I went up to the Continental Divide, just a few minutes from my house. There was still snow up at the pass. And surprisingly, or maybe ironically, at 12,000+ feet, I felt like I could breathe. The air is pretty thin up there. But I felt free. Utterly and completely free from all the constraints I felt forced upon me.

I love my family. A lot. So I don’t know how to tell them I feel trapped at times in my own home. Instead, to make sure everyone stays happy, I maintain a façade of happiness. Maintaining one of these façades is HARD! I used to have one during high school, but I had a break from it when I went home. After a few months the façade would drain me to the point where, if I didn’t get away from the people I knew at school, I was going to scream. Now I feel like I have to maintain a façade 24/7, making sure that my family is happy, and that word doesn’t get back to them of any unhappiness I feel. I have to maintain it in front of almost everyone. Keeping up a front for that long wears me out so much quicker than when it was just at school.

I bet it doesn’t help that the easiest lie for me to tell is, “I’m okay.” It’s a neutral position and it’s what people want to hear. No one is ever prepared for an answer other than “fine,” when they ask someone else how they are doing. Plus it allows me to stay “safe” as I call it. I tell them I’m okay, and usually no one bothers to ask any deeper questions. No one but a select few.

Thankfully, I guess God in His kindness, granted me friends that I don’t have to maintain a disguise of happiness with. I have friends I can be honest with and not worry about who else might find out about it. I have friends I can be real with. I swear, if I did not have them, my spirit would have died within me already. I think sometimes I use them as a lifeline to keep me from going under into insanity.

Now there is some good news in all of this. If you remember, I mentioned feeling lost, trying to find the pieces I left here before college. Well, I found a few. Of course, they would be embedded in my workplace. I found quite a few pieces there. And I saw myself giving a few away, gradually, but surely. And I don’t mind giving them away, I just hate it when I can’t find them again. But I’m not done searching. There’s still a few critical pieces I haven’t found yet. Maybe when I find them, I’ll quit feeling so trapped.

Either way, I will praise the Lord. He has given me friends, and also given me a way to survive this summer, when I feel as though I might be crushed under the weight of the façade I wear. For that I will praise him. And for so much more too.

Holy is He and He is worthy of all praise.

Focus

Well, here's the start of the summer. Camp is starting as we welcome the permanent staff to work, then all the volunteer staff later this week. Dean, the camp director, has encouraged us to focus on God this summer, then on the other stuff.

Well, Dean, I'm slightly ahead of you. I want to focus on God a lot this summer. I feel like I've slightly lost focus on hime. During college, I leaned on Chapel times to focus on God, and for my devotions. But, since I'm at camp, I can't really do that any more. Now, I have to do the work on my own.

Also while at college I fell out of personally studying God's Word. I figured, "I have Chapel, and I like to sleep, so I don't really need to spend time on my own in the Bible." Of course, I never thought it in those words, but that was my attitude.

No longer.

I want to make this relationship personal. I don't want to always rely on what other people tell me what God's letter to me says. I want to know what it says, and make it personal to me. I want to know what truths God put in there that He wants me to know, His words I can apply to my life. I bet knowing those truths might have helped me in some of my struggles last year. But hindsight is 20/20.

Something I really want to know is the aspects of God. I don't want to simply focus on His names or peices of his character, such as His strength and His love. I want to know His promises, and His power. I want to dwell on descriptions of God, things like the implied Description God gave of his power and creativity in making horses in Job 39:19. (Of course I found out about this verse by watching a horse movie, Secretariat.)

I love to hear descriptions of God. I love it. Don't tell me God is omnipotent, or omni present. Those words I hear all day long in the Church and they fly in one ear and out the other. I love hearing that God hears the widow's cry of grief in South Carolina, and knows the hunger pains of a child in South Africa--at the same time. That is descriptive. It tells me details, forces me to form pictures in my mind that I can relate with. Things that really show me who God is. God did that a lot when he answered Job. He said things like "Do you know where the storehouses of snow are kept?" and "Do you clothe the horse with his mane and give him his strength?" (Both Nathan-paraphrases, not actually verses.)

Hearing those makes me sit in awe of God. And it gives me reassurance. Reassurance that I desperately need.

I have this annoying tendancy to worry, to the point that my mother likens me to an Irish Grandmother. It doesn't help that I'm good at stressing myself out with worry. But hearing God say "Look at what I can do, and often actually do," that gives me peace. Not a lot, because after a little while my fears and worries soon do their best to crowd out the assurance, but it does give me peace. And it gives me a promise and weapon to use agianst the fears. It tells me about who He is.

So that is my focus for the summer. I want to focus on who my Savior is. Now, I just need to find a place to start.

Holy is the Lord, and my heart shall praise his holy Name.