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the little pink paper clamp


you see once upon a time there was a little pink paper clip

which had three anchors on it, one of them is blue, and

2 are black.   the anchors mean it keeps the paper from blowing

away, you see it opens really widely and it keeps all of your

personal papers from blowing away, but what i am doing

is saying, what will happen in the anchors wanted to move away

from the paper clip, like if one moved, it will lose 1 third of the power

and if it lost 2 anchors, they would lose 2 third of the power.

if it lost all three of the anchors, the power of the  paperclip will

lose all it’s power and the only way to get the anchors back is

go the ship dock and take some of the anchors there, sure it

might mean the ships haven’t got anchors but this paperclip needs

it anchors because it needs the power of which it brings.

at present the little pink paperclip without the anchors is sitting

at the bottom of the stationery desk hoping that one day the anchors

will come back so he can keep paper in a folder.

this was going to be a hard job, as the people thought the anchors

were way to heavy to carry home, despite the anchors being small

on the clip, so one man went out on a boat who was doing whale watching

and when they threw out the anchor, which incidentally was blue, and he had

to stay by the anchor, so when the tour was over, he took the anchor away

and the blue one goes in the middle of the paperclip, and then he walked around the

other ships to find 2 black anchors to give the paperclip a lot of power to keep the paper

down, but there was only one black anchor on every boat, so he rang up the company

to find a black anchor to make up the 3, but he took one black anchor to bring back to

the paperclip and it got two thirds of the power, but they were having a hard time

trying to find the other black anchor, you see they found a pink anchor, the same colour as

the paperclip, and they found a pink anchor but it was far to light, they found a green anchor

but it was like green cordial, so he went out again and he got a orange anchor, but no it wasn’t the one

and he bought a purple anchor, the same colour as black, but no way, this wasn’t working, none of these

anchors fitted on the paperclip, so they looked hard and wide, hoping they will find a black anchor

you see they needed to keep the paper from blowing away from everywhere around the office, and just

as we gave up for day, we found the second black anchor and we put it on the paperclip and it worked

the paper was tightly on the folder, and that is how they gave anchor power to the paperclip, but the only

problem is, the ships will miss their anchor, so we must go out to buy some for them, and we did, and

our paperclip hooked the paper together and every boat was anchored down, and everyone is happy.
mf  Dec 2015
anchor
mf Dec 2015
sadness is an anchor.
it anchors you to the past in which memories circle you, mock you, hurt you.
it anchors you to your bed because it feels so hard to face the day.
it anchors you to the idea of the person you thought you knew, making you wonder if anything was even real.
it anchors you to the broken world that you've built with that person; it's destroyed and you sit in the broken remains in despair.
it anchors you to the thoughts of that person, how the person is doing, if the person prefer the new person better than you, if they are doing the same things, if the person is thinking about you.
it anchors you to the fear that nothing will ever get better, that you might not be able to live because you forgot life before the person.
it anchors you to the uncertainty of the future because you've planned so much but with the inclusion of that person and now you're lost.
it anchors you to your broken dreams, surrounded by the shattered pieces.
it anchors you to the piercing words that person said, things you never imagined them capable of saying.
it anchors you to the ghost of that person.

but never forget that even the strongest anchors are lifted once the ship is ready to move. you'll be ready one day.
Abraham Montalvo Dec 2014
Burn Your Bridges, Cut Your Anchors By Abraham Montalvo

Treading through the pain and sorrows, this life I'm living almost as feelin no reason to be living, emotions running, apathy a comin, deliver me from this hell that's has me forsaken,
My mind is troubled,
Heart is shuttled,
Spirit in turmoil,
Darkness has taken over almost all judgment
Like a veil that's been placed before me, blinds me in my ways and treads my paths, burning my bridges and cutting my anchors. Like a curse been laid upon me, a light that shines through me rips through what darkness that dines before my very eyes, in a midst of chaos like a war fought without the arms and weapons of soldiers to operate with the blunt force of destruction, burn your bridges cut your anchors... All this is temporary, it's all just and emotional trip into a world of agony that will cease to exist, for time is an understatement of what I can comprehend, lift my soul up high, bring me out of the distressful times ive been going through, help me, free me, save me...
misconstrued self emotions and deprived nights of sleep, body feeling weak and weary... Help me cut these anchors of emotions and burn these bridges of oppression...™
Roisin Sullivan Aug 2014
To distant lands
And open doors,
To bright white sands
On distant shores,
I must away.
I cannot stay.

