There are some thoughts that do not begin as words. They begin as a feeling. A weight. A question that refuses to leave. This poem did not begin with a desire to write about the church, sinners, or judgment. It began with a disturbing thought: Why do we fear the smell of someone else's brokenness when we have forgotten the smell of our own? Somewhere along the way, many of us have learned how to clean the outside of the grave while forgetting that we were once buried inside it. We know how to look the part. We know how to say the right things. We know when to stand, when to sit, when to bow our heads, and when to raise our hands. We can wear the clothes. We can speak the language. We can even convince ourselves that we are far away from the darkness we once walked through. But underneath all of it is a truth we do not like to remember: We were all once standing in the same grave. The first thought that came was the image of a grave. Not because I wanted to write...
"The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit." — Psalm 34:18 There is a kind of grief that few people talk about. People expect you to miss your mom. They expect the tears. They expect the holidays to hurt. They expect you to think of her when you hear a certain song or smell a familiar recipe. What they don't expect is that you lose part of your identity. My mom didn't just love me. She understood me. She knew the parts of me that I never had to explain. She knew when I was hurting before I spoke a word. She knew when I was trying to be strong while quietly falling apart. She knew when to laugh with me, when to challenge me, and when I simply needed someone to sit beside me. Most of all... She knew where I fit. That may sound like a strange thing to say, but when someone knows you that deeply, they become an anchor. You never question whether you belong because, with them, you always did. Then one day...