A Poetry Gift for All My Girls ~ Daughters, Sisters, Mommas, Aunties and Nieces
Does anyone else want this to be the fix, the thing that makes us okay in a room of one hundred, or one? Or is it just me whose mind searches for how to be at peace? To be received. To be acceptable. Tired of wondering who else is looking. Who else sees like I see? Is there really cause to go back and plunge for the truth? Must I? Must we?
“Momma,” I cry, “help me.”
“I am here my darling, but I don’t know how to help.”
I dig in the sand and I dig and I dig. I watch the waves crumbling in and pulling out. And I wonder if this really is the way.
The digging has caused an itch. A long-ago feeling in a nighty, laughing and twirling and it is just little me – smiling and beckoning me to come back. I just don’t know how to get from me to her. So many things have stretched between us I can hardly remember what she was like. What caused her to smile so easily and why was she shy? Did the safety become a net of trappings? What was meant to be relationship reached heights that I couldn’t give. What was meant to be love was lost in manipulation. What was meant to be freedom formed into a book of rules that taught me how to judge.
How did we get here, little one, the same but so different? I look and sense the weight of the time between us – me so wise with all that I’ve learned, Ha! And she returns gaze with innocence and absolutely no agenda. She is good. You are good. I am good. Get back to that. Get back to that girl at all cost.
So I lift my hands and release my pain. I lift my hands and receive my name. She sings to me a little made-up song, “You are a daughter of the King, a daughter of the King, a daughter of the King.”
The work, it lies before me, lying buried underneath. Layer upon layer of time – learning what it looks like to be good. Above all, look good. Wiser voices said, “Here, wear this bangle – it looks better on you than her. Here, wear this locket – she’s not as good, not as nice, not as pretty. Put on this golden ring – you are so much better now.” Together, we dig and begin to understand. Little girl, with not one ornament, and me covered in fine, fake jewels. In time and time and time the tides changed her to me.
She removes my rings for she is going to teach me how to be free. She assures, “No need to figure out who you’ll be in the end. That time has not yet come. Just for today, be the girl with a bit less gold.”
He stretched out His arms to set me free. Then I buried and covered up, never understanding, never healing, never learning any different. “Oh that one is done,” I said, covered in pearls. But He missed the little girl in me and He called to her with His laughter. I ask Him, “What does it really feel like to be free? May I be the little girl who stares out at the wide, open waters?”
Will she dare go running in? Dare she skip in the waves and let all the false truths simply wash away? Dare she? Dare she? Swirling and twirling within the waters for I am becoming she. She who He first made me to be. The very one He continues to call out onto the water – to dance. I look back towards the shore and watch the jewels float away.
God’s business is putting things right; He loves getting the lines straight, Setting us straight. Once we’re standing tall, we can look Him straight in the eye. ~Psalm 11:7 MSG
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