Set free the sails!
We must make haste
To catch the gales!
No time must waste
To seize the day;
Anchors aweigh!
Kevin Miller May 2010
Isn’t it



Wonderful,

The suffocating love of a hundred people
They want you, what’s best for you
What’s best for you, what is best for you?
Rejecting them means rejecting love,
but you are in short supply of you
As demand increases, so does price
the price of you
the price is you.
Sanity sets in, escape’s let out
every night let it out,
beats staying in
Some are in short supply of love

*******

Not you
The suffocating love of a hundred people let you know
Across the room, across the country
a hundred people can’t help
shedding ‘bout one sixty does
only, you have to shed it
anchors only work when attached

love

it pulls your judgment, mind from its foundation
wants to make your choices
wants to make your coffee
you start to save you,
in a container with a seal
the shiny latch makes a pop noise
You can see through the otherside
No one can get in,
Not with the pop noise
Its where you keep you
in the house, Close the door
pressure mounts
let it out in

drops,

thoughts and blood
watch it heal, know you’re better
lets you know,
you are better, you are better
You are Better,
better isn’t with help, it doesn’t come with age
it’s a choice you make
the suffocating love of a hundred people
they pile on blankets, keeps you warm
but at a hundred blankets deep you aren’t moving

move.

Don’t think about me, don’t think about him
Just move and keep moving,
roots and anchors
Learn which is which
Remember which is which
Act on which is which
you grow roots, anchors are placed upon you
usually around the neck region.
Box up all the memories, store them if you like
But don’t stay attached, burn if necessary
Anchors only work if they’re attached
You can’t ‘be ready’ for something that’s already happened
It’s the past in those boxes,
the fond death of past nothings,
Life only exists in the future,
Not to be too dramatic but we’re dying, right now
in the present
we breath out life out as we speak
Only the future has life, stored as potential
just take the steps
cut out the cancer
if you want to be ready for something, be ready for what’s next
(A note to Jessica)


copyright 2010
CK Baker  Feb 2017
Blood lines
CK Baker Feb 2017
There were dividing lines
between Springfield
and Mariners Gate
soft, subtle lines
that spoke of origin
and code
and biting union

it was all
the reason
for being;
alive and living
dead or dying
deep in a pack
of pint size resistors
hell bent on the
marsh crow
and cannabis tower
jumping the rush
with *** shots
and anchors
and tribunals

camouflage creepers
and transient floaters
marked rebellion at the gates
(skullduggery and taunt
high on their favor list)
jack straws and flat paddles
for the evening charade
beakers and flailing hands
from the foot washing baptist
(the Pleasant Street conservatives with their
own something to say…“there’s gonna be hell to pay!”)

there's a
lingering effect
to this sentiment
(evident in the pump house stride)
the river winds
blow gently
into the night
as the huddling packers
and **** backs
chase the evening hours

it’s a bitter sweet
end of an era;
those traction bars
hood scoops
and nickel bags
will always
be the rage
Mateuš Conrad  Aug 2018
I non Q
Mateuš Conrad Aug 2018
you sowed this **** into my brain...
why do you even "think"
that i want... you?
             i, want your children...
the meme-mutation is what i'm
after...
   and there are plenty of useful idiots
to allow me to process
the intermediating processes
for: the sigma, "accomplishment";
which is unlike
what infected mushroom's -
  trance party track sounds like,
outside of my own head.
why do these people even
think i'm after their genes
of memes?
                i want, their infantile
replicas...
                 i want to craft a
worthwhile curiosity,
on a canvas, that that they call
their gene replicas, children,
and... like why called me...
easy meat..
                 einfachfleisch...
what?
    i'm not here for these news' anchors...
i'm here for their children...
nibble nibble nibble chew chow
cow tow and main...
            prawn crackers...
ah... news anchors are
easy targets...
    slightly pointless
20x bulls eye honing devices...
it's their children...
     i want their children...
    i want their cognition
to become replica of wheelchair
bound infirmaries;
why?
    oh... you know...
football and wrestling,
given the Qatar investment plan...
the whole sport "thing"
became a tad bit boring...
  had to resort to secondary sources
of entertainment;
children of news anchors?
the secondary, "last",
albeit, the best resort;
   schindler...
  required a list,
     to become reincarnated...
and revive a **** a heartlessness
of an reincarnation
    anomaly:
  i.e.: what, a limited number
of people, to begin with?!
     so the rest is primitive "a.i."?
now i'm starting to think...
thank the blue indians
for their culinary innovations...
but when it comes
to their theology?
                           **** 'em;
did i advocate that?
if i did... within what pronoun
guarantee of advocacy?
playing the grammar card...
        which pronoun?
the plural singular,
or the singular plural,
or the gender neutral?
   thank you jean-paul sartre,
     for the...  "i"...

