Being God's poem

For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10

I am His poetry. --written in the front of Sarah Beth's Bible

We have arrived safely in Kiev, and Marc has safely gone on to Odessa. We are praying that he will receive same-day service and join us here in Kiev tomorrow. That would be wonderful. If not, he will spend the weekend in Odessa without us and return on Monday. After arriving, he texted me to say that we had made the absolute best decision to leave the family in Kiev--John-John could not have done the six hours to Odessa on top of the all night train ride. The apartment we are staying in is pretty nice, with plenty of room (by Eastern European standards--definitely different from American standards) for the four of us. We spent yesterday just hanging out, watching slingbox and relaxing. Oh, and sleeping. A lot of sleeping. Even John-John passed out on the couch.

Sarah Beth said I could just use her Bible on the trip so I didn't have to bring mine, so during my quiet time this morning, I had the unique opportunity to get a little glimpse into the soul of my 16-year-old. She had already told me about the message on Ephesians 2:10, that what our Bibles translate as 'handiwork' is in the original the word for poetry. So we are God's poetry, created to do good works in Him. That really appealed to her. So I wasn't totally taken aback when I saw what she had written in the front of her Bible, because I knew it meant a lot to her or she wouldn't have mentioned it to me. But when I read it...I thought about all the ways I see her being God's poem. Now, you're going to have to excuse me, but I'm an English teacher, and the idea here is pretty awesome to me.

I thought about all the different kinds of poems there are out there. Haikus, sinquains, sonnets, blank verse, free verse--so much to choose from. And because of my friend, Teri's, death, I have really been thinking about the end of my life. Would people say about me the kinds of things they have said about Teri, things I know first-hand to be true? When it comes time for me to see Jesus face-to-face, what kind of poem will He have written with my life? I've decided I'm hoping for a villanelle.

Without going into too much detail, a villanelle is a poem with a refrain. Many of you are familiar with Dylan Thomas' "Do not go gently into that good night," which is a villanelle, with the repeating refrain, "Rage, rage against the dying of the light" or something similar to it. (It's really a much more complex fixed form, but you get the idea.) Anyway, I want my life to be a villanelle, and I'm praying that the refrain God is writing is about His faithfulness. If every stage of my life is a stanza, I want people to be able to see that in every single circumstance I faced in my life, good or bad, God was faithful. I want those who knew me to know that whether I live to be a very old woman or am taken earlier than seems reasonable, my trust in God's faithfulness did not waver. I want my children to be able to say of me that their mother was a woman who trusted God above all else, even when that trust and faith seemed illogical by the standards of the world. I want Marc to be able to say that his wife was someone who trusted in God's faithfulness in the good times and in the bad times. That's the kind of life I'm working toward. Some days, I'm pretty far away from that. And like Paul, I know I will not attain this goal while I'm alive. But also like him, I continue to strive for the goal, longing to live the life Christ Jesus created me to live.

And what kind of poem is God writing in Sarah Beth's life? Oh, my friends...a really beautiful sonnet, one that could be sung by flaming tongues above. I am so proud to be her Mom. If you could know how she has carried herself through this week...well, you'd be very proud of her, too. Wherever you are in the world, I pray that you are aware of the poem God is writing with your life, and that you are not being thrown off-balance by Ukrainian, which is so close to Russian that it's unnerving not to be able to understand it. Blessings to you and yours!

His,
Kellye