I Gave Myself Chocolate

I gave myself chocolate today

not out of indulgence,

but out of necessity.

Because my heart has been wandering

through corridors of unanswered affection,

knocking on doors

that never opened long enough

for me to enter.

I sat across from myself

and asked the question

I have avoided for years:

What if no one ever comes?

The silence did not lie.

I have yearned

God, how I have yearned

for that singular miracle

of being chosen

without persuasion,

without performance,

without proving I deserve to exist.

But yearning has returned to me

like an echo in an empty cathedral

magnificent,

and unbearably hollow.

I sought love sincerely,

with unclenched hands

and unguarded hope.

Yet I met rejection

in its many disguises:

polite dismissal,

careless neglect,

and sometimes

words so cruel

they still live under my skin

like splinters time refuses to remove.

There are insults

that rearrange your reflection.

There are disappointments

that teach your heart

to whisper instead of sing.

So fear grew.

Not dramatic fear

but the quiet, intelligent kind

that says:

Stop looking.

Protect what remains.

You cannot bleed forever.

And I listened.

Part of me no longer wants to search.

Hope has become exhausting.

Expectation feels dangerous.

Because every attempt

has cost something

dignity, confidence,

a small fragment of innocence.

And yet…

I am still here.

Still breathing

through the ache of absence.

Still carrying a heart

that refuses extinction.

So today,

I bought chocolate.

A simple act.

A sacred act.

I unwrapped it slowly,

as though I were opening

a gift from someone

who finally understood me.

And then I realized

I was.

I celebrated myself today.

For surviving loneliness

that could have hardened me.

For enduring loveless seasons

without becoming bitter.

For continuing to wake up

when sadness asked me not to.

For loving myself

when no one else volunteered.

Yes, I still long to be loved.

That truth trembles inside me

like a fragile flame.

I still wonder

what it would feel like

to belong to someone

who is not afraid to stay.

And sometimes

I fear

I may never know.

But today

I chose something radical:

I chose me.

I tasted sweetness

and allowed it to mean

that my existence

is already worthy of tenderness.

So if love never arrives

the way I imagined

I will not collapse.

Because I have learned

to sit with myself,

to comfort myself,

to remain.

Today,

I gave myself chocolate

and in that quiet moment

of self-recognition,

I discovered

I am not as alone

as I thought.

Is Anything Too Hard for the Lord?

Is anything too hard for the Lord,

Whose voice clothed chaos with order,

Who spoke into the womb of the void

And light obeyed without delay?

Is anything too hard for the Lord,

Whose hands measured the oceans in mercy,

Who weighed the mountains with justice

And still stooped low to number our tears?

He is Love without shadow or limit,

A fire that warms and never consumes,

A Father whose heart breaks for the broken,

Yet beats with power that shakes the earth.

Is anything too hard for the Lord,

Who parts seas with a whisper of will,

Who makes dry ground out of despair

And writes deliverance into history?

He is Mighty in battle and gentle in touch,

The Lion who roars, the Lamb who bleeds,

The God who crushes chains like dust

And calls captives by name into freedom.

Is anything too hard for the Lord,

Who turns graves into gateways of life,

Who speaks resurrection into dead bones

And hope into hearts long buried in fear?

His mercy runs deeper than our failures,

Longer than nights of endless regret,

A river that never runs dry,

Flowing even where faith feels thin.

He forgives with hands still scarred,

He heals with compassion unearned,

He restores what time and sin have stolen,

And crowns the weary with grace.

Is anything too hard for the Lord?

Ask the storm that bowed at His command.

Ask the stone that rolled from the tomb.

Ask the sinner who walked away redeemed.

From the altar of pain to the throne of praise,

From the ashes of loss to songs of joy,

He remains the same, faithful, able, supreme.

No burden too heavy,

No darkness too deep,

No wound too old,

No prayer too late.

Is anything too hard for the Lord?

No.

For nothing stands beyond His power,

Nothing escapes His love,

Nothing survives His mercy.

