People Move Me

I wonder if I could take away the furrowed brow, that tells me that you're trying to conquer this world with the burdens on your shoulders.

I wonder what I could do.

You're lost in an abyss, fighting the temptations alone, and I'm here on the other side and well, you're barely known to me. But that doesn't mean that I haven't been sleepless, that my pillow hasn't been covered in tears.

There's something about you.

Tears well up in my eyes, because I knew before you told me, that you were struggling.

Sometimes, I'd give anything for intuition not to befriend me, just once.

Cause, there are times when I know you're hurting and I'm powerless to change anything.

For years, it's been this way.

I meet the people behind their names and I'm overcome.

I'm in awe of the love that rises up within me for strangers. I long to know their stories. I long to feel their pain with them.

My fingers caress the keyboard to carry out the emotions I feel and penn the words, meaningless to many, it's all I know. But sometimes, a blank document seems to understand me the best.

The sage ones tell me not to take on the pain of others, to ignore their problems, to think about myself. But the blank document doesn't fight back. The quiet times spent with Jesus, remind me that I'm blessed with this burden for a reason, unknown to myself. That sure, it's heartbreaking, but I shouldn't ignore it.

And so here I sit, and I think of the boys, the survivors of depression, that awakened a sense of love in me, I think of the men, who've lost themselves to loneliness and addiction, and I long to fight for them.

I think of the women, skin-stained and wrinkled from the love of the Sun, and I long to take the burdens off their shoulders. I think of those darling ones, that'd do anything to cover up their scars and hide behind the mantra, all is well.

I long to sit with the bruised and battered, hand clasped in mine, and a cup of coffee in the other.

I long to pour love over their loveless hearts, speak truth over the piles of lies, and guide them out of their messes.

But then I have to reckon with reason and the truth to everything, I'm not the fixer. 

I can't fix that boy-man, lost in a field of loneliness and addiction. I can't stand him up on his feeble, trembling knees, but I can kneel at the throne, with his name on my tongue and surrender.

I can surrender him over to the Fixer of souls, the Keeper of hearts.

I can't carry that skin-stained woman home and erase the abuse that's left her forever changed. But I can  quietly give her over to her Maker, and remember that He alone, can save her.

I can't feed every hunger child and house all of the homeless, but I can fall to my knees and pray for the nameless. I can pray for their stomachs to be filled, their souls to be housed, and the lost to be found.

God's the fixer.

And for some crazed reason, He's given me eyes to see people in a different light. A light that sometimes means, I can't stop thinking of people, unknown or known to me. A light that means, I feel their hurt in ways unfathomable to me.

And so, today. The boy-men are on my heart, that they might conquer addiction, once and for all. For the women, with their little girl dreams, that they might feel worth and love to the core of their being and the corners of their souls. My prayers go out to the nameless that I've seen on the street corners. My prayers are with those that I have stumbled upon on Twitter, the hearts that I've yet to meet in person.

Because God made me to love people.

So I will love people.

I will hurt with them, and for them.

I will love them until there's nothing left of me.