The Alchemy of Affliction

I have felt the furnace of suffering:

its relentless heat pressed against my bones,

a fire that purges and also threatens to consume.

In its glare I stand, crucible of my own becoming,

my edges melting, my impurities seeping,

while some part of me worries I will be lost in the flames.

Yet, even in that scorching chamber, there is purpose:

the fire that cracks me is the same that clarifies me.

Affliction, when met with courage, becomes a ruthless teacher,

shedding scabs of complacency, chiseling away arrogance,

stripping the brittle veneer I once mistook for strength.

If I lean into it, I feel the pressure reshape me:

the coarse dross of my pride sloughs off,

the deep fissures of doubt are filled with something harder,

a tempered faith, a steady pulse of resolve.

I become gold, not in shine alone, but in substance:

more honest, more luminous, more real.

But if I recoil, if I clutch at comfort and resent the fire

then the same afflictions shred me:

they ravel my spirit, unravel my trust,

turn my heart brittle and my voice hollow.

In that cowardice, the furnace becomes a threat,

not a crucible, but a torment.

There is a paradox here: suffering is twin-faced.

It is both the hammer and the sculptor,

both the storm that lashes and the tide that carves canyons.

It can tear me to rawness, exposing every weak point,

or refine me into something resilient, something rare.

When I yield to bitterness, affliction becomes destruction:

I lash out, I harden, I become a broken thing

that rattles in the dark, hollowed by fear.

But when I submit, when I open my palms to the pain

I feel a quiet transformation, subtle but profound:

my grief becomes a crucible,

my tears become molten wisdom.

In that surrender, I learn that endurance is not just patience,

but alchemy. I learn that to be refined means to be reshaped,

not broken beyond repair. My heart, once raw and porous,

becomes dense with mercy, tempered with compassion,

ready to reflect light even from the deepest scars.

And so I walk through affliction, not as a victim,

but as one who carries a secret:

that fire, though fearful, is not meaningless.

This crucible is not a prison,

but a workshop.

If I stay, I may emerge whole:

shaped by flame, but unconsumed.

When the Fire Speaks Your Name

Afflictions come dressed in many garments

sometimes in coarse burlap,

sometimes in silk woven with quiet dread.

They arrive uninvited,

sitting at the foot of your bed

like an old storyteller

waiting for you to finally ask,

What have you come to make of me?

For suffering is never passive.

It is a sculptor with trembling patience,

a blacksmith with a furnace that never sleeps.

It holds your soul in its palms,

studying its contours,

deciding whether to refine you into brilliance

or shred you into fragments

too weary to rise again.

And you

you must choose your posture

before it lays its hand upon you.

Sometimes affliction feels like a long corridor

with no lamps,

no windows,

only the echoes of your own breath

reminding you that you are still alive,

even when you wish you weren’t.

It pulls at the loose threads of your courage,

testing whether you will unravel

or tighten your weave

and emerge stronger than you entered.

There are days it whispers,

softly, deceitfully:

Lay down your hope.

Let despair cradle you.

And if you listen long enough,

you will feel your soul folding inward,

growing small,

becoming a shadow of the person

you were meant to be.

But if, by rare and stubborn grace

you lift your chin

and look affliction in the eye,

you discover it is also a rare tutor,

unyielding yet strangely gentle

to the one who stands firm.

Its fires burn, yes,

but they burn away illusions,

not identity.

They scorch the pride,

but they spare the essence.

They refine the edges

where fear once hid,

and polish the corners

where possibilities slept.

Affliction is the paradox of becoming:

it can hollow you

or make you holy.

It can grind your will into dust

or turn your grief into gold.

It all depends on whether your heart

meets it with clenched fists

or open palms.

For some, it is the night wind

that extinguishes the fragile flame

of self-belief.

For others, it is the same wind

that teaches the flame to lean,

to stretch,

to dance with resilience

rather than collapse in the dark.

And so it is with every soul:

we are either shattered

or shaped.

We are either thorns

or thrones.

We either crumble

or crystallize.

Affliction stands silently in the doorway

holding both outcomes in its hands,

waiting for you to choose

Will you dissolve under its weight?

Or will you rise,

forged and fierce,

bearing the gleam

of one who has walked through fire

and learned to speak its language?

And someday,

when you look back

at the wounds that once threatened

to unmake you,

you will see

they were not merely scars,

but signatures of transformation.

Proof that you did not merely endure,

but emerged refined,

expanded,

and undeniably alive. 

A Serenade to Queen Esther

To my sister, my cherished guide,  

Today, we celebrate with joy and pride.  

You nurture, provide, and softly attend,  

With love unwavering, my truest friend.  

Through savory dishes made with care,  

And tender touches beyond compare,  

You honor each task with maternal grace,  

In my life, you’ve secured a sacred place.  

Young in years yet wise in heart,  

A motherly soul, set apart.  

Your voice, a melody, lifts us all high,  

A songbird with a heavenly tie.  

The pillar for Frank, unwavering and bright,  

With three sons who bask in your light.  

A planner of peace, a soul so rare  

May blessings find you everywhere.  

Happy Birthday, dear Esther; this day we sing,  

For a life so cherished, a soul with wings.

God Knows Me

He fathoms every tear that falls,  
The silent sorrow, the heart’s soft calls.  
In shadowed corners where I flee,  
His love persists, unyielding, free.  

