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.

A Sacred Pause

Today I breathe a sacred pause,

Not just for cake or loud applause

But for the hush within my soul,

Where broken things were made whole.

I trace the years not by the day,

But by the roads I’ve walked in faith.

The nights I wept, the dawns I rose,

The silent grace that held me close.

Chapters torn and pages worn,

Moments when my heart was torn.

Yet every scar, a line of light

Proof that God still held me tight.

He carried me when strength had fled,

Spoke peace into the fears I fed.

When I let go, He still held on,

And gently whispered: “Child, be strong.”

To every soul who crossed my way

A light, a storm, a truth, a stay

You shaped me with your joy or pain,

And taught me loss can still be gain.

To younger me, both fierce and small,

Who dared to rise after each fall

Thank you for the strength you gave

To walk through fire and still be brave.

And now I greet who I’ve become

Not perfect, but becoming one

Who walks in grace, who stands in truth,

Still learning from the roots of youth.

So on this day, I lift my eyes,

Beyond the gifts and sweet goodbyes

To thank the Giver, ever near,

Who writes my story year by year.

Each breath a gift, each step a vow,

Each trial shaping who I am now.

This birthday is not just a line in time

It’s a testament, a sacred sign.

A quiet altar, built with pain,

With mercy falling like the rain.

I stand, not whole, but held and known

By God, whose love has made me His own.

All glory to God.

Today Is My Birthday

But more than celebration,

it feels like consecration

a sacred pause in the noise

to remember

how far I’ve come.

How far I’ve been carried.

I don’t just count the years.

I count the miles

my soul has walked barefoot,

sometimes through fire,

sometimes through silence

that screamed louder than words.

I remember the chapters

that nearly undid me

and the grace

that rewrote the ending.

I see the days I was sure

I wouldn’t make it.

Yet here I am.

Not because I was strong

but because God was.

I think about the faithfulness

that followed me into

every shadow.

The quiet hand that steadied mine

when I dropped the pen,

ready to let the story end.

But He kept writing.

He always does.

I remember the people.

The ones who stayed,

the ones who left,

the ones who loved me into healing

and the ones who bruised me into growing.

Each one

a thread in the refining.

I honor them.

Not all were kind,

but all were necessary.

And I turn inward

to the younger version of myself.

The boy who trembled

but walked anyway.

Who didn’t know what was ahead,

but kept going.

I want to tell him

You were never alone.

And you were braver than you knew.

Now, I look ahead

to the person I’m becoming

still raw, still real,

still stretching toward light.

Unfinished,

but chosen.

Grounded.

Becoming.

Today

is not just about age.

It is about witness.

It is about survival.

It is about standing at the edge

of everything that tried to break me,

and realizing

It didn’t.

I’m still here.

Breathing.

Healing.

Becoming.

And more than anything,

GRATEFUL.

To God Almighty who held me

when I was undone.

Who shielded me

from what I thought I wanted,

and gave me more

than I knew to ask for.

To the Giver of every breath,

every battle,

every breakthrough

this day belongs to You.

This birthday

is not just a mark on the calendar.

It is an altar

built from ashes,

laced with light.

And I

I am its offering.

All glory to God.