The Man I work for…

Riding off into the sunrise

Heading toward the day’s surprise

Working for men so broken

Hurts hidden if left unspoken

 

Cages contain

Consequences

Of choices remain

Just a history of pain

 

Incurred

Caused

Lives ended

Lives paused

 

Such

Dark deeds

Done in passion

Or greed

 

I arrive

With

Judgement suspended

With

Grace extended

By the Man I work for

Put here to teach

To reach a place of forgiveness for crimes for wrongs for pains received, self deceived, pain progression, passion, obsession. Pain perceived pain given, pain as a means of living, the cycle goes on the pain is spread.

Until

hearts stop

and forgive instead

 

 

Well… that might be the darkest poem I’ve ever written about a sunrise…. dark but hopeful.

Maybe that’s why sunrises remind me of my work.

Work with men who look to needles, alcohol, pills, to drown pain. Men who have done such dark things to be able to keep drowning the pain. Men who have done such dark things while they were drowning. Sometimes it is a challenge for me to forgive them, even when they are earnestly seeking God’s grace. I find it easy to suspend judgement and to work closely trying to help the guys get a better future.  I know that God will forgive just as he has forgiven me. Maybe I don’t feel like I have the right to forgive them, because they haven’t harmed me. Maybe that’s why I have trouble forgiving myself, because all the harm I had done to others I don’t have the right to forgive myself. It’s something I struggle with.

The really funny thing is that when someone has done me wrong I forgive easily. The harm that was done to me still makes me angry, but I have forgiven my abuser and pray for him often.

The guys I work with have shown me about healing and recovery and about the sunrise and promise of new beginnings, and truly they are helping me as much if not more than I am helping them….

 

Matthew 6:14-15

For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.