i simply love, this revised concept
of a unit...
           the revision clinging
to the royalist affirmation of pronouns...
i.e. 1 would say... so...
         and 1... would, so, will, do so.
**** the pronoun debate
in Canadian politics...
   if i have to resort to this?
then i will...
like your plain citizen...

     may "i" speak within
the confines, of the royal, one,
given the example:
   one might suppose...
to be the former, and the current,
highest, etiquette?

gender neutrality of pronouns...
last time i checked...
one was never allowed
pronoun stature...
    why not address this
conundrum, to begin with?!

oh, right... too late...
too many loud mouths
without a guillotine...
so, basically, a cow ****'s
worth of argumentation.
Aman Dheer Oct 2016
A girl weeps in the limelight
Waiting for the days to end,

A ship anchors its weight
Where a girl weeps in the limelight
Waiting for the days to end,

The bird flies over the cloud
And a ship anchors its weight,
Where a girl weeps in the limelight
Waiting for the days to end,

Rain descends like stars
The bird flies over the cloud
And a ship anchors its weight,
Where a girl weeps in the limelight
Waiting for the days to end,

Bees hover over my memoir
Rain descends like stars
The bird flies over the cloud
And a ship anchors its weight,
Where a girl weeps in the limelight
Waiting for the days to end,

Earth sleeps in her lap
Bees hover over my memoir
Rain descends like stars
The bird flies over the cloud
And a ship anchors its weight,
Where a girl weeps in the limelight
Waiting for the days to end,

She descends to death !
amandheer.wordpress.com
sleeplessnxghts Dec 2013
That nefarious disorder that usurps my sleep every night holds the anchors above my head
And once the looming presence creates an unyielding uncomfortable feeling within me-
The anchors are dropped at once as I clutch my heart and watch my life flash by in intense but short clips reflecting off of my irises
Drowning in a waking nightmare consisting of life-altering decisions yet to be made and a ubiquitous, haunting past that never fails to ascertain me, despite the innumerable heat runs I've taken to escape it's chokehold
Wistful versus Wishful thinking keeps an insomniac busy at night- contemplating the universe's unhealthy obsession with showering sullen loads upon my already feeble stature and yearning for a change to form like how the leaves just fled the trees they were accustomed to for so long
Ruminative habits that not even the toughest of diamonds could scratch to erase them from my routine nightly thinking
But I am constantly torn between resenting every constant and vowel meant for you and all of my feckless attempts at achieving perfection
And optimistically hoping for a banishment from all negativity, and acceptance of the elation spreading faster through the airwaves of people open to recognition and reversal
But my anchors are breaking through the floor boards as my weary but restless eyes scan the page for errors and I am cautious in giving them a tug out of fear of a perpetual fall that insists on torturing me through an insomnia-flavored death-to-be
What is to ensue after countless hours of wistful and wishful thinking?
Am I to write until the moisture leaves my fingertips and the blood rushes to my head because my amygdala is housing all of my aggressions and fears, close to explosions upon anything in my vicinity?
Or am I to close my eyes and daydream of better, happier times to arrive at my front doorstep sometime in the near future?
But my overactive thoughts stimulate several situations that could play out, and the ones I decide on making permanent effects in the future are the ones that end with me crying and hopeless
Maybe the life of an insomniac is even worse than people think- it is not the fact that we do not sleep that unnerves us, it is the fact that when we do not sleep, we overthink, and when we overthink, we depress ourselves with all of the outcomes and possibilities that can arise from the most trivial decisions to the most climactic ones
My anchors act as my comforter and hold me tight during my REM sleep when the vivid and electrifying dreams and nightmares play simultaneously like a horror film I am entrapped in
I hone in on the conflict and I am taken away in shackles into dreamland, a world worse than reality
And I cannot lucid dream, so my control, my grip on the direction of the thoughts slips away and the fabrication of my unconscious takes over until I wake up every hour on the hour breathless and sweating
I awake at all the wrong times, on all wrong sides of the bed
And falling back asleep is a difficult task to carry out each time, because of the lack of melatonin that seemed to be crossed of the checklist of necessities of being born
And so the cycle ensues for the next 5 hours
And I continue this routine day in, and day out
This is the life of an **Insomniac.
jake aller Dec 2019
Snarling Cup of Coffee    




