Tourniquet

Tourniquet
by Evanescence

I tried to kill the pain
But only brought more
I lay dying
And I'm pouring crimson regret and betrayal
I'm dying, praying, bleeding and screaming
Am i too lost to be saved
Am i too lost?

My God, my tourniquet
Return to me salvation
My God, my tourniquet
Return to me salvation

Do you remember me
Lost for so long
Will you be on the other side
Or will you forget me
I'm dying, praying, bleeding and screaming
Am i too lost to be saved
Am i too lost?

My God, my tourniquet
Return to me salvation
My God, my tourniquet
Return to me salvation

My wounds cry for the grave
My soul cries for deliverance
Will I be denied Christ
Tourniquet
My suicide

* * * * *

Water and fire succeed
The town, the pasture and the weed.
Water and fire deride
The sacrifice that we denied.
Water and fire shall rot
The marred foundations we forgot,
Of sanctuary and choir.
This is the death of water and fire.

--from T.S. Eliot's 'Little Gidding', Stave II

* * * * *

Standing in the rain today in school, some thoughts came to me. I've expanded them a little;

Is rain like God's tears
Washing away the grief
Of haze and dust,
The smoke of sin and fears?
Turning over a new leaf,
Choosing love not lust,
Crucified...
Suicide.

Sometimes when people are hurt, they turn to certain substances for comfort, such as chocolate or marijuana. But I think pleasure is not the way to cure a hurt.

Pain is.

There are some echoes of this in Eliot's poem 'East Coker', Stave IV;

The chill ascends from feet to knees,
The fever sings in mental wires.
If to be warmed, then I must freeze
And quake in frigid purgatorial fires
Of which the flame is roses, and the smoke is briars.

* * * * *

Today's poem is interesting.


Bloated Haiku
by Elizabeth Spires

Minnow, abandon your nibbling illusions. Stop preying on tiny
Imaginations. Swell and grow into the pond's overlord, a fat fish
silently devouring all. Release us from the tyranny of the small!


Dictionary.com defines 'minnow' as, among others:

-> any other fish of the family Cyprinidae, including the carps, goldfishes, and daces.

-> a person or thing that is comparatively small or insignificant.

* * * * *

There is still some grace at work. This is today's Every Day with Jesus Scripture, which I read at home after school.

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us.

--1 John 4:18-19

I am fearful. Therefore it must be that I have not been made perfect in love.

Selwyn Hughes wrote that our worth is in God, for He gives meaning to us through His love. Our purpose is to show this love to others. The lie is that we must love ourselves before we love others or God. The truth of the matter is in fact the reverse: we must allow God to love us, before we can love either others or ourselves.

I believe this. I just don't know how to live it.

Yet the grace of God is still at work somehow.

I don't know how, nor will I ever know, I think.