Happy Reformation Day!

God Bless,
  A.W.

A Poem I am Memorizing

"Blessed Creator,
Thou hast promised thy beloved sleep;
Give me restoring rest needful for tomorrow's toil.
If dreams be mine, let them not be tinged with evil.
Let thy Spirit make my time of repose a blessed temple of his holy presence.
May my frequent lying down make me familiar with death,
the bed I approach remind me of the grave.
the eyes I now close picture to me their final closing.
Keep me always ready, waiting for admittance to thy presence.
Weaken my attachment to earthly things.
May I hold life loosely in my hand,
knowing that I receive it on condition of its surrender;
As pain and suffering betoken transitory health,
may I not shrink from a death
that introduces me to the freshness of eternal youth.
I retire this night in full assurance of one day awakening with thee.
All glory for this precious hope,
for the gospel of grace,
for thine unspeakable gift of Jesus,
for the fellowship of the Trinity.
Withhold not thy mercies in the night season;
thy hand never wearies,
thy power needs no repose,
thine eye never sleeps.
Help me when I helpless lie,
when my conscience accuses me of sin,
when my mind is harassed by foreboding thoughts,
when my eyes are held awake by personal anxieties.
Show thyself to me as the God of all grace, love and power;
thou hast a balm for every wound.
a solace for all anguish,
a remedy for every pain,
a peace for all disquietude.
Permit me to commit myself to thee awake or asleep."


--Sleep, The Valley of Vision.

God's Work

So this last week I posted almost every poem that I've written in the last two years on Facebook. Took me a long time to do it, but I finally did it. And let me tell you, it wasn't easy. It wasn't easy because in whole, all of those poems were bits and pieces of me. And at times it is a scary thing to open up and share with others what is/has been going on.
It scared me because so often in the past I have put on a fake smile, or said I was fine when I was really breaking inside. Most of my writings are dark...I don't have the brightest of all minds, so dark things tend to come out. But it doesn't bother me too much, to me, in a dark poem I can express what is going on inside so much better than I can when it's a cheerful, uplifting poem.
Before posting them I hesitated, I didn't want to scare anyone. And part of me was screaming not to post them because there are still people who have known me for the longest time and have no idea what goes on in my personal life. I wasn't sure how they would take it. I was so afraid.
But as I thought about it more, I realized that my fear was wrong.
I realized I shouldn't be afraid to share the work that God's done in my life.
It should have come to me sooner that I should never be afraid to tell people what God is doing in my life.
I mean, in the past when I've opened up or written something personal and shared it with others God seemed to use it to change/encourage others.
I think sometimes we get so caught up in what man thinks about us that we forget that God could use what we've dealt with in the past to change others.

That made me change my mind. And with much prayer, I posted them. And no, God's not shown me just yet if He's used them, but perhaps He never will show me. All I can do is trust that somehow, someway, God will use them for His glory.
And for that reason alone, we should not hold back on proclaiming to the world the work God's done in our lives! He might use it in the craziest ways, you might never even know how God uses your words, whether you are speaking or writing.
Don't be afraid. Don't hold back on sharing God's work in your life with others.

God Bless,
  A.W.

Worth Watching

"The Christian, above all men, needs courage. A cowardly spirit unfits us for the lowest duty. It is the valant who takes heaven by a holy violence. The soldiers of Christ must have a heroic spirit and dare to be holy in spite of men and devils. Sinners are bold, and shall saints be timid? The one resolves to be wicked, and shall the other be wavering in his holy course? Hell keeps the field impudently, with displayed banners of open profanities, and shall saints hide themselves for shame? Oh, let this never be the case with the armies of the living God!"  --Isaac Ambrose, The Christian Warrior

My Story

'My Story'

"They say that what you hear and see
Will never go away.
They say that you will never be free.
They say it will always stay.
For a long time I believed it all
I thought I'd die with this chain,
I thought I would keep falling
I thought I would always be in constant pain.
I thought I'd never walk again, but keep crawling.

But one day His promise struck me deep,
He said if I asked in prayer and faith He'd give it
But what I asked for wouldn't come cheap.
I asked me be pulled from this pit
In pleads,
I asked to be freed.

It's been the hardest of all fights,
The kind that leaves you with scars
That keep you up for the longest nights.
My freedom comes with a high cost;
I'm left with a body that's been bruised,
All of my hopeful dreams are now lost,
In full, myself I have abused.
And yet God makes me free at last,
His Truth broke through the lies
That kept me a slave of my past.
He heard my cries
And has set me free."

God Bless,
  A.W.