This week we launch our tenth devotional poem. The next five weeks of blog posts will draw from themes in this poem, applying Christian faith to relationships.
Light Hand or Tight Hand?
Light hand holds as only a steward.
Tight hand in idolatry grasps.
Light hand loosely holds, relaxes.
Tight hand fearfully grips, trembles.
˜
Promotion of life released in light grip,
And love’s flower blooms.
Discovery of death in tight grip,
As love’s flower fades.
˜
Light hand relaxes… it knows where
To place its tight hand – on God.
˜
To hold tightly to God and to you,
Such a feat will never quite do.
˜
The paradox proclaims the grip of great
Strength is light hand upon you.
Even so does rest still refrain… the
Tantalizing temptation of tight
Hand upon you returns upon me.
˜
Deceptive Delirium there comes,
That sly “perhaps” – deception’s muse
That tight hand will do.
˜
Then wistful Wisdom’s wind blows my way,
Deception’s cloud no more lingers.
Truth is revealed, faith is released
And light hand I do choose.
˜
Light hand knows confidence.
Tight hand knows fear.
˜
Do we choose the grip of light hand
And the confidence it knows?
To know such a grip is the grasping of faith
In God who has joined us…
The Mighty One in whom “all things are bound strong.”
˜
The choice is yours
and mine –
Light hand
or
Tight hand?
This poem has been adapted from the poem by the same name in, David Trementozzi, Light for the Dark Night: Embracing a Heart of Holy Desperation (Maitland, Fl.: Xulon, 2005).
