A Prayer for Ukraine

I woke and took up your word

And read about the gift you gave

The sacrifice you made to redeem the human race, an endless procession of hapless sinners

One man to save us all

And I stare stunned at the television

Watching war play out before the world

Like it’s just another blockbuster I’m bingeing on

Something to give me a jolt

To make me feel alive

Except it’s no screenplay playing out on my big screen

No calls of “It’s a wrap”, where cast and crew go off to celebrate what they’ve accomplished

While the set is dismantled

No, one man

A real live villain

An aggressive expansionist

A raging thug

Let his fury fly on his unsuspecting neighbors

Desecrating their doorsteps, businesses, and gathering places

With bullets and bombs

Displaying power, wreaking havoc, creating carnage, and inciting fear

And as people flee their homes, their homeland

Looking back in horror and disbelief

Looking forward to confusion and uncertainty

I remember the one man

Not the angry tyrant

But the gentle Saviour, the Almighty God, the Sovereign Lord

And I call out to Him

To explode light into the darkness

To bring the perpetrators to swift justice

To shatter the chaos with peace

To rain down provision and protection

To quell the suffering and grief with comfort, strength, and healing

I pray

It’s all I can do

It’s the best I can do

Thanks for reading! The sunflower is the national flower of Ukraine. The feature pic is a combination and edit of a flower pic of mine with a praying hands from Pixabay. The footer is from Pixabay. Posts come out when I feel like it. 😀 Scroll down to the bottom of the page to follow me or sign up to receive my posts via email. Follow me on Instagram. Take a peek at my Redbubble store Pollyeloquent.redbubble.com (images below) and my clothing design page on Le Galeriste. Thank you for giving me some of your precious time!

God will not Forget You

For my mother, Sharon Mayforth, in honour of Alzheimer’s Awareness Month.

You may continually misplace your keys

Misfile your favourite recipe

Drop a word or two or three

You may lose all track of time

Or lose your way on your way home

Or not recall you’ve told that story once or thrice before

You may forget to water plants, to feed the fish, or put on pants

Yes, there’s a chance you will forget to bathe or brush your teeth or comb your hair

But more than this, I’d be remiss, if I did not mention that amidst these small and trivial things, much greater matters will give way

You’ll lose your very sense of self, your independence, and your health

Confusion will become the order of the day

You’ll wander through your muddled mind and find the jumbled words and ghost of memories past do not express your needs and is there anyone who understands?

The biggest grief will come when you no longer recognize the ones you love

They will be strangers all

Before you think, if this befall you that you’ve been committed to some special sort of hell

And lose all hope and finally despair

I tell you

God will not forget you

He did knit you in your mother’s womb

He knows you as the artist knows each brushstroke and the finished piece

Your worth is not diminished by diminishing capacities

His love does not depend on you possessing all your faculties

No loss can separate you from the love of Christ

He’s carved you on His hands and feet

Though this may be your final trial

Please know that in a little while

You’ll be the blessed one to see Him face to face

And clarity will dawn

And you will rest in Him, confident that you will not forget again

No

God will not forget you

The feature pic is an edit by me of a pic from Pixabay. Footer from Pixabay. Posts come out when I feel like it. 😀 Scroll down to the bottom of the page to follow me or sign up to receive my posts via email. Follow me on Instagram. Take a peek at my Redbubble store Pollyeloquent.redbubble.com and my clothing design page on Le Galeriste. Thank you for giving me some of your precious time!

Whipped Up

I’m not the center

The world doesn’t stop for me

Doesn’t stop spinning

Even when I’m dizzy and stumbling around

Desperate for a firm place to stand

It rotates mindlessly on in utter disregard for my confusion

It doesn’t care when I’m in crisis

Every time I’m thrown off balance

Every moment I’m without my equilibrium

I can do one of two things

I can lie low and hurl and groan

And let my eyes roll into my head

And die a tiny death ad infinitum

A sure spiral down to an early grave

Or I can ask myself

Whether or not

My world needed

A little bit of shaking up

And hold on

And go for the ride of my life

Feature Pic by me. Footer from Pixabay. Posts come out when I feel like it. 😀 Scroll down to the bottom of the page to follow me or sign up to receive my posts via email. Follow me on Instagram. Take a peek at my Redbubble store Pollyeloquent.redbubble.com and my clothing design page on Le Galeriste. Thank you for giving me some of your precious time! 🙂

I Feel Like Eating

When I’m tired, I reach for sugar to supply the zip I need

When I’m bored, a plate of nachos will suffice, a little spice

Will pick me up

When I’m depressed, you might have guessed, chocolate is the thing that frees the happys in my brain

When I’m sick with regret, well, I might as well eat the rest of it, the chocolate cake, I mean

When I’m kickin’ back, a bag or two of chips will do the trick to keep me casual and cool

And when I’m in a party mood, I need a table full of food, other partygoers optional

There’s a food for every feeling, there’s a meaning for every morsel

There’s a taste for every tension and a gulp for every grief

Since I always have my appetite to make everything in my world alright

Who needs a shrink or friends and family?

Just sit me by the fridge and I will eat my way through life

And I’ll be fat

And happy

Maybe…

Posts come out when I feel like it. 😀 Feature double exposure pic by me using images from Pixabay and Pixlr photo editor. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to follow me or sign up to receive my posts via email. Pics are from Pixabay unless otherwise noted. Take a peek at my Redbubble store. Pollyeloquent.redbubble.com. Thank you for giving me some of your precious time!

Impervious: Pondering the Pandemic

Let fear dictate your path and there won’t be a path to dictate.

