give and give (a love letter)

give me your
meager muchness, your
scant significance, your
finite faith

I Am the One Who Makes
abundance, the kind
you only dream of
in some locked-away-tight
room of your soul

I Am the One Who Reveals
reality, opening eyes
wide, sharp as an eagle’s
those same weary lids
that squinted in the blinding lack

give me your
shaken-brave hands, your
open-endless ambition, your
pressure-grown precious stones

I Am the One Who Forms
you, sees how you formed
yourself in the dark spaces
a hand warm in the nights
always steady to hold

I Am the One Who Leads
you gently through, be it
ravine trudging or hilltop running
come walk with the easy-yoke giver
the never-using, never-discarding partner

give me your
depths of desire, your
burning needs, your
generations of pain

I Am the One Who Moves
in power through tempest-
battered past and cloud-blurred future
we stand firm, a loving embrace
come what may into the present

I Am the One Who Gives
good things, that you may
rest secure despite the world’s raging
we go along together
boldly onward to a new world

This poem felt fitting for a weekend where we celebrate abundance and gratefulness. Read it as a letter from God, an invitation to bring all that feels meager or hopeless in the world, those parts of your life that are longed for but unformed.

This poem weaves together many biblical themes, a few of which I’ve shared below. Comment with others that stand out to you!

In the Gospels, Jesus acts out the abundance of God on behalf of those who lack. His actions are an invitation to understand God’s character in a new way; not just a rule-giver or an absent father, but One who gives good gifts to those who ask him. We give our wounds, needs, and desires to him in an act of faith that he can turn it all for good.

God sees everything we’ve been through and invites us to surrender what we created in ourselves as we made the best of it; the longing for significance, the self-reliance, the repeating scripts. He is able to bring peace into our present distress, and it is more than disengagement or illusion!

I called this poem a love letter not because it is full of sweet nothings, but because it is an invitation to experience the grounded, faithful love of Jesus in the midst of every circumstance.

Whatever you are bringing with you this holiday season, Jesus welcomes you to bring it to him. He welcomes you to bring yourself as you truly are and experience him as he truly is.

©2024 Jacqueline Tisthammer. All rights reserved. 

Photo by Tom Barrett on Unsplash