The little pile of fallen stones-
Broken altar to my pride
And all I had built on the
Foundations You had laid,
Lies there, desolate, fallen,
Frozen in time like a ruin
Of a place utterly brought low.
How ignorant I was to the
Diligent, persistent work
Secretly going on in my soul,
As it grabbed what was freely given
And repurposed it into an
Image of me, subtly mirroring
The work of the Master, but
Remaining a cheap counterfeit-
Standing proud like an
Emperor with no clothes.
I didn’t consciously set out
To build my own monument,
But in the deeper recesses
Of my unconscious desire
The plans were drawn up
And the work commenced
At a continuous rate, as instinctive
As the muscles which control
The heart and lungs, twitching
Without thought or choice.
What grew up there rapidly
Was the fulfilment of desires
Indulged in the absence
Of true grace and humility,
Driven on by a mistaken belief
That I knew grace and
Understood humility.
Only now, when what was built up
Has been unceremonially
Dismantled – shaken apart by
The earthquake of the revelation
Of truth of who I am,
Can I see that I am impoverished
In my knowledge and understanding
Of grace and humility, and as I look
At the ruins of my ruin all I really know
Of these two pillars of virtue
Is that I know that I don’t know
What I need to know –
That which can only come as a gift
From the One who IS grace,
And who models humility
As a natural expression of
His divine identity and image.
It is He who has gone into
The place of my spirit ahead of me.
It is He who has looked at
The conscious desire of my heart
And seen that what was
Under construction was different –
The wrong shape, and was building
Up as a heavy weight which would
Be chained to me as I became
More enslaved to my pride,
And a building too lofty to be safe
From the risk of falling in ruin.
It is He who spoke into my spirit
And caused an earthquake –
Breaking my spirit and shattering
All that is shakeable so that
Only what is true and pure
Might remain for my edification.
He broke me, not to punish me
Or to humiliate me with the
Shameful truth that I had
Built my own idol.
No – He broke me so
He can rebuild me in His image
To reflect His nature.
He broke me to rebuild me in
The shape of true grace.

Her cold still body
Gave no clue as to
The intensity of the
Pressure which so
Violently halted her
Heart, as it burst
Like a pressure cooker
Blowing its valve
Releasing pressure
And with it draining
Away strength until
No pressure meant
No life, dead. Done.
The irony now lost
On the worrier was
That it was the fear
Of her worst fear
That gradually, steadily,
Built up until her
Body gave up being
Constantly on red alert,
And switched off
Realising that a
Mind of fear has
More power than
A body bent on
Playing the part
Of the worrier.
Everyone could see
It coming, even the
worrier, though she
Was unable to change
A defining pattern
Of her life, where
To worry was to
Be alive – to have
Purpose and something
To occupy the otherwise
Banal existence of
Being ‘refined’ like
An emperor with no
Clothes, always chasing,
Never secure, worrying
To feel safe with insecurity.
The eternal weight loss
Diet of brie mixed with
Cholesterol reducing,
Money wasting drinks,
Seasoned with enough
Salt to turn her liver
Into cured pate, and
Pureed into slurry.
Highlighting the blatant
Inconsistency and lack
Of control, as what she
Ate was eating her,
One blocked artery
At a time, until the day
When the perfect storm
Of fat, pressure and
Worry, finally combined
Like a chemical bomb –
Exploding both the
Myths of denial, and
The flesh which tried
To tell her it was all
A ticking time-bomb.
So she got the last thing
She wanted as the
Last thing to happen
In her life, a fitting finale
To the perpetual
Pessimism and fear,
Obsessed with the most
Unimportant things
From her waking hours
Into the long hours
Of the sleepless nights
Lost to worry, and the
Worry of worrying too
Much to sleep!
Rest in peace worrier –
There’s no point
Worrying now, just
Be still in your death
And let the pressure
Be stopped for us too.