Tag: poetry

Other Blogs by Linda & Bryan

A Place where His Light Shines Bright

Linda L. Kruschke

Linda writes candid memoir and fearless poetry, and delves into hard issues others tend to avoid. She is also a sexual assault survivor and a recovering lawyer. She wants you to know God’s redemption and healing are just a story away. Because she struggles at times with depression and chronic fibromyalgia pain, she shows compassion to others who do as well. God often teaches her important lessons in everyday events and she shares those lessons with her readers. She publishes a monthly email newsletter that you can subscribe to here.

  • anotherfearlessyear.net – A hodge-podge of poetry, essays, recipes, and more, started in 2009 on a whim as a place to share God’s truth, love, and grace.
  • themighty.com – Linda’s corner of a community of people who struggle together with chronic and mental illnesses, encouraging one another to keep moving forward.
  • anchoredvoices.com – A place for women to use their words and creativity to point each other to the God who anchors the soul. Linda is the resident poet. Guest submissions encouraged.

Bryan Lowe

Bryan is dedicated to serving broken Christians through a message of grace and discipleship. His special focus is ministering to mental illnesses and other disabilities. He has been diagnosed with Bipolar disorder and Lewy Body Dementia. God has called him to write and encourage after 35 years of full-time ministry. He was ordained as a Pastor in 1996.

Bryan’s Testimony–“A Savior of Crazy People“

  • gospels101.com A fresh and different look at the people in the Gospels whom met Jesus Christ face-to-face. A new perspective that will make things become alive for the reader.
  • redletterstudy.com A walk with Jesus through the “red letters” of scripture, examining the words and miracles of Jesus Christ. In many Bibles his words are in red, that is the thought behind this blog. It’s also a devotional study with simple entries that are short, and hopefully a blessing.
  • parables101.com This is a devotional look at the parables Jesus used and the Kingdom insights that explain the way it meets us.
  • songsstudy.wordpress.com Considering the love of Jesus for your soul. Short devotional posts that survey the Book of Song of Solomon, passage by passage.

“There has never been the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears.“

Philippians 1:6, The Message Bible

Messy Presents: A Christmas Poem for All Seasons

We want our presents in pretty paper
All wrapped up in a shiny neat bow
We want our faith to be the same
So our doubts and struggles never show

Yet the greatest gifts aren’t neat and tidy
Like the manger birth steeped in blood
A child born like any other babe
With the addition of dirty stable mud

And Christ’s willing sacrifice on the cross
After flogging caused welts and spit adorned
The bleeding brow of the King of kings
Ringed by crowds who mocked and scorned

Each trial and loss we face in life
Can draw us closer to the God we need
If we don’t bury the doubts that rise
But seek the gift each death has freed

Open the messy presents He gives
To find healing for all of life’s woes
Remember when you grieve the most
The Babe born to die for you knows

For more Christmas poetry, check out my latest poem on Anchored Voices blog. It’s called My Favorite Name.

Melancholy Me and My God

In early November, I went to California for a writers retreat. There were only four students and the woman leading the retreat. I learned so much and hung out with a few other wonderful writers. And yet, the poem below is what I wrote the first night after our opening session.

The next day I read it to one of my new writer friends, a woman who has been on this writing journey for a lot less time than I have. She was touched because she had been feeling inadequate and that the rest of us were so much more accomplished than she was.

I do love when God allows me to remember the dark night of the soul in a way that brings cheer and blessing to others.

Why so downcast, Oh my soul?
I understand the psalmist's plea.
Here I am with new friends of gold
But feelings of sadness needle me.
Am I just a fraud pretending to be
One who has something worthwhile to say?
When truth be told, or a lie of old,
Never will I point to God's way.
How I feel runs hot and cold;
Now I am weak when once I was bold.
Powerless and useless are words I hear
Echoing deep in my mind as fear.
Wounds that run deep still bleed
I know they're not true, never were.
But still, still these words Oh Lord.
You are the truth, the life, the way.

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