I like to start my day with a hot cup of coffee
I pound down the coffee
First thing I do every day
as the dawning sun
Lights up my lonesome room

Yeah, but not just a simple cup of java Joe, but a ******* snarling sarcastic smarmy cup of coffee

I mean, - we are talking about an alcoholic, all speed ahead, always hot, always fresh, always there when I need it, angry, attitude talk to the hand Ztude, bad, bad assed, beats breaking, beatnik, bluesy, bitter, ******, bombs away, capitalistic, caffeinated up the ***, cinematic, communistic, Colombian grown, Costa Rican inspired, Cowabunga to the max, crazy assed, devilishly angelic, divine, divinely inspired, dyslexic, epic, extreme vetting, evil eye, expensive, ****** vision inducing, Ethiopian coffee house brewed, euphoric, freaky, freazoid, foxy, Frenched kissed, French brewed, funkified, foxy lady, graphic, GOD in my coffee, with Allah, Ganesh, Jesus, Kali, Buddha, Christians, Durga, Hindus, Mohamed, Jesus and Mo and their friend, the cosmic bar maid, Sai Babai, Shiva, Taoists,

Zoroastrians, drinking my god ****** coffee in Hell;

growling, gnarly, happy, hard as ice, Hawaian blessed, high as a kite, hippie, hip, hipster, hip hoppy, hot as hell yet strangely sweet as heaven, jazzy, jealous, Kerouac approved, kick ***, kick my ******* *** to Tuesday, kick down the doors and take no prisoners, grown in the Vietnam highlands by exVietcong, Guatemalan grown, kiss ***, illegal in every state, imported from all over the ******* world,

insane, lovely, loony, lonely, lonesome, malodorous mean old rotten, *******, nasty, narcotic, never whatever, never meh, never cold, not approved by the CIA, not approved by DHS, not approved for human consumption by the FDA, not your daddy’s sissified corporate cup of coffee, NOT DECAFE coffee, not your Denny’s truck driver weak as brown water cup of fake coffee, not your establishment friendly cup of coffee, Not your FBI coffee, Not FAKE Herbal coffee substitute, but a real cup of coffee, not your farmer brothers dinner crap, not made in America for Americans, not safe for work, not your Starbucks average expensive overpriced ****** corporate chain cup of coffee, Not pretentious, Not White House approved, not State Department safe, nuclear, Not Patriotic, operatic, Peets’s coffee approved,

paranoid, pornographic, psychotic, pontific, politically aware, rapping, rhyming, right here, right now in River city, rock and roll up the Yazoo, sad, sadistic, sarcastic, sassy, satanic, schizoid, *******, silly, ****, smarmy, smelly, smooth, snarky, snarling, stupid, stinking, sweet as honey, sweat inducing, symphonic, Trump can’t handle this coffee, vengeful, Wagnerian, wicked, with nutmeg and cinnamon swirls, with a hint of stevia, with a hint of vanilla, with a hint of ***, with a hint of whisky, with a hint of cherry, with a hint of fruit overtones, with a hint of drugs spicing up the coffee, spendific, speeding, splendid, superior accept no substitutes, survived the Vietnam war, the Iraq war, the Afghan war, the first and Second Korean war, World War 11, the war on poverty, the war on drugs, the war on black people, the ****** revolution,

Soulful as a summer’s night in MOTOWN- James Brown approved, TOP approved, Berkeley approved, the coffee that Jimmy Hendrix drank before he died, the coffee that Elvis drank on his last breakfast, the coffee that Barry White crooned as he drank his cup of coffee – and the coffee that made the white boy play stand up and play that funky music, the coffee that made Jonny B Goode play his guitar, and made Jonny bet the devil his soul after he drank his morning cup of righteous coffee and the coffee that make the Rolling Stones Rock and Roll, the coffee your mother warned you against drinking, the coffee that Napoleon drank when he became the Emperor of all Europe, the Coffee that Beethoven drank when he wrote the Ninth symphony, the coffee that Mozart drank as he wrote his last symphony, the coffee that Lincoln drank before he was killed, the Hemingway drank before he killed himself, the coffee that started the 60’s, and ended the 20th century,