He is God

Mighty to save,

Faithful to deliver,

And forever worthy of trust.

At the Door of Your Heart

I spoke my truth not to bind you,

But because the heart, when full, must speak.

What I offered was not a demand,

Only a confession

Pure, deliberate, and sincere.

If my words arrived before their season,

I pray they do not bruise our friendship,

For I treasure it

Not as a consolation,

But as something already complete and beautiful.

Your presence in my life matters,

Whether love blooms or not.

Yet hear this, gently:

I have not turned away.

I stand at the quiet door of your heart,

Not with force,

Not with impatience,

But with reverence.

I knock not with noise,

But with constancy.

With kindness.

With time.

Knowing that doors are not broken into

They are opened when the soul is ready.

And if that door never opens,

Still, I will honor the house it protects.

Still, I will value the friendship it shelters.

Still, I will respect you, wholly.

This is my promise:

No pressure.

No resentment.

Only truth,

And a heart willing to wait or to remain a friend. 

From What Was to What Will Be

We stand at the lip of midnight 

breath held like a benediction,

the old year folding itself into a pocket of memory.

Goodness and grief have come in equal measure:

gifts wrapped in light, lessons wrapped in ache.

Thank you, I murmur to every bitter hour and sweet hour alike,

for each taught me how to steady my hands, how to pray when the night was long.

Tonight I release the worn-out maps of doubt,

the debts of worry, the small betrayals of fear.

I lay them gently on the altar of last year,

and watch the embers of what was burn bright and teach.

I am grateful for the doors that opened,

for the voices that stayed, for the hands that let go 

all sacred teachers on a strange and tender road.

Even sorrow, sober and stern, disciplined my heart to hope.

Now, a new road unfurls like scripture yet unread,

blank as first snow, humming with possibility.

I step forward with cautious courage, with a laugh tucked into my pocket,

and a prayer on my lips: that mercy will walk beside me, steady as dawn.

May faith be the lamp I carry, not a shield against questions,

but a light that shows the way when choices are fogged.

May compassion be my compass, generosity my currency,

and humility the shoes with which I travel.

We will build nothing perfect, only brave;

we will stumble, then gather up our courage and rise.

Let each failure be fertilizer for the next bloom,

each grace an answered whisper from a sky that remembers our names.

Come, New Year, we welcome you with open hands,

with songs half-formed and promises to keep.

Be gentle with our fragile plans; be fierce with our faith.

Lead us into laughter, into work that matters, into love that endures.

And when the road narrows, and shadows lengthen,

let us recall this night of gratitude and vow again:

to be kinder, truer, more alive 

to trust that every ending is the seam of a new beginning.

Amen and onward, with hope.

He Came in the Quiet

Before the world took breath in morning song,

the promise kindled patient as a seed in winter,

a whispered covenant folded into the dark.

Prophets held the word like a lamp,

waiting on the hinge of time.

An angel bent the sky and spoke a name,

and a humble home became the ear of heaven.

She heard the world rearrange itself 

a promise pressed into her womb,

a grave expectation turned to blossom.

There was no heraldry in the place of birth,

only the hush of ox-hum and the close, warm breath

of ordinary lives. A manger cradled holy poverty;

swaddling cloths wrapped the infinite in smallness.

The King came not with drums, but with a mother’s lullaby.

Outside, the hills kept watch as shepherds trembled,

and heaven spilled its plain light across their fear.

Angels poured a chorus into the night:

not a song of judgement but of mercy’s arrival,

a proclamation: peace to the searching, goodwill to the small.

A star, relentless and true, cut a path through history,

leading strangers with foreign feet and bowed gifts

to kneel where a child lay gold for sovereignty,

frankincense for prayer, myrrh for what sorrow will demand.

Even the wise were undone by the holiness of simplicity.

This is the mystery: heaven stooped and took a breath we could touch;

the Word folded into flesh, speech made kin with skin.

Not to astonish the mighty, but to redeem the ordinary 

to stitch grace into the seams of daily bread,

to make a home of the human heart.

