I live for you, Creator.
You came to my call when I had
nothing at all.

Looking for small crack rocks in the carpet.
Maybe one fell off the table.
Just one more beer.
One more cigarette.
One more line
before I go into that merciless dream world.

I had nothing
at all.

Your love came rushing in like a gust
of teary-eyed grace and blew away
all the pain,
all the hate
I held for myself.

The world told me I was worthless.
You told me I was your warrior;
told me to stand up again.
To live again.

And now all I see is you.
These sacred memories of all you did for me,
all the angels and gifts you sent
to help me home,
they have kept me sober for six years now.

I walk out the door light as a feather,
knowing all I need is you.

I was a vacuum, sucking up the world’s fleeting high and
never getting full.
Now I am the sun.
I find fullness in giving this blazing light inside me to all of Earth.
Your love is the star inside me.
These warm rays are not of me,
but are your truth and grace.

I dreamt I was eating both nickels and skittles.
Greed and sugar highs
cannot compare to this water that you are.

You gave us all we need.
All we need.

I was addicted to drugs and the smell of money.
A hustler in the land of shattered hearts and broken mirrors.

Could I see myself again?
The way you see me?
Your precious child?

Gently, over a span of years,
you carried me home to myself.

How surprised was I to find I was actually beautiful, like you?
That I actually had great value?
That each of us does, was
born with it?

How surprised was I to find I had not soiled myself,
but that the world put me through a battle and tried to kill me,
and I survived,
a veteran of a war still raging against women,
against so many precious sisters.

We pray for forgiveness not knowing
we are the ones who need to forgive others.
That we have done nothing wrong,
but have had wrong done to us?
That we’d rather hate ourselves,
than succumb to hate for others.

You can love yourself and this whole cruel world, my sister.
You can do this, my brother.
We can all do this, my people.

Here to tell the tale.
Healed of my insatiable desire to consumer nicotine and marijuana and beer and meth and MDMA and all those seductive swamps of oblivion.

All I need is You
and a chance to give what you have given to me.
Your love still brings me to tears,
and I live to give others a chance to feel it too.

Here to tell the tale.
The world reads my scars like Braille.
They tell a story of the unconquerable prayer.
The story of a heart that wouldn’t stop beating.
The story of the weaponry of forgiveness and self-love.

We hold fast to this precious love you have for us.
All it took was this decision that I was ready for help and
you came storming into the lower rungs of hell to find me.
You left no stone unturned as you searched for me in the night.
You broke down every door between us.
You held me tenderly until I could see again.

Now that I can see, You are all I see.
The center of every action and
it all makes sense now.

I could step out the door with no wallet or backpack
and have everything I need:
your love and this chance to serve your children.

We seek refuge from this fear.
This fear that we have failed.
That we are failures.
We hide inside of materialism,
drugs, alcohol, caffeine, work, or whatever it is.

I was sent to say that you were never evicted from
the Creator’s house of refuge.

You have done nothing wrong
and even if you did, Creator is forgiveness
so come.

Come inside by the fire of the love
we will have for you forever and always,
precious child, come under Her wings
and be held.