I wrote this poem in the hospital the last time I was there for step amputation that is one of my thorns since I loved walking .The others are stage 4 kidney failure and dialysis,the last one my diabetes……..
2 :Corinthians 12 :
Strength from Weakness
11-5 You’ve forced me to talk this way, and I do it against my better judgment. But now that we’re at it, I may as well bring up the matter of visions and revelations that God gave me. For instance, I know a man who, fourteen years ago, was seized by Christ and swept in ecstasy to the heights of heaven. I really don’t know if this took place in the body or out of it; only God knows. I also know that this man was hijacked into paradise—again, whether in or out of the body, I don’t know; God knows. There he heard the unspeakable spoken, but was forbidden to tell what he heard. This is the man I want to talk about. But about myself, I’m not saying another word apart from the humiliations.
6 If I had a mind to brag a little, I could probably do it without looking ridiculous, and I’d still be speaking plain truth all the way. But I’ll spare you. I don’t want anyone imagining me as anything other than the fool you’d encounter if you saw me on the street or heard me talk.
7-10 Because of the extravagance of those revelations, and so I wouldn’t get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan’s angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first I didn’t think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me,
My grace is enough; it’s all you need.
My strength comes into its own in your weakness.
Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ’s strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become.
Here it is:
Willy cross-man’s personal psalms
Behind the hospital curtain (abbrev: Bhtc and Bhc)
It can plunge to the valley of despair
With hopes and dreams
Like distant stars in the night sky
Or soar like a eagle
With the graceful wings of ones talents
Upon the winds of faith inspiration,hope,dreams,faith,
With the life giving rays of the God who is…..
Unseen tears run down my face
Feelings of being failure and a multifaceted burden
Pelt my soul,my heart and my mind
Like biblical sized hailstones…
Darken skies of providence stretches ever before me into the depths of eternity…
As the path God has ordained me to walk lies in the path of the life storms making it at times hard to pass….
I feel like a water downed Moses with my family as a microcosm of OT Israelites….
Leading his people to the promised land with constant Murmming and complaint
I like Moses trying to communicate
My first hand experience of Gods goodness and mercy
Yet they choose not to hear see taste our present day manna
Complaint how Egypt was better.
Infects me as well
Yet the cure again again
Is remembering GOD’s goodness
Witnessed in one owns life……
I knock on the doors of peoples hearts
Hope beside me
And no one comes to their door
No one answers
Thinking me as a unwanted sales men…………..”.
Perhaps now one hears you
By choice deaf
Or too busy with life’s ups and downs
Perhaps no one sees your invisible tears
Blinded by life
But Christ truly hears
But Christ truly sees
So come to Christ
And release your soul,life,heart and mind crushing burdens
He will hear
He will see
He will never fail you……….
Psalms 139
Behind the hospital curtain
I reflect how bad things happen to bad people
In Christian eyes bad as well as good happens in their life
Like mine where taking a shower
The neighbor upstairs flushed the toilet causing the water in my shower burn dangerously hot
And I thought I got out in time but it touched my foot and 3 days later I had a foot infection and a two toe amputation
In a Christians light. These bad event God has and will make it for good
Behind the hospital curtain
I think about suffering
My answer both comes
From my creator
From my Heavenly Father
From the Just God
From Compassionate God
From the Sovereign God
From a Loving God
From a Wise God
From a Merciful God
From a Ever present God
From a all knowing God
From a all seeing God
BBhtc
God works on non Christian and Christian alike to provide kind compassion to sick sheep
Bhtc
With each passing day
You see it as a life sentence
Rather than it is closer to the day you go home
Bhtc
Your hear the joyful sounds of children
And you miss your own
Bhtc in time you
Come to believe that you are just a distant memory in the hearts and minds of friends and loved ones left behind
BHTHC
you think you are no longer
BHTHC in the hospital bed
Then you wake up
BBhtc
Your spouse becomes a letter only addressed to you
Bhtc
The clouds sometimes blocks the sun. And i become deaf to love and hopes voice
Bhtc this is a nursing home as well and i fear i have been branded elderly-old mAn in
My prowess my attractiveness
My sexuality in chains held imprisoned 20 to life sentence in max security prison our youth narcissistic hedonistic youth culture has raised— labeled gold man in
my beloved’s youthful eyes
Already seemingly wearing
A sign:reading look but do not touch I tell her that how I feel but she brushes it off and pays no mind to my masculinity
Bbc
You live only in the past boast of past triumphs achievements that inWanda ,you are a love letter
I would like to read see each
Intimate special stroking forming words I alone can read for your eyes only
Intimacy of both soul mind and body lost
Only sadness loneliness depression are my
Letters which i do not want to read but it is the only thing allowed for me to read….
