He is my everything

by: Carole L. Haines

 

When I was a child, I never questioned why I existed.

I just woke up every morning and played with my friends and family

I didn’t question the reason for games of dodge-ball and red-rover

I didn’t psycho-analyze myself or my friends, or even God

I just spent time with them

I just talked to them, laughed with them, ran around with them

We sat on the curb on hot summer nights, underneath the street lamps

and told ghost stories until our skin prickled with goose bumps

and all of us were too afraid to walk down the streets to our homes

when the call finally came from our Mom’s to come in. We didn’t walk…we ran.

I used to take one of those old telephone cable wheels and roll it to the top of the street

I would then get on top and run it down the slight hill, I must have looked like a logger.

I was just inches from death, no helmet, no way to stop. But I had not idea of the danger.

When I was a teen, we moved away and suddenly I was in high school

and everything changed. I became unbelievably self-aware.

Aware of my hair, and its color, its length, it’s shine

and my eyes, you know I don’t think I noticed they were blue until then

Everyone told me how pretty I was, but I was still me inside.

Tht little girl climbing trees, running on cables wheels, laughing under the street lamp.

I hadn’t changed, but the world had changed toward me.

I was now measured by looks, who I hung out with, who was my boyfriend

what I did, or didn’t do. It all became too much.

I saw right through it all, the fakeness, the shallowness, the meaningless charade

So I began sitting by myself at lunch, not hanging out with anyone

And like the Minister’s black veil, I was branded as strange

People just stayed away from me, I only had one friend

But I wasn’t lonely, because I became so aware of my one friend…God

and in that solitary place I found the one who never leaves

the one who made my hair blonde and my eyes blue

The one who kept me safe on top of that cable wheel,

the one who caught me when I fell from a tree

The one who sat with me under the lamplight with all my friends

He was there for all of it.

He knit me together in my mother’s womb and told me He wanted me

He knew all my days and every word I would speak before I spoke it

When I was raising my three children, he guided me, he helped me

He taught me how to love my husband more than myself

How to serve my children and everyone around me in the most menial of tasks

No one knew, No one saw, except Him

and I realize now that He is the only one who ever really does

He is not bound by time or space, so as His child, neither am I

There is no young me,   pretty me,   fat me,   ugly me   or old me

God measures not by years or time, but by relationship and intimacy.

My body may be getting older, but my soul is forever young, my spirit free

I have found the only meaning of life, my one true purpose

He is God and He is enough, He is all I need and want.

He is my everything