Twenty-Three Ideas For Chapters in a Book I Will Never Write

Live Recording of Poem

1. God, You say to be still and know you.

That you will fight for me, I need only be still.

But how do I manage this when all I seem to do is shake?

2. I am known for hiding behind crooked glasses, poorly timed humor,

Sitting at the foot of bookshelves and people, wondering about their stories.

Clinging to their words like others cling to hands, and for laughing louder than anyone else.. at my own jokes.

3. Sometimes we are all haunted houses.

With basements full of creeping things we’re too ashamed to speak of.

Creaking floors shouting out to be heard, tired of being tiptoed around.

Praying that our darkness will not scare away any who dare enter in.

But what is darkness to the one who spoke it into being?

4. I am a master at building walls, that all lean a little sideways.

Resurrecting makeshift shelters from dark humor and diversion tactics that look like I’m trying to land planes.

Apparently these walls must all be ice and igloos because I’m never really hidden, just cold.

But numbness is not my friend, or so I am learning.

It does not work for me. It works on me. Never making me look more like Jesus.

And I am learning daily that my walls are nothing in the calloused hands of the Master Carpenter.

5. Some nights I throw my purity ring across the room because even though I know I’ve been washed white as snow I feel anything but clean.

I may have thrown away the dresses that were deemed “asking for it” but I cannot take off my skin and the shame that whispers I am lacking just as loud as I’m sure some apple wielding serpent did years and years ago.

6. Your emotions do not determine your level of trust in God.

7. Sometimes the word no is like a flock of sheep I count repeatedly, trying to convince myself I am safe enough to fall asleep.

No. No. No.

I know it doesn’t matter how many times I say this, I don’t really rest, and I don’t feel any safer.

Because there are men who won’t just compare your body to a toothpick, but try to place you between their teeth for safe keeping.

Because there are days it feels like you need a search party to be sent out to find your own voice.

Because tragedy and silence are roommates.

Because sometimes nightmares have hands like extensions of stomachs that are never satisfied.

This is not to say that all men are hungry. Or hunting.

Just that a person is not a snack.

8. There are days where I feel like the universe believes I am a magic eight ball.

As though, if I am shaken long enough, maybe the answers to all of the questions I am not entitled to will come tumbling out instead of tears.

Or awkward hand movements.

9. A short list of things the church won’t talk about:

-Assault.

-The fact that porn is a soul and sin problem, not solely a men problem.

-That a woman can be more than an embodiment of proverbs 31 or a children’s minister.

10. This is how I fight; poetry.

Because I think in metaphors, song lyrics, dad jokes, and movie quotes and good grief, words are hard.

Because I say “I’m thankful for you” rather than saying “I love you.”

Because some days I cannot seem to find the bright side even with the sun right outside my window.

But knowing it’s there and feeling it are not one and the same.

And hurting is different than wanting to hurt myself.

Now, I write the word “enough” on my hip instead of painting them black and blue like I used to.

Because when people ask me how I’m feeling, the words to name emotions get lost somewhere inside of the drowning mess of my mind and as those floodgates open they’re all replaced with the word “used.”

11. Being broken doesn’t mean you are worthless. It just means there are more pieces to work with.

Even if the plenty came from shattering.

You can be loved back together again.

So call me a puzzle and mind the sharp edges, please.

Also, watch where you step, I left a pile of my self confidence on the floor next to the sweatpants I put on as soon as I walk in the door, right between some dirty socks and daydreams I haven’t convinced myself to pick up yet.

12. Scars tell stories, but they do not give names.

I’m trying.

They’re called panic attacks for a reason.

I am fighting.

Even in my silence and shaking, even when I feel like shrinking into corners and myself.

If anxiety is the thorn in my side to make me more dependent upon You, Lord, I will fight from my knees.

Remind me to thank you later.

13. People need to feel loved and know they are enough more than your heart needs to feel safe.

Lord, help me unlearn how to be tough.

To see my own vulnerability as beautiful as I do others.

14. I feel like a hypocrite as I tell my girls they are beautiful and that worth cannot be measured in numbers,

But I keep the scale I was given for my 20th birthday hidden under my bed.

You see, I’m used to telling people my super power is invisibility.

Because it is still so easy to push away a plate in an effort to disappear.

To waste away for a waist line.

But friends, what good are thighs that do not touch if the rest of me does not act as the hands and feet of Christ?

Why don’t we praise our bodies for holding the weight of ourselves, instead of picking them apart for having too much of it.

15. Sometimes I am the trigger on my own gun.

When I sing “whom shall I fear” my brain responds with a very long list of whoms, and what’s.

And it’s not the what could happens running rampant, but the what already did.

Maybe I’m alone in this, but when it comes to my circumstances I think I pray for delivery before I pray for your glory, Lord.

And even more?

I often find it hard to align the belief that God has a future AND a hope for me.

So sometimes we just sing until we believe.

16. I’ve been thinking a lot about drowning lately.

And no, I’m not going to hurt myself. (Shout out to my counselor standing in the crowd like I wish I was)

But I’ve been learning I don’t need to be in a body of water for my head to feel completely submerged. I just want air. To not feel sea sick on land.

To remember in my sinking that I serve a God who walks on water when the storms seem blinding-

He still finds me.

17. Note to self:

You didn’t clumsily crash into a domino that made all of this happen just by existing.

Even when you don’t believe it repeat the mantra that this is not your fault.

And I know you don’t believe it. That there are things you wish were different.

But you cannot try to turn yourself inside out in the hope that someone else might finally see you standing there, knees knocking.

A home, not a hotel.

18. I leave notes on my mirror filled with truth I long to fill myself with.. but I can never stand to look at my reflection long enough to take in the ink.

I don’t know if I am more afraid of what I might see, or what I might not.

Most of the time I see a natural disaster. Not a master piece.

Earthquakes for legs.

A brain prone to flash flooding,

And a heart at home in a drought, dusty and cracked, just striving to hold together for one

more

beat.

19. You cannot fight what you will not name.

As much as fear wants to claw its way out from the pit of your stomach and steal your words right out of your throat, speak it anyways.

Even if it starts as a whisper.

20. I’d rather believe that I am efficient than that I am enough.

I would rather make things happen than be the one to which things happen.

Maybe this is why I made an “unnecessary apology jar.”

Because I know this is DBU, but I’d rather hear a curse word than someone invalidate their existence with an “I’m sorry,” as though who they are is not worth their breath.

Stop apologizing for taking up space.

You are enough.

We are told to love our neighbors as ourselves, but how many of you would use a different four letter word to describe your feelings for yourself?

And honestly, we’re all kind of messed up, striving after our own thirty pieces of silver and creating gods kept hidden up our sleeves that are not God.

But God doesn’t want to fix you. He wants to make you new.

Do not let the voice of shame continue to weave lies into a noose he is crafting for your own neck.

You are enough.

21. Out of the depths of the heart of people comes one word: regret.

Out of the depths of the heart of God comes one reply: forgiveness.

22. When I feel most destructive, I have to remind myself to create.

To call forth beauty from places it was not seen before.

Even if that means within myself.

23. By now some of you may recognize me as the weird girl who likes to high five stop signs.

You should know this obsession began as I was training for a half marathon last year.

I would hit the word stop to remind myself not to.

I continued because I realized if I was to truly run this race with perseverance I needed to hear this daily.

Don’t stop.

Don’t stop.

Because learning to fight for yourself instead of against yourself is one of the hardest things you will ever do.

Please.

Don’t stop.

Just because the bones that encase it are called so, you cannot cage your heart. It deserves to beat. To fight. To be loved.

You’re alive. Act like it.

And don’t stop.