spires my hope and strength is Christ the living hope and who i can do all things because of Him like heal and everday life
Bhtc
Bhtc
You distinguish what medical says
What your fears say and what you wish to hear and what is really said and find hope to hold onto
BBhtc
You come to realization that you are living on. Borrowed time and it’s by God’s graciousness
‘BBhtc you see which nursing staff has a heart for service and which have a pharisaical heart that declares certain services Are beneath there status
BBhtc
Another fruit from the tree of excuses being my parents are staying here’,the kids are awake
Or you might injure your wounds or your heart might turn off like a light bulb
Bhtc. At times you become a distant memory but you always under the watchful
Eyes of God
Bhtc God strips you of friends and family and feeling abandon not only to draw u closer to Him but to also recognize He alone is aways there beside u,before. U behind u just like the cloud in Ot testament that lead the israelites home
Bhtc
Hospital chaplains are modern day Pharisees called to be as a. Carrier choice not calling by God interested more in womans figures than either salvation or consolation of sick bodies
Bhtc
The worlds noise is at a minimum
Allowing you more of the presence of God
Bhtc
Are own
Spiritual walls dividing race
Behind the curtain
You either pass or fail
Complacency or complaining
Hope or despair
Your faith is invigorated
Or revealed as it really is :dead faith empty faith shaped by tradition,works,sacraments,
Behind the curtain
My heart start missing my wife and children the instant they leave for home and they pass the curtain
Behind the curtain and outside
❤️God is good all the time
is ❤️
Strips you everything but God and His word in the worlds eyes you are poor naked alone but in reality Before God you are wealthy because of His grace.
Sometimes i do not know
Leads to hopelessness and only the darkness of behind the curtain
Bhtc
You realize your mortality
That you ate living on borrowed time but it is gift not by blind chance evolution etc
But from God not taken back as God was a indian giver but given. Back by to Him in exchange for a better gift eternal life
Bhtc
God reboots you
From a dark path
To the path He wanted you and you alone feet to walk
Bhtc
Is A battleground where it will will be surly tested
Whether your faith is real or just a mere shadow
Bhtc
Your standing before God is striped of its mask
To reveal your true id
One with Christ
Or far from Christ
Btc
Your faith or lack of is made public
That btc cannot hide’
Bhtc
Reveals who your God is
The True God or your man made God your golden calf
Bhtc
You really gaze and see how sinful taking God’sname in vain or as a curse from your lips or the lips of others or both
Bhtc
Knows no discrimination
And those who go thru the motions of service from medical to food care should see this a d do-their best especially if they claim a christ that they wake up to find themselves bhtc in their own twilight zone experience
God’s justice here and now
Bhtc
The food servers bring condiments but not the food that goes with them
Behind the curtain a faith lived out
Behind our thin. Hospital. Curtain
Hide the others pain
Enough not to hear or see them
Our own little world our concerns behind the thin. Hospital curtain
Sadly even behind the curtains exist not only white racism but minority on minority in the midst or their sickness that is when our racism should no longer be on our lips and. Hearts but gracios to God
That we are healing and know one day those people we racist too are the very some ones that will help us when we are in need
My wife looks at social media and complains others are enjoying life. Psa17:4
And I behind the curtains
With the mouth of my mind
Respond that’s how it is
But their hands have the blood of their victims for life on their hands families they have destroyed
The world argues stupidity or timidity for one that acted,the other other silenced by greed
And we can continue to endless draw excuses from the bag the world gives yet we may never end But before Christ each time we pull them out before Him they would instantly crumble to the lifeless dust they are
Yet we shall all go beyond this curtain one day to the other side and stand before His Sovereign throne and these excuses will not save us
Behind the curtain
That is where theology,my Christian life meet
Unite,sustain and nurture
The alarms from the hospital machines now my car sirens ringing in the night
Behind the curtain reveals our true human nature
Our self centeredness robing my nurse from me in the midst of my need and pain
And because we are all behind the thin curtain you can be blind to the others may be in more need than you,mute to the fact that their pain is greater than yours
And out the window Jesus’s golden rule love,thy neighbors as thyself and Eve’s poison you are like God flows strongly feeding our selfishness look out for #1. Sinatras my way or no way…
Behind the curtain
One group of doctors will rob you of hope
While another group gives you hope
Yet with God you always have hope and the the reality that God will always deliver what is good for you
Bhtc
I learn to love cherish appreciate my wife my children
Bhtc
You experience healthcare
From nurses who in the midst honors jesus with a cup of water others just turn away helping only their assigned patients pharisees to. The letter
Bhtc
Good nurses assigned to you are like cabs. Other patients try stealing them
Bhtc
My wife sees me as a old man
And not the Prince Charming that won her heart
Bhtc
Even though the church has failed and forgotten me
God will never fail me
Nor forget me
Bhtc
I am reminded and chastised for neglecting the greatest comforts for a Christian
For times such as this especially
Scriptures and prayer
Bhtc
It can plunge to the valley of despair
With hopes and dreams
Like distant stars in the night sky
Or soar like a eagle
With the graceful wings of ones talents
Upon the winds of faith inspiration,hope,dreams,faith,
With the life giving rays of the God who is…..
Bhtc
It can plunge to the valley of despair
With hopes and dreams
Like distant stars in the night sky
Or soar like a eagle
With the graceful wings of ones talents
Upon the winds of faith inspiration,hope,dreams,faith,
With the life giving rays of the God who is…..
Bhtc
You wonder have you or will you touch another’s persons life positive
You then start questioning God’s dealings in your life
Gifts talents experiences that seems to come up empty-handed or leading nowhere
And you start to long for a wonder life experimce
To vindicate
To authicate
To validate
To give to your life,experiences and gifts meaning
But this is not the movie
But reality that hides its answers till you under a gravestone…
Unless God intervenes and shows instant replay with commentary play by play……..
Behind the hospital curtain
The first thorn robs of the joy of walking
The second thorn robs me of my vigor and strength
The last thorn robs me of the joy of eating and sharing the eating experience with my family and friends…
Reformed faith salsa style 