March 2019 Writing

Healing

My eye was dim like my heart, mind and body. Then the man with the sparkle in his eyes set them on me. The eyes and words penetrated into who I was.
Then the electric words did a bone scan on me. The nuclear energy infused every bone cell until I bounced on my feet. Thirty eight years of doom were dissolved in his words.
How beautiful are my feet that now bring good news!

Just One.

Look at me. Do not pass by.
I sit here year after year, hoping, praying but no one sees or hears.
I am invisible, but still I wait.
What did I do to be left helpless, ignored and lonely?
What do I have to do to be made whole?
Perhaps one day someone will stop and … and… I don’t know what, so I wait.
Another year and still I sit here, thirty eight years now.
Wait! Someone is talking to me.
He wants to hear my story. He listens.
I expect him to carry on by but he is telling me to stand up, roll away my mat and walk.

He has a way about him
I feel his strength and faith in me.
I will try to do what he says.
Do I have the strength and trust in him?
What is the worst thing to happen, people will still walk by and I will still wait.
But it happens, I can stand
Try gingerly on one foot then the other.
I am walking!
I look to thank him but he is gone.

Just one person noticed me, listened to me had faith in me.
Just one
I will try to be that one for someone else, because it only takes one.

 The Man at the Pool

Waiting by the pool

Years I lay there by the sheep gate pool waiting to be healed.
In the beginning I had such belief and determination to be healed and that sustained me.
I tried so many times to get to the water when it fomented.
Years of failure followed as I lay there; no one to help me.
Sadness overwhelmed me; bitterness grew in my heart, in despair I turned away from God.
Years of self-neglect as courage and strength ebbed slowly as if with each stirring of the pool all hope was washed away, until the stranger spoke.
“Do you want to be made well?”
Did I? No one had asked me that before
Oh to be restored!
Feelings of profound despair, rejection, self-loathing were gone.
“Stand up”
His compassion filled me with such a surge of well-being; I knew I could!
“Take up your mat and walk”
My new life had begun.

Waiting

I have been waiting in this waiting room of life for so long and I think it is making me sicker, angry frustrated and helpless.
I am waiting, hoping, listening to the water, bubbling, stirring, washing over others.
Not me though, never me.
Can’t move
Paralysed by fear, failure, mistakes, guilt, regrets, rejection………self-pity
Year after year, wasted years just lying here
Others given up on me, no one to help me reach this water of life
Thirty eight years of waiting…. for what? for whom?
Who sees me when they look at me what do they see?
I am overlooked, without healing I am doomed to stay here
I started with faith, but the long years eroded that and I am stuck in negative thoughts chaining me down.
The water stirs and within another chance for hope the waiting is taking my life
When you see me and speak directly to my soul
What are you waiting so long for?
All I can say is the familiar rhythm of words that have grown through the years.
No one to help me, someone else gets there before me, never me, I am paralysed.
True statements but in front of him they now sound weak, like me.
Have I become too comfortable in my excuses?
Have I stopped believing?
Doesn’t he understand waiting is so hard?
“Stand up take up your mat and walk.”
I hear the words and begin to make my excuses.
“Get up, Get up, Get UP”
And I feel the river of life stir in my limbs and I move.
Thirty eight years and I begin to move! The waiting is over.
His words are the water of life flowing over me.