Friday, January 30, 2015

Balm of Gilead...for the Weight of Emptiness





There is an emptiness that rolls and swallows happiness
In vain our greatest efforts to console its pleas that press
It rushes in a crushing want, crashing against a shore
Where voids of nothingness twist and untwist a weeping core

There is an emptiness that pleads with needs we cannot name
The heaviness of it can weigh the heart with quiet shame
Where days and years and faith and fears meld mutely to create
An emptiness too heavy for flesh fingers to abate

We wallow in its hollow and we wander in its wild
We flounder in the current of a hurt unreconciled
Futile, attempts to succor on our own its groaning dread
The heart can harbor hunger that cannot be fed with bread

There is an emptiness that wealth and words cannot appease
But One will come to us as we call to Him on our knees
He heals the broken spirit, Balm of Gilead, grace-shod
And fills our aching emptiness with love, the love of God

© Janet Martin



6 comments:

  1. I loved this one, Janet. I was talking just this week how we're all born with an empty spot, with an empty soul, that only God can fill. It's like the missing piece of a puzzle. No other piece will work, no other thing.

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    1. thank-you Dayle,
      So true yet still we try...sigh.

      P.s. in case you wondered, this is the poem linking to your posts;

      http://anotherporch.blogspot.ca/2015/01/child-in-reply-to-garth-brooks-song-mom.html

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  2. Oh wow Janet - you've outdone yourself this time :)

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  3. I remember that old hymn - There is a balm in Gilead - and it was a favourite of mine as a teen even though I hadn't accepted Christ. The words spoke to me even then. Blessings. Pam

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    1. I was raised on hymns but this was a new one for me. Thank-you. I listened to it here and oh, it is stunning!!

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BN9JALQRMb0

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    2. I think I'll add it to the post, it is so perfect.

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