In February of 2025, I experienced the onset of a persistent and severe pain (in addition to my current chronic illness) that remains a mystery. The pain since then can get so severe that I'm in debilitated in bed for weeks at a time. No doctor or specialist or imaging or test has a clue as to what has crippled me and diminished my capacity, but God does. And it's enough that He knows. This song was written as a lament, confronting the grief of my shrinking abilities over the last year and a half. Because of the pain's nature to leave me bed-ridden everywhere I've gone since last February, I wrote a poem called "Ceilings" because what I've looked at most has been ceilings. I've been to 6 places (2 countries) where I've stared at the ceiling for days since it all began and this is a poetic chronicling of the journey through this pain.
[Montana]
Sunflower petals beautify wooden slats
Beneath lay a shrinking version of me
Icy frost, chilling thoughts I don't want back
Montana began this undoing of me
[Nepal]
Traces of grief stream to the pillow case
Is this really how I'm to do ministry?
A million times I've tried to sketch your face
While the others got to be your hands and feet
[Colorado]
There was no solace in its familiar trim
Yet the shape of birds on the ceiling remained
They had been my treasured tokens of Him
We'd romanticize we would too fly away
I don't have to convince you to do good to me
But I had to stop and consider what you meant by safety
I haven't come to terms with this weakening
But at your beckon my fists start loosening
[Africa]
Expectations of my own suffocating me
Blind to His goodness in His sovereignty
The African sun wasn't what burned through me
But it was losing control of my safety
[YWAM]
A new home and a new low to sink in to
But for my inward soul it's been a hospital
There's exposing, lamenting, and healing to do
I've clutched His hands when it's been unbearable
[Ohio]
Silhouettes of flowers speckle its surface
Stains, constellations to trace, distract me
But forced to acknowledge it's different now to serve Him
I wish someone could see how this scares me
I don't have to convince you to do good to me
But I had to stop and consider what you meant by safety
I haven't come to terms with this weakening
But at your beckon my fists start loosening
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