Poetry

loss + gain

/ kmmccaleb / Leave a comment

So many old years ago, you gained a new life. We lost a husband,
a father, a brother, a fellow believer, a hero, a comforter, a biggest-fan, a friend.

You claimed the instant victory won for you by the One we both serve and follow.
We await that victory with each slow-moving day and fast-moving year.

DSC_5548-X2

You serve Him in eternity.
We follow Him in this short, temporary, beautiful, painful span of time called life.

The Life you gained is eternal, golden, peaceful, in a Kingdom that cannot be shaken.
We live out our fragile days in this momentary world, shaken by the unknown.

We see His Hand in sunsets with strands of Gold. You see Him, and walk with Him in Golden Thrones.

You were taken up, your purpose on earth finished, gaining your crown.
Our time with you was done, but we still feel the deep loss, these long-short decades later.

We look to that reunion-day with hope and courage, tippy-toe-expectation,
Wanting so much to see what you see, wanting to walk with you, wanting your touch,
Wanting your encouraging words.

Our wanting is our loss, only to be fulfilled on the Day we join you.
We look to your eternal gain, through our small days,
Embracing the loss, knowing that it speaks loudly to our future gain.

loss and gain

/ kmmccaleb / Leave a comment

With jet-engine propulsion
You send me down the runway
Of your path for me.
With the loss of my own will
And the surrender to your plan
I can say that I now understand.

I understand the sweetness of
Surrender. The breaking of my own will
and the acceptance of your own
ushers in peace, deep peace, and your grace.
Why did I wait this long?

For too long I sought my own path.
I look back and see the carnage
Of my own will worked out:
The skeletons of broken (but forgiven)
Friendships and relationships.
The fist-shaking-three-year-old I’ve been the last couple of years.
The walls I’ve thrown up at people I didn’t want to work things out with.
The fear I was unwilling to let you work through.
The ugly words, the unspoken words.
The years of wishing my life looked differently than it does.

Oh, that you would redeem the time
And I have faith you will.
You will right all wrongs in the end, even,
especially, those I’ve birthed.
You will give words where needed,
you will give courage for the path,
you will heal the wounds and the broken bones I have no ability to heal.
You will give continued grace to accept and submit to this strange path.
And best of all, you take this three year old into your arms,
quieting me with your love and send me forth.

You send me forth on a mission of your choosing
and I accept. I accept at the loss of my own will.
And I gain. As I look back on the miles and years
of lost dreams and hopes and demands and rights
and friends, in surrender to you, I gain.
I gain your peace, your provision and your guiding hand.

Oh Lord, from this middle seat somewhere above mid-America,
take this broken will and do with it what you will.
Make right my wrongs.
As I let go, I gain everything.
For Lord, where else would I go where I would find anything sweeter?

Whisper

/ kmmccaleb / 1 Comment

Rivets of steel, pounded into 

Spanses of metal. Red hot from

Friction and ear-numbing sound. So
Our hearts too oft become. 
 
Persons made and broken by plans 
Secured and failed. Icy cold tendrils 
Of pity and pence find their way in 
Through cracks of blindness and resistance. 
 
An enterprise planned, drawn up, built where 
Man and metal combine in partnership of 
arrogance and confidence. The four meet in
The docks and commence in crashing waves. 
 
 
But the whisper of wisdom is ignored, the 
Cry of caution displaced by fools ears and 
Men’s plans to sail what course he will, of his 
Own making. 
 
Oh for steadfast and unwavering foresight
To see the storm and reset the sails. Oh to
See the icy cold path ahead and turn for 
Warmer seas. Oh for grace to heed the cry of 
Reason when she calls through pounding wind 
And determined course. 
 
May our plans and purpose be not 
So steeled and fixed that we cannot turn 
The mast of our ships to fairer seas where 
Grace and wisdom dance together in 
The dawning Light. 
 

This strange earthly life

/ kmmccaleb / Leave a comment
This is a strange walk, this earthly life.
One of faith and frailty, fears and
failures. You say we’re spirit,
But all we can see are hands and
Skin and bones. You call us to faith,
And hope in the Unseen.

But all we can sense is the
Seen, the heard, the tasted, and the
Touched. You give us faith, and then call
Us to trust in a future that is eternal and glorious.
But all we can feel in these earthly bodies
Are goodbyes and loss
And sacrifice and missing joy. 

You came and conquered. And then left,
Telling us you would one day return. It’s
Been a long time and too many of those
We love have left and gone to you, without a
Word, never to be seen, this side of
Our own death. Yet, you say to have hope.

Hope in the unseen. Dear Lord, we
Are earthly creatures, our physical senses
Far out-pacing the spiritual. You call
Us into the spiritual realm, in surrender,
In faith, and trust and hope. And yet we cannot
See past these hands and skin and bones.

So Lord, have mercy on our skin-bound
Souls, and our weak minds who try to
See the unseen, but are left with a
Sense that all is not as it should
Be or how it will be. Forgive us our
Frailties and our fears. Give us the 
Courage to walk like Joshua, in
Hope that what is beyond our sight is true and
More real than all we can see.

