Redemption group psalm - the only poetry I have ever written

This is really strange and unusual for me. I have always been uncomfortable with poetry. One the one hand it seems to lack real substance and facts, and on the other it is not as powerful at expressing vivid feelings as is music and other media formats. Yet I wrote a poem. To be fair it was “forced” upon me. So here is the story: A few month back Pastor Scott asked me to go through Redemption Group with my understanding being that he wanted some of the newer leaders to learn better how to council others. I came in mainly with the expectation of learning how to better help others, yet it turned out to be a great rest area for me and served to help me explore where I am in life and what God is doing for me. One of the biggest things I have been dealing with in this season of life is my exit from a “prestigious” role and my desire to still “be prominent” or to please people. This is not something new. I have written about this over a year ago here, as well as more recently here. Yet this RG was very helpful in letting me explore these issues in a community of other church leaders and to feel the love of God expressed through people. At the end of the RG we were to write a psalm to summarize our journey. I wrote three. They were fancy and poetic. They rhymed in all the right places and had proper prose and styles (I think). But they felt so fake, and even as I wrote them I realized I was trying to please people. In anger and frustration I expelled the rawest emotions in me, and these words below came out:

Three poems I wrote

Vented all my creativity

Tried everything to satisfy the hearers

And now it’s just you Lord.

In this glorious silence I’m done trying to please

Or tickle their judgmental ears

Just listen to my simple heart beat

I can rest here.

 

This silence is my shelter

From a world madly inverted

Proving humility with pride

Calling narrow what is wide

 

No more trying; no more running

They can have my badge

I’m not the hero they made me

I’m done playing that part.

 

I have nothing left to prove

You’ve proven it all

And if that means I fall

In their eyes like a crumbling wall

Its ok. I can rest here.

 

Remember how I knew everything?

I had scripted answers

Ambitions, goals, and plans.

I was going to be the star.

 

Now I’m nowhere

In a forest without a map

There are no paths here

Everyone thinks I’m lost

But I’m not.

 

For the first time, I’m found.

I’m meant to be here.

This is the place I’ve been looking for.

Its ok. I can rest here.