Outside the Storm Comes

Outside the storm comes

And I sit in silence.

Outside the wind howls

And I am fascinated.

I ask, “Let Your Spirit come,

Come like a wind to my soul

But not like that wind.

That wind howls

And blows and

shakes things violently.”

To unstick this inner turmoil,

To paste it onto nature,

Would look much like the fierce gusts outside.

And yet

I sit here, in silence.

And yet I sit here in

Silence.

Peace.

Peace that passes all understanding

Yet understanding

Though the wind blows roughly without

It whispers gently within.

The peace comes not from the storm

But in spite of the storm

And is magnified

       In the blessed contrast.

Shake these unholy things

From my drooping branches!

These unholy, clinging, lifeless forms,

crumpled as they are cut off from

the life source.

In my earnestness to please You

I ask for agony

Yet agony

Must be endured

Though inflicted gently

Lovingly

Your hands shaping me

Removing every dead leaf

Through all the storms

So I may bud

And blossom

And be ever so beautiful.

For now

I am

Standing

Completely naked

Arms stretched
to Heaven

When You live
in my heart.