Tears in Sodom

This past week, I found my heart was cracked open and I saw the reality of this very broken world that we live in, felt it to my bones. The earth groaned, and I groaned waiting for all the sons of glory to be revealed, for the wrestling against flesh and blood to stop, for peace to reign. I struggle to be me--- the woman I know, who is known---- the one God made plans for long before I sucked in earth's air. Even so, I go forward, sometimes in tears.

Tears in Sodom

Sometimes prayers don’t have words.

They take the shape of tears and slip in rivulets out of tidal pools of glassy eyes.

They flow down to collect salty in corners of the mouth. 

“Oh taste and see that the Lord is good.”

I am the salt of the earth.

Am I the salt of the earth?

Salt tears, sting, and I want to spit them out. 

Because...

I want to be sweet.

I want to be nice.

I want everyone to like me.

But I am grainy and course.

I want the sugar sweet,

What is easy to swallow.

I was made to preserve,

To flavor lives,

To serve up grace-----and truth.

Self-talk mocks when the prophecy is dire. 

Is salty crying for the weak?

Because...

I want to be strong.

I want to be determined.

If I turn back I risk

Becoming a pillar,

A statue memorializing grief.

Even as deliverance lies before,

I risk letting the ‘ayes’ have it.

And if do---- the one who loses will be me. 

My prayers take the shape of tears. 

Stumbling through a salty puddle,

Fire falls behind me.

I don’t look back.