I have no words yet I picked up my pen.
The symphony you composed for me tonight
Brings me back down to earth.
You tether me here when thoughts,
Intermixed with the pain from memories too raw to repeat,
Send my heart and mind scattered on the tailwind of the thought
“Will there ever be a normal again?”
Banged up and bruised I don’t recognize my reflection.
My voice isn’t mine,
and the promise I once held tightly to, I no longer trust.
I’m tethered, yet drifting.

“Tethered, yet drifting”; it was the only way I could express myself when the Lord gently nudged me to pick up my pen. I think a common misconception is that grief has 7 stages, and when you’re done trudging through them the grief leaves. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Grief rears it’s ugly head when you aren’t expecting it and swallows you up in its darkness. I was drowning when I picked up my pen to write this poem. In my van parked in my driveway, with the windows down, I began scribbling my heart onto the back of an old electric bill. I didn’t want to write. I didn’t know what to say, but to be honest, most of my journaling starts that way anyways. The outpouring has to start somewhere, even when I feel like I don’t have words. The crickets and cicadas were beginning their evening melody, and as my pen made friends with the paper, and my tears made friends with my cheeks, I was able to express to the Lord how lost I felt. I crave to be free from the memories that break me, but not having memories would mean I forget all of the ways God has walked with me through the pain and stood with me on mountaintops. I know I am tethered to Him, He sends crickets and cicadas to keep me grounded in the moment (I get lost in what-if’s and could-have-been’s too often). I am tethered, but feeling distant. Distant, lost, confused. I know I am engulfed in His light, I read and soak into His truth each day, but I’m drifting.

Lord, plant my feet firmly in the soil of your great counselor, the Holy Spirit. Comforter, come, you are welcome here to my heart. You remind me to be still. To know what you are God. It is so simply, yet I like to complicate that. I am tethered, yet drifting. ..but maybe instead of drifting without direction, I am driving into the stillness of knowing you are God. The comfort in that is that I am always found, even when I may feel lost.