In 2019, we visited our neighboring province at the end of October. “Why on earth would you do that?” some may ask, as Saskatchewan is not known for being a vacation destination due to its austere scenery. We happened to be on our way back from Manitoba, where we attended a seminar for my husband’s work as a pastor. We decided to take a day and explore Regina. Even though it wasn’t very wintery where I live in Alberta, I decided to throw in my winter wear as a precaution. Canadians know that winter often shows up unannounced, without regard for your preparedness, especially when you’re still sporting shorts and flip flops. On that note, last winter I did something I haven’t done in 20 years. I bought a new winter coat and not just any winter coat, but the mother of all winter coats. It’s a burgundy puffer jacket with a faux-fur trimmed hood that effectively turns me into the lion king. My daughter has informed me that it makes my head look like a shriveled pea, not a very attractive thought, but, let me tell you, I put that baby on and go outside and, despite the cold, I still feel nearly, and delightfully, feverish.

Lessons from the Valley and the Mountaintop

Take control of me, Jesus. The current management is woefully incompetent.

Almost 6 years ago, I went back to school to change my career. To say I went back to school is incorrect, because I’ve been in school now for 52 years. The school of life is always in session. Life lessons are a moment by moment occurrence. If we’re aware, we’ll acknowledge the lesson, learn from it, and be changed for the better. If we go through life on autopilot, never recognizing what life is trying to teach us, we may someday regret our inattentiveness. Just as in school, there are some lessons we want to learn. We lap them up, like a parched dog slurping noisily at a water dish. We apply ourselves with every ounce of our time, concentration, and giftedness. Other lessons, we must push ourselves to learn. I have a friend who received a grade of 62% in one of his high school courses. Worried that this low mark would affect his chances of getting into university, he went to the trouble of taking the course again only to end up with 63%. I do find this humorous, but also baffling, because I get it. It’s true, some things we can only learn the hard way.

Out of the Blind Side

Those of you who’ve been following my blog know that I’ve been running to improve my fitness level. The city I live in has two sides divided by a river and coulees or, if you’re not familiar with that term, ravines. I live a few blocks from the trails on top of the coulees, a pleasant place to exercise with a beautiful view of the river valley. Yesterday, I awoke at 5 am to get my run in, because I had to be somewhere to volunteer at 6:45. I know, an ungodly hour, but I work in healthcare. A 5 am start to the day isn’t unusual for me. What was unusual about this particular run is it was in the dark. I still opted to go out on top of the coulees, because running on trails is gentler on the body than smacking the pavement, but I didn’t consider how challenging it would be to run without being able to see.

There’s a World out There

There’s a kid picking through a garbage can

While I sit down to breakfast

There’s tired man in an unemployment line

While I head off to work

There’s an invalid struggling to use his limbs

While I climb on my bicycle

And there’s a world out there trying

While I’m watching my TV

 

There’s a girl, she’s been living in a cardboard box

While I’m warm and sheltered

There’s a child lying broken on a kitchen floor

While I have been embraced

There’s a boy dodging bullets in a civil war

While I take peace for granted

There’s a world out there crying

While I’m watching my TV

 

I live in a world where I can choose to stay

Will I venture out, will I look and really see

That life is happening all around me?

I’ve been living in a fairytale

Some are living in a tragedy

What can I do?

Will I do anything?

 

There’s a lonely one pining in an empty room

While I’m loved and wanted

There’s sickly soul looking for a lasting cure

While I’m whole and strong

There’s a muddled mind searching for the simple truth

While I’m clear and rested

There’s a world out there dying

While I’m watching my TV

 

I live in a world that I must choose to leave

I must venture out, I must look and really see

That life is happening all around me

Lord, I wanna be a living spring

Welling up to eternity

Where everyone can come and drink

There’s a world out there

 

Posts come out every Monday morning, a poem every third Monday. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to receive notifications of my posts via email. Follow me on Instagram username: pollyeloquent. Thanks for reading. 🙂

 

 

Standing in the Storm

When most people think of Canada, they think of cold, ice, and snow. We specialize in winter up here. The province of British Columbia has milder temperatures the further south you go, but Canada is largely a chilly place for a substantial part of the year. I’m from Alberta and winter can last close to six months with dumps of snow recorded even in the summertime.

Burn Away the Dross

Sometimes I wish I could pack up my feelings

Especially the ugly, hurtful ones

That scour my soul and leave me winded, raw, and wounded

I’d thrust them into the deepest trunk

And grunt and sweat to force their bulk

Into a forgotten place

I’d bury them under every meaningless piece of trash

I can’t bring myself to get rid of

 

Sometimes I wish I could pinpoint those moments

The person, the voice, the scent that lingers

The triggers that slap my face and send me reeling

Pummeling me with those awful feelings

Those ugly, hurtful, persistent feelings

That scour my soul and leave me winded, raw, and wounded

I’d stay run away, move away, stay away if I had to

 

Sometimes I wish I could close up my being

And throw up a wall around my heart

To block the triggers, those stupid signals

That bring up the pain of those ugly, hurtful, persistent feelings

That scour my soul and leave me winded, raw, and wounded

But I simply cannot do it

Cannot lay down in the bitter cold

Cannot close up and get hard and old inside

So I writhe

In the flames

Alive and open

Complete the experience. Listen to for King & Country’s It’s not Over Yet.

Posts come out every Monday morning, a poem every third Monday. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to receive notifications of my posts via email. Follow me on Instagram username: pollyeloquent. Thanks for reading. 🙂