Skip to main content

Pass Through Me


Pastor, how do you handle the emotional weight of carrying people’s burdens?

Stories are bullets
Tearing through flesh, rending bone
It’s my job to catch them
And when hit, the kevlar takes the brunt

Yet when people shoot stories
And I emerge unscathed
The gap between us remains
A chasm of comfort divides

I take off the vest, I put it down
Bullets strike
Loneliness, anxiety, and depression
Stories of pain enter and stop

I carry the weight of the sadness
The slugs slacken my steps
Exhaustion overwhelms
I cannot contain this leaden load

LORD, let the stories pass through me
Let them penetrate my walls
Let my borders be porous
Let the stories enter and come out

Let me be wounded twice 
Hurt when I catch the story
Hurt when I let it go
Let me feel the exit wound

Stories begin with you
Stories end with you
In the middle, they may go through me
But you hold and tell them all

For you catch all the bullets 
Every slug stops in you
You carry the weight
Lightening the leaden load

LORD, let the stories exit me
Tales of darkness I cannot carry long
It’s your job to rescue people out of the pit
It’s my job to join them until you do

Stories exit with more than a trace
Bullets leave a hole
The wounds hint at a deeper wound
A deeper story still

Heal me with the scar tissue
That filled your nail-pierced hands and feet
Grant me the new flesh 
You received when you rose

As the nails passed through you
Let the stories pass through me
As each story pierced your heart
Let each suffering reflect your face
Labels:

Comments

  1. Fred G.November 20, 2018 at 2:41 PM

    I saw your earlier version of this and I really admire how you pared it down to the essence in this version. Reading the two versions side by side the earlier version now sounds meandering and imprecise. This one pierces to the heart of the matter. Great revision of a great poem!

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownDecember 14, 2018 at 9:52 AM

    Fantastic blog.Really thank you!I like to read your posts very much. I want to enjoy more and more about your writing. I wish you best things in life.
    free game Toon Cup 2017 Game Break The Cup play Battle for the Galaxy

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownDecember 27, 2018 at 7:31 AM

    thank you a ton for sharing your knowledge!his article is really fantastic and thanks for sharing the valuable post. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading.
    Real Flight Simulator game for kids game Def Island Papa's Scooperia free game to play

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Dad's Review of Passport 2 Purity

[3,100 words, 11 minute read] The sex talk is one of the most dreaded conversations parents anticipate having with their children. To make things easier, an entire industry exists to help parents with sex education. Dozens of books have been written to help parents navigate this treacherous topic with their progeny. One of the best known among evangelicals is called the Passport 2 Purity Getaway package . It is produced by FamilyLife, a division of Cru (former Campus Crusade for Christ) and consists of a five lecture CD package including a journal and exercises designed as a weekend retreat for a pre-pubescent child and his/her parent(s). Passport 2 Purity was not my initiative. Our trip came about because Judy had heard from several home-schooling mom friends how they had taken their daughters on a road trip to go through the CDs. She even heard how a mom took a trip with husband and two sons to through the curriculum. So a couple months ago, Judy suggested we take our two older boy
24 comments
Read more

Asian American Divorce Rate

I can't find recent data. Most of the stuff is at least five years old but by these estimates, the Asian American divorce rate is about 5%. I've got research from 2002 , 2008 for Asian Americans, and 2008 for Chinese Americans. The latest census data do not break out by race. In any case, a 5% divorce rate is about half the national average. Less divorce is a good thing. I would imagine that divorce does not bode well for personal fulfillment and many studies have shown it has a negative impact on children (too lazy to cite all the sources here). Of course, as one source argues, a lower divorce rate does not equate to a healthy marriage. There can be all kinds of abuse, dysfunction, and strife within marriage. All in all though, a lower divorce rate is one advantage of late marriage for Asian American men (and women). However, I believe a lower divorce rate is correlated with later marriage and there is no causation between the two. People who tend to be conservative,
4 comments
Read more

Why Asians Run Slower

My brother got me David Epstein's book The Sports Gene . It is a fascinating quick read. If you're interested in sports and science, it will enthrall you.  I finished it in three days. Epstein's point is that far more of an athlete's performance is due to genetics than due to the so-called "10,000 hour" rule promulgated by books such as Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell and Talent is Overrated by Geoff Colvin (both which are very good). The 10,000 hour rule states that any person can reach expert level of performance in a sport if they devote 10,000 hours of deliberate and intentional practice.  That's a lot of hours. Most people aren't capable of anywhere close. And that's precisely Epstein's point. Someone who devotes 10,000 hours of sport-specific practice is likely genetically gifted for the sport in extraordinary ways AND genetically gifted in their ability to persevere and benefit from practice. Therefore, a person who can pra
4 comments
Read more