Worry

/ kmmccaleb / Leave a comment

Sitting on a bus back home
I watch the scenery pass. A field
Of round bales, a manufacturing
Plant, the Colorado River, and a
Few cows. They go by quickly, as
The scene changes from big Texas
City to Lone Star countryside.
This morning was busy, between
Customer meetings and calls to the
Vet. The seconds and minutes added
Up, but not as quickly as the items on my
To do list and the thoughts in my head.
This week has been a weird one.
My heart heavy for family, heavy
For friends, and heavy for furry friends.
It seems that worry could easily
Set in and take over any space saved
For prayer and surrender.
Rummaging through old photos last
Night in my hotel room, I came across
One of Jess lifting up a dandelion with
The threads floating off into the bright
background. It struck me that this is how
I want worry to look in my life:
Offering it up to God, watching it flit away
Into the Son’s bright grace.
It’s the offering-up part that is hard.  It
Requires that I pick the worry up, lift
It up, and let go of it. This doesn’t just
Happen, but requires exerted effort and
And willingness to do so. 
I pray that just as on that bright summer
Day on the mountain, Jess lifted up the
Dandelion to the sky and watched it melt
Away, I would offer up this worry
And watch it melt away with each mile
Adding up on this bus ride home.

She gave

/ kmmccaleb / Leave a comment


I hurried down the street

Alison Krauss playing through my earbuds
Stresses from customer demands
And company pressures
Tangling my thoughts and joy.
Why does life have to be so hard?
I thought as I walked to pick up
My meal. Nice boots clicking on
The pavement, new skirt swishing
In the breeze.
How am I going to handle this stress?
Can one person meet these
Demands of boss and customer all
In a day? My eyes on my feet and
The questions taking control.
I look up to cross the street and
Our eyes meet. Her cloudy eyes
In a disfigured face, her limp on
A deformed body. Clothes dirty and
Crumpled, hat askew.
She smiled. At me. We were from
Two completely different planets
Passing at the same second, the
Same brick, the same street light.
She smiled. And she gave.
She gave to me a sign of joy. She gave
Warmth on a cold blustery day. She
Gave from her nothing to me who has
Everything and I took. I took her smile
And sealed it in my heart.
A seal to remember that I received from her
Who had nothing to give. A seal to remind
Me that I always have joy and warmth and
And a smile to give, even if the day wears
Me out. I have much to give.

the whisper of his grace

/ kmmccaleb / Leave a comment

He makes all things new
In the midst of my failure
He raises me above it all

His grace makes small my mistakes
And His mercy overlooks my guilt
I am made new

He asks me to walk away from the mess I helped create
Draws me away by His great whisper
To leave behind the heap
That I am inclined toward

His healing grace a dart into my soul
And His breath washing me clean from enemy’s filth

But I want to go back
To the heap
To the muddy puddle
Forgetting that a King’s playground awaits

Energies directed and spent in focus of the smallness
     I am owed by another
Forgetting the enormity of my dept wiped clean
     by His breath on me
And the higher places to which He beckons
By the whisper of His grace

By the whisper of His grace
I am drawn into His space
Letting go of what I want to cling to

found recently in an old journal, written in March 2011

sometimes hope

/ kmmccaleb / Leave a comment

sometimes hope
strings me along
asks for audacious trust

i find myself
reluctant to hope
a wispy cloud on the horizon

we’re told to hope
for things unseen
in the heavenlies and here on earth

i want to hope
but i don’t
i don’t want to put my heart on the line

sometimes hope
seems a mocking
cruel, disappointing, shallow friend

sometimes hope
calls us into a
vast wilderness of trust and faith

sometimes hope
burns brightly
sometimes barely flickers like a small flame on an old fire.

written for a friend, with echoes from my own heart.

follow

/ kmmccaleb / Leave a comment

I follow Him who helps me exchange a path of fear and hesitation
for a road to skate down, Walter Mitty-style,
the sun beaming on my back.

I follow Him who makes breakfast on the beach,
feeding stomach and restoring soul.

I follow Him who welcomes this elder-brother,
three-year-old-tantrum-thrower
into the party,
out of the cold, into the warmth.

I follow Him who sheds His grace
on me even when I tell Him
I don’t like him much. 

I follow Him who will one day make
everything right and good and
beautiful in its time.

I follow Him who will one day help
these dim eyes see the new city and eternal glory.

obedience + trust

/ kmmccaleb / 2 Comments

I used to think trust was an emotion.
A thought. A pleasant little something. 
Hot-oatmeal-in-your-tummy, warm fuzzies.
It sort of happened on a sunny day, when
Hope felt near and the horizon beckoned.
 
But now I know is it sometimes just
a raw obedience. One foot in front of the other.
Even when you don’t know how you’re going
to do that job. Or let go of that thing you want.
Or say that thing you don’t want to say.

The Sometimes has turned into a Season.
And a season into a year.
And a year into a lifetime.

 
I wonder if these steps, one tiny step after the other,
will take me right to Heaven’s door without a fulfilling of
what I see is best. Will I keep putting my feet forward?
Keep on the path in front of me? When obedience is raw,
weighty, and almost crushing.

Oh that I would carry the weight of trust
with the help of Him who has brought me
here thus far. That I would do this job, and let
go of that thing, and say that word. And let my
heart be beckoned to the next unfamiliar horizon.

Step to horizon.
Horizon to season.
Season to year.