Gloryteller

A   FORE-WORD

I feel very strange.  The day before yesterday I was strongly led to write this unusual piece – “Shards”.  (unusual, for me, in its pain and darkness – I’m more into joy) Around noon yesterday (Friday, 12-14-2012) I saw the horrible, heartbreaking tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut on the news.
I had not planned to give God much of a part in this poem.  I intended it for encouragement for one individual, that “they” might be encouraged by it and know that they are not alone in their plight of brokenness. However, yesterday morning, as I awoke, I was strongly led to change it, and include His compassionate nature in the final stanzas.
I hesitated to post this in fear of being inappropriate, but I feel strongly that He wants someone to read this.  I emphasize that this was written before the tragedy.  It is my hope and prayer that it will draw someone to Him and  lead them into his arms.
Today I will post “Shards”.  I have no answers to the usual questions which tend to make people turn away from God in times like these.  “Where’s God?” “Why does God allow innocent blood to be spilled; innocent lives to be taken?”  “Why does He so often allow evil to prevail?”  “Is it because of the rebellious and disobedient nature of mankind?”  “Is it because when we, as a people, decided to ‘go it alone’ without Him, He decided to show us how that would work out for us?”
This is all I know at this moment:   I refuse to let these questions shatter the faith that I, with His grace, have gone through so much to maintain.  I refuse to be captive to my own meager understanding.  Jesus didn’t come to earth to eliminate murder.  We still live under the curse of evil and we all face death – old and young alike – but Jesus came here to address death and defeat it for each of us through His resurrection.  I refuse to let evil steal my joy and my hope, for this is what it boils down to, for me — that our only hope to be reunited with those innocent souls is through Jesus Christ.  I am absolutely certain that Jesus’ compassion for innocent souls, those taken too soon, is immense, for, in a sense, He was one of them.  It is through faith, trust, and belief in Him alone that we will  be allowed to rejoin those beautiful innocents again in full joy, to sing, and dance, and laugh, and love with them forever.

Shards

The countless shards of one shattered heart,
An exploding, expanding sphere of chaos,
Spreading wide and scattering  apart,
Across the world, a swarm of loss.
Shards acutely sharp,
Across the heavens, destruction hurled,
Shards immutably hard,
Dark devastation unfurled.

Small flechettes ripping flesh and bone,
Piercing even the fragile membrane
Between the body and the soul,
Replacing joy’s song with despair’s refrains
Shredding the universe into coarse turmoil,

~~~

Where, in the lovingkindness of His heart of compassion,
God gathers them all in His arms, and His hands,
And skillfully, then, He begins to re-fashion
Refitting them back as only He can.

Remaking, shaping, forming, unshattering,
Deftly rounds off the pain and re-tunes -  it’s an art,
He fits them all back, in a shape that’s most flattering.
Then removing the thing that tore them apart,

He creates a new unshatterable heart.
He creates a brand-new unshardable heart.