Laughing
Pointing
Unclean!
She pulls the gray drape
Higher
Covering her shame little
Never enough
Shoulders shake
Stones fall
Tears drop
Mercy rain
Her eyes rise
Tentative
Timid
Terrified—
The man that never touches her
Is The One
That touches her most
Free
Clean
She rises
Whole.
I don’t always claim to have all of the answers and this week truly proves that I don’t because all week, I’ve been torn between two extremes. And the two extremes can be found in women from the Bible.
The woman caught in the act of adultery.
I was never an adulteress, but that’s not much comfort to me. In my life I’ve made decisions that have stripped me out of the virginal robes of the Bride preparing for her Bridegroom and clothed me in the tattered rags of dark, soulless nights of faithlessness and infidelity to my Heavenly Husband. And as the world or the enemy or my own conscience drag me naked and bleeding before Jesus, He kneels in the dust and writes me a love letter.
The woman with the issue of blood.
I’ve wanted to touch Jesus’ robe for years, but really, I’ve been standing, terrified, watching from a distance. I know uncleanness. I’m intimately acquainted with pain, infirmity, and fear.
When doctors give up and money runs out and the medicine doesn’t work, how do I find the faith and the hope to elbow through the crowd? And when I get to Him, will He find me worthy of healing?
And so at the end of a week of extremes—of flashbacks and nightmares and the cold hands of doctors, I close my eyes not knowing that I have the answer, but that The One Who Is The Answer hasn’t left me alone until I find an answer.
Today’s post is very raw. And it might not make any sense to you at all, but it comes out of a need to be real with you. To show my open wounds instead of glossing over them and posting a piece of fluff that’s meant to make you think that I’ve got it all together. I don’t. But that’s okay. It’s okay to be where I am– as long as I don’t stay there.
Love to you all,
Sarah
About Sarah Salter
The poem moves, Sarah — almost physically with the way you’ve structured it as well as emotionally. You can feel her shame, fear — and hope. Well done.
Oh, the shame, the sorrow, the guilt lying heavy in the pit of my stomach.
The fresh breeze that comes flowing by, the joy of awareness that comes as my Savior speaks to my heart, “Go, and sin no more.”
That was me at a time of rebellion in my life. Been there, done that, and bowed in humility confessing my sin. I received forgiveness, I was redeemed, my sin no longer remembered.
I’ve said many times that we need to keep our salvation experience fresh. Thank you for helping me do just that today.
Sarah, when healing feels so far out of reach as to be impossible, I remind myself that the Lord will use my raw, bleeding, naked wounds to make me fit as His vessel to minister to those who are raw, bleeding and naked. I live in the hope—the ASSURANCE, not “wish”—that the day of my healing is not so very far off.
Powerful…HUG
Kristi
Praying for you…..I have often felt the shame you speak of. Having waves of it today….hence my FB status
Amazing Grace~ I am the wretch that song refers to
thank you for reminding me that my sins are no more.