As humans, our natural response towards difficulties is certainly not to embrace them. Naturally, our goal is to keep ourselves as far away from pain, hurt, disappointment, and sorrow as possible. When we can’t escape hard times, we can feel bitter and even angry. Then, when they do pass, we resent them.

I wrote the poem below in reflection on times in my life like that. Over certain seasons or memories, I had written words like “useless” or “horrible,” and made it my job to get myself as far removed from that state as possible. Have you ever gathered up all your bad times and tried to bury them or prove yourself better than them? Sometimes we get obsessed with being an “overcomer” dancing over the ashes of our bad times.

And it isn’t all bad. There are many ways of processing our lives. But this poem expresses a realization that everything that has happened in my life, in some way served me. Even when I thought it was worthless, when I groped blind, spat in the dirt, and said that it all taught me nothing- it wasn’t true. Even that, over time, served to shape me. All of it- all of life, all of our experiences, they come to make up the person that we are. If we belong to God, then he will use “all things” to make us more like Jesus, in his time (Romans 8:28).

Life Belongs To You

I’m aware that poetry is unlikely to ever make me a popular blogger. However, poetry so often says what it is difficult to put into ordinary language. This is an older poem of mine, and I remembered it after reading this message by John Piper. I realized that he had adequately said what I’d been trying to communicate when I wrote this poem.
1 Corinthians 3:21-23 says So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.”

Reflecting on this passage Piper says:

The world is yours. The whole world. The world with all its negative connotations in these chapters. “God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” (1 Corinthians 1:20). “The world did not know God” (1 Corinthians 1:21). “We did not receive the spirit of the world” (1 Corinthians 2:12). This world. This whole God-created, God-owned, God-ruled, natural, sinful, broken, painful, beautiful, horrible, hopeful world is yours. Not just a part of it. All things. In this frame, Paul caught the entire length of the thunderbolt. You are not the victims of this world. You own it. It is not your master. It is your servant. From the most beneficial beauties to the most malignant cancers, it is yours. Everything in it, and everything that happens on it is working together for your greatest and longest good.

 

Life is yours. Every breath you take. Every beat of your heart. Every chemical transaction in your body. Every day you face. Every night you sleep. Every movement you make. Every word, every deed, every relationship, every accomplishment, every plan — failed or successful. Every emotion that rises, every thought that passes, every book read, every line tweeted, every text sent, every conversation, every gift given, every sin committed. All of it — all your life — is yours. You don’t belong to it. It belongs to you. You are not attached to life. Life is attached to you. Life follows you. Life — all of it — serves you. Forever.”

Absolutely breathtaking words, that can help us to embrace the painful parts of our story and in doing so show respect for and faith towards God for how he was wise to allow them in our lives.

 

All Mine

A bare seed, a kernel of wheat

buried deep and dark beneath,

since sun would scorch with heat-

although

summer seems a better place…

but riches plunged in soil

feed with grace.

 

When I stretched for the sky

I couldn’t see it,

couldn’t know,

my world was worth hard labor;

I was a feather’s width below.

 

But even emerging hurt.

I spat on that ground,

told the dirt

there was no teacher there;

Let my feet rest,

make them sturdy, strong.

A failed, wicked test belongs

buried here;

It served no good

to me that waisted year.

 

But it was mine.

 

Was mine to own

and not to spurn-

I’ve learned that now,

Seen how seeds sprout

where shoots grope blind.

I’ve seen it served me well to die

a bit inside,

how broken pride

and desperation

served me well

to make me small

(as it should be)

and the world big,

and mine;

 

It was all mine.