the coffee that Lenin drank as he plotted revolution, the coffee that ****** and Stalin drank with FDR as they divided up the world after World War 11, the cup that JFK drank before he was blown away, the coffee Jerry drinks while driving in cars with random celebrities and political figures, the coffee that Jon Stewart drinks before he goes on an epic take down of some foolish politico, the cup of Arabic coffee that Sadaam drank the day he was executed, the coffee that GW and Cheney drank when they bombed Baghdad, the Indian cup of coffee that Bid Laden drank before 9-11 and just before the seals blew his *** to hell, the cup of coffee that Tiger Woods drank with his mistresses while playing a 3, 000 dollar round of golf at Sandy Lane golf course in Barbados, the last legal drug that does what drugs should do, the cup of coffee that Obama drank when he became President, Vietnamese, Vienna brew, wacky, whimsical,

Whisky Tango Foxtrot, wild, weird, wonderful, WOW, Yabba dabba doo! Yada Yada yada Zappa’s favorite cup of cosmic coffee, and Zorro’s last cup of coffee, Good to the last drop rolled into one simple cup of hot coffee   
As I pound down that first cup of coffee
And fire up my synaptic nerve endings with endless supplies
Of caffeine induced neuron enhancing chemicals

I face the dawning day with trepidation and mind-numbing fear
I turn on the TV and watch the smarmy newscasters in their perfect hair

Lying through their perfect blazing white teeth
about the great success the government is having
Following the great leader's latest pronouncements

I want to scream
and shoot the TV
and run out side

Shouting
Stop the world!
I want to get
off this ******* crazy planet"

The earth does not care a whit
about my attitude problem

It merely shrugs
and moves around the Sun
In its appointed daily run

the universe whispers
in my ear
time to drink more coffee
for an attitude adjustment

And I sit down
The madness dissipating a bit
And enjoy my second cup
Of heaven and hell
In my morning cup of Joe

Coffee Revolutions



coffee cup
Coffee led to the American Revolution<span
As patriots drank coffee
To rebel against
the aristocratic English tea

Coffee started the London Stock Market
And started the gossip mills running
Every great invention
Was fed by coffee's sweet brew
sweet allure

All the great thinkers
All the great leaders
All were enslaved
to coffee's magic

I sing my praises
Of the great
glorious coffee lady

Long may she continue
To be my sweet companion

Long may coffee continue
To rule my heart
And set my heart
on fire

Ode to Coffee



Mistress of sacred love
Sacred lady of desire

You start my day
Setting my heart on fire
With your dark delicious brew 

And throughout the day
Whenever the mean old blues come by
You chase them away

With your bittersweet ambrosial brew
Every time I inhale your witch's brew

I am filled with power, light and love
And everything is al right Jack
If only for a few fleeting minutes

I love you oh coffee goddess
In all your magical forms

In the dark coffee of the dawning day
In the sizzling coffee in the mid morning break
In the afternoon siesta break
And in the post dinner desert drink

I love you my coffee mistress
You are my refuge
From this horrid world

And you are my secret lover
Never disappoint me, ever
I've never had a bad cup
Of that I can be sure

Even the dismal coffee
Served at Denny's at 3 am
Is still sweet loving coffee

Even the farmer brother's diner coffee
Excites me and gets me going
Asking for another cup of divine delight

Coffee always is there
It is always on and piping hot
With hidden dark secrets
Swirling in its liquid essence

Coffee is my last vice
My only legal vice left

Coffee does not cheat on me
It is always faithful, always true
It does not turn on its friends

And all it asks in return
Is that you come back
Cup after cup after cup

A good cup of coffee
Is a little bit of heaven
In a cup of dark liquid hell

Coffee is like a drug
But a good drug that does what is should
And never complains

It does not get grouchy
It does not hurt you

It does not make you crazy
But allows the muse to come out
And play with it

Coffee led to the American Revolution
As patriots drank coffee
To rebel against the aristocratic English tea

