2020/12/05 She lay alone with pillows cradling her body. Several layers of blanketing warmth cover all but her arms, hands, neck, and face. They absorb tears streaming with the sting of coarsely ground salt pellets from her blue eyes. Staining soft skin with white crusts, remnants of cascading tears seeping into neck crevices, she resists not their intensity. Using sheets and blankets as absorbing sponges, she sniffles while wiping her face and neck. Immobilized, she ponders a poignant thought bound in a web of sadness, not an illusion. Soft, silent words speak no comfort, but her mind stills with the realization protruding from her chest, like a dagger’s gilded handle ornamented with one precious pearl of truth. She feels. What is it? Letting her eyelids fall, she grasps, holds, and winces in lip-biting, hope-filled anguish, slowly pulling with amazement. And then, at that moment, she knows the answer. She feels unloved! This one thing she has not yet encountered in such deep depth during her season of distress and grief astounds. Peace, joy, laughter, and heartache, her companions in adversity acknowledge a secret no longer hidden, flowing to submissive acceptance from a grateful reservoir of faith. She feels unloved, the only way to describe the horrible loneliness she wears, a cloak of haunting invisibility. She considers, ponders, and repeats one simple, astounding fact. She feels the pulsing rhythm of her homeless, seeking heart, unloved, unloved, unloved, echoing an incredulous eerie refrain. Desiring with every ounce of her wholesome essence, a welcoming hearthside wherein to dwell, her heart inflates with hope before exhaling in an exaggerated sigh. She found a harbour twice already, but one, alas, was not to be as she longed and thought. Unloved! Such an untarnished pearl of truth identified when the shell begins to part!
How does this happen? What does love look like in the mirror of my soul? How can I feel unloved? How do I proceed? My heart’s receptors ignite the distressing call that only He knows how to answer. God, in His infinite wisdom, watches, ever mindful of my needs. As I struggle, He knows my desires. His discerning care exhibits itself through an intangible embrace enveloping me and supporting my quaking shoulders to caressingly whisper:
I watch, I hear, I know, I feel, my tears flow for your sake,
Vicki Nicholls © December 13, 2020
I Am the Healer of all ills, hurt, and pain-filled heartbreak.
Remember your faith. Never in vain, I answer your needs,
though sometimes your eyes see not what I lovingly withhold,
only for a time. Your heart in tune I tenderly hold.
I know you! You know me!
You feel my nearness as you contemplatively paddle.
You hear my voice, I know, in the clouds drifting overhead.
Ripples’ sparkling peace while floating atop your watery bed,
the breeze dancing through your hair and the sun lighting your face
all speak my language, for nature sighs, evidence of my grace.
I know you! You know me!
Unloved. You express a solemn recess in loneliness,
a time of intense yearning. You’re reaching for the obvious.
I understand this anomaly within your sincere heart.
Someone to see your burden, a simple word, showing care
would help bear your cross, ease your knees, someone, somehow, somewhere.
I know you! You know me!
Remember? I know you do! Have faith? I know you do!
Believe? I know you do! Hope? You know my promises are true!
Life eternal awaits those who know God and Jesus Christ.
Scrapes and cuts, bruises and scars, all part of the plan for you,
allows me to kiss, disinfect, clean, and heal, making new.
I know you! You know me!
2020/12/13 She knows there are a few who know her and truly loves her, she feels. Some people say they care, but she doubts the extent, for they remain mostly silent in her world. Life’s happenings leave traces of discouraging disappointment as scars. Guarded she is, but sometimes, slowly, the walls crack to reveal a bridge in the making. She loves, or does she? Yes, she loves, though few. She knows God, her Heavenly Father, and His Son Jesus Christ (her Redeemer) love her unconditionally. She reflects on experiences of this past week while visiting at a daughter’s home. One experience, in particular, quenches her thirst with water and the bread of understanding acknowledgment in the form of clouds, sun, ripples, reflections, ducks, geese, seagulls, gentle breeze, sand, and rocks. I breathe the air He provides this new day and feel His nearness. The water calls and I gladly answer the glass-like sheet reflecting the sky above.
I feed and drink freely from the abundance offered, paid in full, in a sacred garden, and then nailed and lifted upon the heavily burdensome cross at Calvary. With a crown of thorns piercing his brow, deriding stares and spitting from strangers standing out among sorrowful followers, he speaks. His life, light, and creative expressionisms satiate my hunger and thirst. I humbly fall at his feet to wipe them with my tears. He is my Savior, Redeemer, and forgiving, forever and always, Friend. My tears abate for a time in this earthly existence. It is okay to cry and plead, to weep and mourn, and then to rejoice with a superlative, exquisite brightness of hope.
=>How do you feel when you read these words of John the Beloved Apostle of Jesus Christ?
13 And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they?
14 And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
15 Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them.
16 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.
17 For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.
=>Which words fly right into your heart like a dart hitting a target’s bullseye?
1 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.
2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.
4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
6 And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.
7 He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.
=>How do you feel upon reading these verses? I would like to encourage you to read and ponder a second time. What do you feel?
Being loved and feeling loved are different, magnetic poles trying to touch each other in my heart. Knowing and feeling loved by my Father in Heaven and His Son, Jesus Christ, is exquisitely comforting. I am deeply indebted, with inexpressible gratitude, for my relationship to Deity. I am! I know! However, feeling unloved while experiencing life’s happenings in this mortal sphere of wilderness voyaging is like trying to swim in the desert. With scorching heat firing through every layer of skin, I swallow mouthfuls of sand, symbolically becoming a virtual timepiece. I need to feel the cooling touch of humanity. I need to feel loved. My tears will be wiped dry, and my scars will read like a warrior’s magnificent story of feelings.
Life happens . . . so do Feelings. What do your feelings look like in the mirror of your soul?
Your post was an interesting one. You’re a deep thinker for sure, far more than myself. Your one comment about feeling loved and being loved being different gave me food for thought. I enjoyed you also sharing the scripture about God wiping their tears away and there being no death. That is certainly very comforting and brings me hope. May the Saviour being peace and love to your heart this Christmas season!