Listen: the cries of that night still cleave to the world,

a clarion for the lost, a lantern for the weary.

In the soft circumference of that newborn cry

we find the map back to ourselves. to mercy, to courage,

to a love that keeps its vows across centuries.

Come, then, with open hands and unguarded hearts;

receive the gift placed in lowly sight.

Let the manger teach you the economy of grace:

what is greatest arrives as smallness, and strength as gentleness.

Walk from that stable into the cold world warmed anew.

For the miracle of Christmas is not only birth,

but the daring of God who chooses to dwell among us 

Emmanuel, God with us, that we might not be alone.

And so we lift our imperfect songs into the sky:

not merely to remember, but to be remade.

The Gifts of Christmas

The gifts of Christmas come wrapped in light,

In swaddling love on a silent night.

A child so tender, born in a stall,

Bringing salvation, the greatest gift of all.

The gift of hope, in the star that shone,

Guiding the wise to a manger throne.

In the darkest night, it glimmers bright,

A beacon of peace, a promise of right.

The gift of joy, as angels sing,

"Heaven has sent its newborn King!"

Their songs proclaim through the skies above,

A Savior is born, a gift of love.

The gift of grace, unearned, yet free,

Redeeming souls for eternity.

Through nail-pierced hands and a thorn-crowned brow,

The child redeems, even here and now.

The gifts of Christmas, eternal, divine,

Transcend all treasures that sparkle and shine.

Wrapped not in ribbons but in mercy and care,

A love everlasting, beyond all compare.

This season, remember these gifts so true,

They shine in the hearts of me and you.

For Christmas is more than the presents we see

It’s God’s endless gift of love to thee.

The Twilight Between Worlds (An Ode to the Body’s Last Secret)

O quiet vessel, once thunderous with breath,

Now stilled beneath the velvet hush of eternity.

The pulse that sang of triumphs and tears has faded,

Yet something, unseen, unsurrendered, stirs

In the cathedral of your stillness.

Death, it seems, is only the body’s bow,

Not the soul’s final curtain.

Life does not end, it unravels,

Gently, reverently, like a scroll in God’s hands.

Each cell releases its hymn, each nerve its memory,

As the spirit, shy as dawn 

Rises from the ruins of the flesh.

The brain, that palace of thought, falls quiet;

Its stars dim one by one,

But beyond the darkened dome,

A greater light begins to burn.

The heart yields its throne of rhythm,

The faithful organ of mortal love 

Yet love itself, untethered, ascends.

The organs rest, the muscles slacken,

The breath departs…

And still, within the soft rebellion of the cells,

Life whispers to itself: “Not yet.”

Scientists call this the twilight of death,

But the soul calls it crossing.

Between pulse and peace, there is a bridge of wonder,

A tender trembling where the eternal wakes.

Even as the cornea glimmers its last reflection,

The spirit beholds its first horizon.

White blood cells hold their post a while longer,

As if protecting the departing traveler

Until heaven takes the shift.

Oh mystery of divine design 

That even decay can be holy.

That the body, in all its frailty,

Should cradle eternity’s secret in its marrow.

Each dying gene sings its last psalm,

And the spirit, luminous, unshaken.

Hears the echo and answers: “I am.”

O beloved dust,

You were never meant to vanish,

But to change your shape in the hands of God.

What the grave calls ending,

He calls awakening, transitioning.

For the Creator wastes nothing 

Not the breath, not the heartbeat,

Not even the silence that follows.

Alas, as the flesh dissolves into the hush of time,

The soul steps forward, barefoot in light,

Leaving behind its brief and broken shell 

A letter of love addressed to the earth.

The wind reads it. The stars remember.

In that twilight between worlds,

Where death pauses to listen,

Heaven opens its arms

And whispers back the body’s final plea:

“Not yet? Then come.”

And in that sacred moment 

When surrender becomes ascension,

And silence becomes song 

The soul, at last,

Goes home.