Coffee started the London Stock market
And started the gossips mills running

Every great invention
Was fed by coffee's sweet brew
sweet allure

All the great thinkers
All the great leaders
All were enslaved to coffee's magic

Yeah
I sing my praises
Of the great glorious coffee lady

Long may she continue
To be my sweat companion

Long may coffee continue
To rule my heart
And set my heart on fire

I love thee
Mistress coffee
And sometimes I think
You love me too

No More Coffee Blues








I love coffee
Always have

And coffee has loved me back
But lately I have soured on her
Soured on the whole coffee scene

On the harshness
of the morning brew
And the promises it makes

As I sip of its nectar
Drawn into its lair

Drinking drop by drop
As the caffeine takes over

Rewriting my every nerve
Turning me into a slave
For its perverted pleasure

Yes I love coffee
But I am afraid

Coffee is a harsh mistress
Demanding so much of me

Promising the sun
And delivering the moon

As I drink her swill
Deepening under her influence

I have the coffee blues
Can’t live without her
Can’t live with her

I try
But tea does not cut it
Not really

***** does not do it
At least not in the morning

Yoga is not enough of a buzz
Nor is the runner’s high

And I am afraid deadly afraid of *******
And speed and drugs and energy drinks

And so I remain a slave to coffee
My only legal drug

As I sip another
and fall under
her seductive spread

Once more failing my resolve
To skip coffee for that day
That morning that moment

I shall never be free of her spell
Ever and she knows it
As she beckons me
Every morning with her intoxicating smell

And I come to her
and drink her brew

And become her slave
again and again

Coffee Ya Du





must drink coffee
have every day
the morning dawns
drinking my coffee as I yawn

Morning cup of coffee 



every morning
I drink my coffee
as I contemplate 
the dawning day

watching the news anchors
blather on and on
drinking my coffee
thinking of life

and my coffee
consumes me
overwhelms me
and at time controls me

after all coffee is a drug
and I am her slave
from time to time

Drinking Coffee in the Morning



in the morning
dangerous mood
felling deranged
watching the news

trigger warning
you are ******* dude
end of the world
the end times come

I drink coffee
in the morning



Coffee *** Killed





His wife has banned my use
by my owner
says he makes too much
of a mess when he uses me

it is not his fault
I want to say
but being a coffee ***
can not speak

and so I am abandoned
thrown out into the trash

and feel very sad
for my owner

who was my friend
he liked me

he keep me going
and I did my job

providing him
with fresh coffee

doing my coffee *** duty
and now it is over

Drinking My Coffee


drinking coffee

drinking my coffee
early in the cool morning
thinking life is fine

everything will be okay
after I drink my coffee

morning coffee



morning coffee

dawning sun 











coffee MGur Poem


coffee

I pray to the coffee gods
every cup of coffee
is like a sacrament to me

I pray as I drink my coffee
that it will fill me
with wisdom

and find peace
with my coffee

as I drink
my devotion

Hot coffee


cup of coffee


take coffee with you
Hot hot coffee, makes my day -

Must drink My daily coffee, as the morning dawns - 

With out my morning coffee

in me,  I feel nothing at all -

Electrified Hot Coffee



coffee is the drug of choice
nothing else will do it
as I drink coffee
Electrified
Hot Coffee

Hot Coffee and Cake


coffee
coffee is the drug of choice
electrified circuits
as I drink coffee
coffee and cake



Coffee Patina



coffee
hot coffee
hot Hellish Heaven
Essence of coffee
the rest of the coffee poems can be found at
Alyssa Underwood Jul 2017
There are times when the Lord will take from us every familiar thing and send all the others away to have us to Himself, uprooting and dismantling our earthly anchors until we find no safe place of attachment but to Him alone. And though we search feverishly to secure another, He will faithfully cut off our efforts at every pass and every attempted by-pass, almost as though we could see them being escorted out the door, marching one after the other in file and possibly taking our sanity with them. “No, not another one! Where are they all going and why am I not invited?” But it is His alone to give or not to give, to give and take away.

The One Who took up the cross and took the cup of the Father’s wrath for us has the absolute right to take anything and everything from us at any time for whatever reasons might please Him. But know this for certain: concerning His redeemed, those reasons will always involve two things—glory and intimacy. They are the overriding answers to every lingering question of “Why?”.

But if we fail to understand His glorious and intimate intentions we may misconstrue our losses to be a sign that He is actually withdrawing His affection from us. The very things which He is doing for love’s sake to perfect our pathway to intimacy might be taken instead for obstacles blocking it, causing us to doubt His love. We could not be more wrong, but sometimes it's so hard to see through the veil of pain.

