In this moment of kids slamming doors and screaming too loud,
of one sister calling out Mama, she hurt me, of another running across
the top cushions of the new couch,
I don't yell back,
I look in their angel faces
I give them gentle, firm instruction
I stay here with them,
day after day
in the grueling every day
struggle for relationship work of it all
I relish in the joy of their childhood
and when their eyes flicker happiness,
it reflects in mine.
In these moments of anger
and arguments
of wanting to run, of desperately needing my own space,
I stay here with him,
I look him in the eye, tell him I love him.
I show him I'm willing to do the hard work
I'm not afraid of the humble work
It's a banner I wave over us,
It's a banner of love
It's a proclamation here and now,
I will love fierce, and nothing you do will change that
I'll stay here and I'll love on
for the always and forever
Our souls eternally entangled in God's great grace
It's a blood covenant I make
when I leak out, my love runs red
I'm stretched and torn
And I will keep giving, keep loving
In these moments when sickness is at our doorstep, and invades
for these years
and the darkness tries incessantly to encroach upon us
Husband labors for me, he toils
He watches over me fierce and strong,
my rock
He doesn't give in, and when I'm all over the place
he is never-changing, firm and solid
reflecting heaven
and the banner over me is Love.
for the always and for forever
It's eternal
and has nothing to do with feelings
or with me, or I or mine
It's never changing, always believing the best,
always hoping and never stopping.
We never stop being here.
Eternally.
Together.
**On Fridays I join Lisa-Jo and the Five-Minute Friday Community. Here are Lisa-Jo's words:
"We write for five minutes flat. All on the same prompt that I post here at 1 minute past midnight EST every Friday.
And we connect on Twitter with the hashtag #FiveMinuteFriday
No extreme editing; no worrying about perfect grammar, font, or punctuation.
Unscripted. Unedited. Real."
The one-word prompt this week was HERE.
Now for #concretewords highlight of the week! The writer(s) I'm highlighting this week for #concretewords are:
Maryleigh of Blue Cotton Memory for her piece, Soul Stories in Dust Jackets
Kelli Woodford of Chronicles of Grace for her piece, The Rising
