Poetry and valleys

I've been dealing with my past a lot recently. Well, I think its been 6 months or so that Gods been kinda gently pushing me towards this point. Each struggle and valley I've gone through was just one more bit of proof that God didn't really care about me. I know that this isn't true, but it really felt that way. Each time I would ask God why, and I never got an answer. Or maybe I just didn't get the answer I was looking for; I'm not sure which it was. But I do know that if he wanted to fix my situations (past and present) that He is fully qualified to do so. And He never did remove me from them, so must be He really doesn't care about me. Even though every bit of my Bible-referencing head rejected this though, my heart really believed it, and my heart was broken. But still nothing changed. I was still broken hearted over Gods abandonment, but then it became more.

Anger, bitterness, frustration - You said you loved me, God! Were those just words?!? Why? I don't understand...

Even now those feelings come back. But my eyes have been opened over the past week, maybe two weeks. My discussion with one of my co-workers last wednesday, the sermon I heard yesterday, my devotions...all pointed out to me that God uses our valleys to His glory. The absolute worst part is that we seldom can see it at the time and it truely feels like He's abandoned us.

Several times this past week my mind was taken back to a poem I read maybe six months ago. Its funny that now I can see where reading that poem was the starting point to me climbing out of my valley. And I've only read it once in passing, but I could still remember the name of it, and its author so that I could google it again. The author, Terry Anderson, is actually from my hometown of Batavia, NY. He was caputured by Shiites in 1985 and lived for 7 years in captivity in Lebanon. During this time he became a Christian and began writing poetry. He was the last of a group of hostages to be released in 1991.




Stigmata X
No man can ever start anew completely;
he's everything he's ever done
or said or failed to do.
Each bit is added on,
Altering the whole,
But covering, not replacing
what has gone before.
A piece of unfired clay,
he bears the marks
and scars of all his years.
Not just clay, though--
sculptor, too;
he helps to mold himself:
Objects, artist, audience.
Sometimes, though, larger hands--
destiny, fate, karma, God--
take firmly hold and,
wielding fierce events,
risk fracture to hack
and carve away some
awkward, ugly bits.
The final work cannot be seen
until it's fired,
and all fires cooled.
Paul knew: suffering and pain
are the truest ways,
the only ways for some of us,
to draw out that within
which answers to
the purpose of it all.