Thistles and Blossoms

1

A Message to My Reader

Life is never fair. It is always challenging. No matter how much we scream, rant, and rave we cannot escape the difficult times. I was born into a military family. I have had many days when I despised life and had no desire to get out of my bed. I spent a tremendous amount of time wishing I could die. Fortunately, my wish did not come true.

Just recently, I accepted the realization that I have a choice in how living looks. On any given day, I can choose to be sad or joyful. I can give into my pain or claim power to overcome. I decide if the day is great or dreadful. I alone can choose to promote gloom and doom, or contentment. No one can take away our choice on how we react when life happens. Going forward with this new understanding that I have options, I choose to look for the sunshine. I will allow the rain to sooth my soul and wait for the music to start again. I will accept tears when I am sad but refuse to allow my sadness to dictate the way I interact with those around me.

These poems come from my heart and are a result of the struggle I have had trying to get to the place where I can make sense of my own ‘thistles and blossoms’. I have concluded that I will never be able to make sense of a plan that was created by an omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent God. He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning, and the end. I do not have to be the one to figure things out because God figured it out in the beginning. All that is required of me is to learn about Him, love Him, and to have a relationship with Him. When I do that, my life makes sense in the design that He created. No one can tell me I should have done this or question why I did that because at the end of the day, God already knew about it, and was there before it happened. He already worked it through His grand plan for His creation.

I pray these poems will speak to you about your life.

2

A Prayer for the Reader

Dear Lord,

I pray for anyone who reads the words on these pages, that they will see You in all of them. I pray they will feel the power of Your Spirit, because You breathed life into me, and You gave me these words to put down on paper.

I pray blessings for the reader and a greater insight into the generous love You bestow upon Your creation and Your children.

Lord, I pray that You will become the father they never knew, a mother with tender mercy, and that each one will decide to allow You into their heart. All they must do is to accept You with all their heart and allow You to be the Lord of their life. Thank you for everything I have learned, because I was privileged enough to have the freedom to learn about You.

In Jesus Precious Name,

Amen

3

The Journey

4

No Flowers in the Abyss

I circle the edge of the abyss.

One wrong step and I will not miss.

I will plunge into an empty dark chasm.

depressing enough to stifle all enthusiasm.

I plan to sit with this chaos for a time

until the violent storm in my mind

engulfs me and I have had enough.

Then I will make my way off this bluff.

5

The Beauty of Blossoms

God Filled our world with flowers to show us grace and beauty, yet their colorful, fragrant loveliness is not all there is to see.

Each blossom of each flower is as distinct as all the stars and hidden among their precious buds are blemishes and scars. The blossoms hues and colors obscure the traumas and flaws and masks the imperfections, so they are noticed not at all.

We only observe the splendor as we embrace the entire view and focus on the loveliness to find a sight