Sometimes I write when I’m angry, but anger can stem from many different things. When I’m battling a writer’s block it’s an antagonizing anger. There’s so much beneath the surface that needs to be said, but I can’t declutter my thoughts enough to release it into poetry. When I’m processing grief I write from a painful anger, I’m losing out on something I feel I deserve to keep.

I’m not sure if you’ve ever been told to be quiet about something but it can be compared to choking, suffocating, demeaning, and manipulating, among other things. It’s quite sad how many times I’ve been told to be quiet, and it’s sad the justification that always goes along with it. Reputation, pride, ego, public image, and fear of conflict seem to creep to the surface and boil over into a sinful fixation of one of the above. What’s equally as sad and disappointing is the lack of people willing to be your voice when you don’t have one. A beautiful friend who ran through all of the pain to hold my heart, who loved me in the midst of my silence and dejection, who knew how to be a voice when I was threatened to keep quiet, reminded me of something important: the Church needs my broken heart or else it has no heart. The Church needs my story or it has no redemption story. It’s a trickle effect. The Church can pretend the brokenhearted and rejected don’t exist, so that it can live in the lie that the sin that created the brokenhearted doesn’t exist. Why? Because they fail to believe the redemptive Healer does actually exist.

I’m not sure who needs the poem below, but I know many people can relate. This is a poem not only to those told to disappear behind the lies they can never share, but it’s a poem to those self-prescribed as the pharmacist dishing out the narcotic of manipulation and self-preservation under the guise of wise stewardship and protection. This poem was written in anger and in pain, not just for the times I’ve been told to be quiet, but how many times, and by all of the different people (people in positions of power), who all seem to echo the same sinful addiction to self-preservation yet in denial of it. It’s for those that need to hear they ARE heard, they ARE seen, they ARE believed. There IS healing because the Healer DOES exist. No amount of sin, deceit, manipulation, abuse, or threats can ever change His ability and willingness to touch the deep wounds and restore you to His glory. You are beautiful, you who have been made to feel like a shadow. And He cares greatly for his beloved beauties.

He is light wind in my ear 
Telling me, “Do not fear.”
I jumped head first into this prose,
Locked in tight, ready to explode.
Speaking truth into the lies,
Here to lay out all of the times
I was told to be quiet:
I can’t. He told me do not fear.
A simple poem to an abuser 
Who called a victim an accuser.
Turned their backs, and drowned her voice,
Her echo screams through the noise 
Of self-preservation and schemes,
To manipulate and demean,
Told to be quiet:
I can’t. He told me do not fear.
He gave a voice to the small,
Sheds His light when the darkness falls,
He triumphs over the snare and
Sprints to comfort, to hold, and to care.
Wrapped up in His arms,
Child, know Whose you are.
He says you are bought for a price,
Loved and honored in His sight:
You are His,
You are heard.
You won’t be defined by what they did,
But instead by who He is.
He is perfect, He is near,
Unseen, to be feared.
Holy and set apart,
He says you are His work of art.
Lean into what is true,
Reject all they said of you.
You are His,
Do not fear,
You are seen.
Now, to your future, I promote 
A backwards thought, but full of hope-
He is vindication and revenge,
He is justice to the end.
Pocket that when you’re angry,
Triggered, tired, broken, weary.
He holds every tear in His hand,
Through your suffering He will stand
Because you are His,
You are His,
You are HIS,
Do not fear,
You are loved.