He discerns the burdens I conceal,  
The weight I bear, the wounds that heal.  
Each whispered plea, each quiet sigh,  
Reaches the One who sees the why.  

He knows my joy, my fleeting bliss,  
The quiet moments I long to miss.  
He understands my deepest needs,  
And answers every prayer that pleads.  

Through tempests fierce, through darkest skies,  
He holds me close, He never lies.  
His love, a force beyond compare,  
A constant presence, always there.  

When shadows loom and doubts arise,  
He lifts me up, He hears my cries.  
In every breath, in every strain,  
His gentle whispers ease my pain.  

For He is God, and He is grace,  
A steady hand, my sacred place.  
He knows me wholly, mind and soul,  
And loves me, making me whole.

In the Shadow of Uncertainty

Sleep eluded me last night

its tender hands withdrew

as if afraid to touch the tremor in my soul.

The ceiling became a vast confessional,

echoing the silent ache of unspoken dread.

Time, indifferent and cruel,

marched across my mind in ticking footsteps,

each beat a reminder

that stability itself is a fragile guest.

My thoughts, rebellious and unrelenting

assembled their parade of fears.

The specter of loss loomed large,

its voice a cold recitation

of all I might become without this anchor of labor.

Anxiety sat beside me,

a phantom companion tracing its icy fingers

along the frail edges of my composure.

My chest rose and fell like a prayer unspoken,

and yet no peace descended.

Then, from beneath the ruin of unrest,

a subtler voice began to rise

not loud, nor insistent,

but steady, like light beneath closed eyes.

It murmured not of deliverance,

but of assurance, ancient, unwavering:

“All shall be well.”

And in that fragile whisper,

faith stirred within the ashes of fear.

The storm remained,

yet its violence softened

before the calm authority of hope.

Though the morrow is veiled in uncertainty,

I will stand still in its shadow,

clinging not to certainty, but to grace

for even in despair’s hollow chambers,

the Divine composes silence into song,

and the trembling heart learns again

that courage, too, can whisper.

Come, Let Us Worship

O come, let hearts in chorus rise,

To lift a song that shakes the skies

A joyful noise, both loud and true,

To praise the God who carries through.

We enter in with grateful song,

With psalms that to His name belong.

The Rock of Ages, firm and wide,

Our Refuge where we long abide.

The Lord is great; no throne above,

No power greater, none more love.

The King above all gods and pride,

Whose voice the mighty stars abide.

He holds the deep and silent lands,

The ocean depths are in His hands.

The hills, in strength, rise at His word,

And echo back the name they’ve heard.

The sea He formed with perfect grace,

The dry land shaped, each line in place.

Creation sings with holy flame,

Each leaf and stone bears out His name.

Come, let us worship, bow, and kneel,

Before the One whose touch we feel.

The Lord, our Maker, kind and just,

Who leads the flock with patient trust.

We are His sheep. He calls, we know,

His voice is peace, His way is slow.

If today His voice you hear,

Let faith arise and cast out fear.

O come, let praise be not delayed

The path of joy is humbly laid.

In stillness, let our spirits rise,

To worship Him who never dies.

The Last Signature

I held the paper like a dying promise,

a ghost of everything we once called forever.

The ink waited, patient,

while my heart broke open,

its pieces whispering your name

like a prayer that heaven had long stopped answering.

I remember the way your laughter

used to penetrate my ears

light, familiar,

like dawn after a long night.

Now the silence between us

feels like a cathedral of echoes,

each one built from things we never said,

and the love I still can’t stop feeling.

You said I didn’t love you enough.

But how do I measure love?

By the sleepless nights I spent

trying to mend what I didn’t understand was broken?

By the apologies I whispered into the wind

hoping they would find your heart?

I gave everything I knew how to give,

but perhaps love, in its cruelest irony,

is sometimes lost not from absence,

but from difference

two souls reaching for each other

with hands shaped in opposite directions.

When the papers came,

my hands trembled like the last leaf of autumn

clinging to a dying branch.

The pen felt heavier than grief itself.

Every letter I signed

was a memory I buried

our first walk under the rain,

the night we talked until the stars slept,

the mornings your smile made even my fears feel holy.

I could not send them back.

I held them for days,

as if the paper might breathe,

as if time might take pity

and rewrite the ending.

But time is an unfeeling witness

it watches, it waits,

it never intervenes.

I asked myself a thousand times:

what could I have done differently?

Where did my words fail?

What did my silence cost?

There are no answers,

only the echo of what used to be us,

lingering like perfume on an empty shirt.

And yet, even now,

beneath the wreckage of everything familiar,

I still love you.

Not the way I used to

not with hope,

but with reverence.

The kind of love that grieves and prays

in the same breath.

The kind of love that understands

that sometimes keeping someone

means letting them go.

Today,

with the same trembling hands that once held you,

I signed again; this time in spirit,

not on paper.

I released you into your new life,

and myself into the quiet ache of remembering.

The world feels different now

emptier, slower,

as if even the wind hesitates to pass my door.

But love, real love, does not vanish;

it lingers,

like breath on glass,

like music after the song has ended.

And though my heart is bleeding in silence,

I still bless your name

in every prayer that escapes my shaking lips.

Today, I finally decided to let go.

Not because I want to,

but because I love you too deeply.

Because sometimes,

the truest kind of love

is not the one that holds on

but the one that breaks,

and still whispers,

Go and be happy, even if it’s without me.