For it's a strange and bewildering thing to feel that you belong to no place and no person in this world, to have nowhere to call home and no one to share it with if you did. A severe untethering indeed that though meant to prepare us for flying can seem to us more like drowning. The sobering truth is that none of us belong to this life or the things of this earth; all sense of it is only an illusion, and pain and loss are simply the dispelling of the myth—the rude awakening from a bewitching dream we once had. But oh how we fight the disillusionment.

Maybe we remember a time when we had prayed to be refined, to be made more like Jesus, but we didn’t know it would have to hurt so bad and take so long and look so dark and feel so lonely. Even if we have understood and embraced His call to deeper intimacy we may after a while, when nothing seems improved either around us or in us, start to resent our belonging to such a determined and jealous Lover, though He is doing exactly what we had once asked Him to. We may start to think we can no longer bear anything except that which superficially distracts us from our grief. We may even start to give up hope, for if not anchored exclusively “behind the curtain” and if repeatedly crushed it threatens to **** our hearts for good should we have to face one more disappointment.

We may feel very much like we are flailing around in a deep and darkening ocean, repeatedly pulled under by the powerful tow and thrashing waves of overwhelming emotion and continuously knocked back by the brutal winds of confusion. Yet we can still see the unshakable boat of faith and truth standing solidly only a small distance away. We know it is real and that if we could just reach it we would be safe. We hear someone shouting through the din, “Just hold onto the boat! The boat will save you. Look beyond your feelings and walk by faith. Hold onto truth!” But can’t they see that as hard as we may try we have no strength to swim to the boat? Can’t they see that we are sinking?

And so we are left with nothing but to cry out to Jesus, to cry out to Him to bring the boat to us, to come Himself and rescue us. Do we have that much faith? Enough to just say, “Jesus, help me! I’m drowning!”? Enough to see that He is our only hope and nothing else matters apart from Him?

Because when we do, we will understand that this hope in Him alone is the very lifeline by which He will pull us to safety—back to faith, back to truth, back into His intimate arms of love, back into a peace which passes all understanding and into a joy that gives us strength for the journey.

As difficult as it can be in our grief to hear the Lord whispering truth to our hearts above the constant clanging of our feelings, we must now more than ever choose to take the time to be still and seek our soul’s rest in Him and in His promises. But how amidst such clamor and confusion?

Simply decide to cast your cares on Him, if only for the moment, by climbing into His Shepherd’s lap to look and loiter and listen. And if you have no energy to climb up, then just lift your arms and ask Him to pick you up. And if you haven’t the strength even for that, only raise your eyes toward Him and you will soon find your sanity restored as you behold His love for you. Ask Him earnestly to let you see it afresh, for perhaps you have been temporarily blinded from recognizing it.

Stop everything; cease just for this minute from all worry, anxiety, fear and anger. Forget the past and do not look toward the future. Focus only on this moment right now, as if you knew it would be your last, as if it were the very one to lead you into eternity. Inhale like fresh air the powerful promises of God’s Word. Soak in their grace and drink in their healing, keeping your eyes fixed on Jesus’ face. Can you see Him longing for you? Exhale every distraction, conflict and uncertainty of this world. Then listen... What is He saying to you right now? Wait for it, then let your soul rest in it, and let go of everything else. Rest in the grace of this present moment and in His strong, sure arms. Let Him take care of you, wounded one, for you are His beloved, and He longs to tend your broken and needy heart.
~~~

"Find rest, O my soul, in God alone;
    my hope comes from Him.
He alone is my rock and my salvation;
    He is my fortress, I will not be shaken."
~ Psalm 62:5-6

"The LORD is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer;
    my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge,
    my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
I called to the LORD, who is worthy of praise,
    and I have been saved from my enemies.
The cords of death entangled me;
    the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me.
The cords of the grave coiled around me;
    the snares of death confronted me.
In my distress I called to the LORD;
    I cried to my God for help.
From His temple He heard my voice;
    my cry came before Him, into His ears...
He reached down from on high and took hold of me;
    He drew me out of deep waters.
He rescued me from my powerful enemy,
    from my foes, who were too strong for me.
They confronted me in the day of my disaster,
    but the LORD was my support.
He brought me out into a spacious place;
    He rescued me because He delighted in me."
~ Psalm 18:2-6,16-19

"We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf..."
~ Hebrews 6:19-20a

— The End —