Sinking
by: Linda M.P. Carlson © copyright/2001 all rights reserved
I swim up from the bottom.
Looking straight above me..
Seeing what looks like sunlight
Tickling the surface of the sea.
I'm passing through monstrous tide pools
And trying to stay focused on the outcome ... the escape.
From the depths of despair.
From the crushing weight that wishes nothing more than to pull Me under in the wet grip of tears shed.
In the battle for breath and sight at the surface,
I ponder where I am
And where I just came from, And I wonder if I'm lost.
Am I lost? A tiny speck in the endless ocean waters of weeping? Center of never-never land, my only bed?
With no comfort to be found.
I try to list upon my back, and just casually take it all in.
But the enormity of it all stands to become too much
Without so much as a life-preserver.
And I find myself sinking ... once again.
Shall I give in to the vastness of the swell? Shall I breathe and Just go down?
I think not ... For I may have yet enough strength
For one more try.
Shall the waters of struggle that I flail against, gather round and overtake me?
Life is the swelling tide from which there is no escape
Without struggle.
Faith is the strength that keeps this head above the waves.
God is the rescue.
In the midst of exhaustion, in the hopelessness of drift.
When night falls and fear becomes the ocean in which I flounder.
And when these eyes so swollen see no promise of starlight
In the deepest, blackest torments ...
When life ebbs away without so much as a whimper.
And with the water now stilled and glassy,
A strong cutter approaches
With awesome power and purpose ...
To rescue the perishing, half-dead soul, which has
Not an ounce of courage left to fight against
Such great odds.
And I see the long arm of deliverence reach
To pluck me safely,
Into the confines of it's care.
And once more ... delivered, I trim my sails
To set out to sea again -
With the morning mists rising in the
New day to come.
With the cutter but a few knots behind,
In wisdom waiting.
Determined.
Full well knowing all the while, that He will find me again
In the vastness of life,
In the terrors of the seas
Of pain and sorrow
Sinking
Yet again.
=•= =•= =•= =•= =•= =•= =•= =•=
The constant unrelenting pain of Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfunction and Fibromyalgia make for some
pretty rough sailing on the seas of life. My constant throughout the over quarter of a century of illness, is the
God I came to know when I was 28 years old. I know deep in my heart that for me, I could NOT have lived these years w/out that constant in life. Without the knowledge that there is one greater than myself to pull me up when I just KNOW I am going down for good.
And although the years grow even harder as time wears on,
and other illnesses plague me along the way, I still KNOW where the strength will come from when the navigation becomes overwhelming and out of control. The captain of the cutter is steady and sure and dependable. And THERE always!!! And I know He always will be, even in the worst of storm-tossed life. -LMPC
I first published this online at: SafetyNet Support Community in 2002.
Do not copy or reproduce without written permission.
