To gain a soul

Photo via flickr ©Sophia.Maria

Living with unanswered prayer is a hard thing.  Sometimes it feels like it will break you. When it feels like it's nearly breaking me, I turn to the ultimates again.  On that subject, a poem:

On "unanswered" prayer 

and forfeiting the world 

to gain a soul

I once heard about a man 

whose carpet was worn 

bare

in two spots beside a window

Two bare spots

from hours

and days

and months

and years-

a lifetime

on his knees.

There are no bare spots on the floor of my house

but tell me-

do You see

how I'm wearing

thin

a spot on my soul? 

I kneel there

morning

evening

and night

in prayer and petition,

longing and expecting

waiting

for You to respond.

You do not answer 

in the way that I wish

Your silence 

begins to exhaust my plea

I want to know when 

and how and why

but instead of those answers, 

these:

Take heart

and loose the world 

for already have You overcome 

and this, You say,

this is how I gain my soul.

That spot on my soul- 

is not growing bare, 

like carpet under knees-

the wearing tearing under prayers

becoming not thin but deep. 

Now, from there I cry-

hope renewed-

The depth of me

to the depth of You. 

 ~

"In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” - John 16:33

"What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?" - Mark 8:36

"Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls;

all your waves and breakers have swept over me. " Palm 42:7