There is a poem I wrote around 2010 titled "He Ties Butterflies to My Fingers". I haven't edited that poem much, simply because I wrote it from a place of passion and explosion; I had just started writing poetry and it was the first poem I ever performed at an open mic. I love that it exists in that original state. There are references to that poem scattered throughout this one, Always With Me.
 This poem aims to share how God's goodness, love, and creativity has existed with me in those big moments of my life where I needed Him desperately, even in 2010 when I first began counseling and poetry. One of my favorite stories in the Bible is when God asks Abraham to step outside and look up at the stars, "and number them, if you are able to" (Genesis 15:5). I love the intimacy of that moment while looking at the vast creation existing in outer space. We have a Creator that walks with us, with you, through every moment whether in pain or praise. What monument-making moments has He sat with you? What big decisions has He walked with you through? Do you remember to "number the stars, if you are able to?"

You ruffled creation’s feathers
and flung the flirting dust particles
to splash past the moon,
speckling the Milky Way’s neighborhood with your freckles

stitched between dancing cells and 
caught in the loops of bouncing curls,
Your creative presence was there,
reverberating in the monument-making moments of my past

You trudged alongside and through
every bridge that crumbled,
maddened fingers that grasped for only quick sand
and breathless rehearsals of everything is fine

and when blubbering confessions left
darkened, locked bathroom doors weeping secretly to ceilings 
your still, small, whisper traveled in on the back of 
a steady breeze with every inhale

with the strength you entangle in hope,
I moved continents away 
from mistakes that weren’t my own 
as you spoon fed me healing with every verse I read

I kissed the sunsets to sleep
and lit fire to the lies I was forced to hand out;
I incinerated their manipulation
and danced in the smoke they choked on

and so, if there was a bird,
one big enough to carry hurricanes in its talons,
its beating wings could not match the beating in my chest:
the captive set free to a grace intoxicatingly beautiful

You welcomed me into your freedom
the day I forgave my abusers
I swallow down how brave I was
and sing your praise in the dark, beneath your freckles