In prayer,
I dig my well deeper.
I count it all joy,
Though sorrow may seep
Through my walls.
Bubbling up,
Through muddy ground,
Pure and fresh
With hope,
Pure water emerges,
Gladdening as an eternal spring..
I am become,
A drink of water,
Drawn by the stranger,
Who meets me in his thirst.
Copyright 2014 Joann Nelander
Light a fire in my lowly heart
That I may love Thee
More and more.
Accept my straw as kindling.
Ignite me as a sacrifice.
To be consumed.
Breathe on me in the furnace
Of your desires
For this child of Your creation.
Blaze to transform
By grace and Thy Holy Spirit,
My base metal into the finest gold.
Enflame my yearning heart
That love may burst forth,
Forevermore.
copyright 2014 Joann Nelander
All days have led to this day.
Yesterdays march up to the edge in Time,
But cannot enter upon my Now.
As precursors they stand,
Peering onto this Today,
Blind as bats.
Their edges approach
But halt at the Present.
Here I reign with my will.
If all my mistakes
Shout for change,
Am I now the fool
Who fails to learn?
With the sun,
I am begun.
Eternity beckons me,
Where Time cannot go,
Invites, “Come.”
He, Who sails on Eternity’s Wing,
Would be my Mender,
Not in a breaking of the Past,
But a knitting of it,
A seamless cloth,
As His very own.
The morrow begins as a Way I choose;
Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
Are gift to my being,
And beginning in this Now,
I am His.
©2015 Joann Nelander
You showed the way
To live each day,
One cup of water at a time.
You satisfy Man’s thirst,
By thirsting first.
We come,
One cup of water at a time.
I live anew to give
As I have received,
One cup of water at a time.
Living water ,
Abundant stream,
Channel Your Life through me,
One cup of water at a time.
©2012 Joann Nelander
With Veronica,
I want to bathe Your Wounds.
Time and place are no obstacle.
You, in eternity, possess all.
Possess my heart,
And my poor intentions,
Render them pure and holy.
Wiping the spittle from Your Adorable Face,
I weep at Your disfigurement at the hands of Man.
I, in my time and turn, have looked away.
Here, with You, in prayer,
I turn back,
That my present ministries
May touch Your Body,
Alive, suffering in purgation,
Battling with the help of Heaven on Earth,
And triumphant with our Father in glory.
Mysteriously, my wounds,
And warts are healed,
My misery comprehended and mended,
By Your merciful gaze,
My shame surrendered,
And supplanted,
With your look of Love.
With Veronica,
I reach out,
Only to receive back,
My dignity,
I stoop,
To rise with You,
My Hope,
True Image of Our Father’s Love.
©2015 Joann Nelander
* The Latin meaning of the name Veronica is “True Image” (vera icon)
“Father forgive them they know not what they do.”
Cords of sorrow draw me.
I am witness to the plight,
Man become beast,
Without wisdom or wit,
Licking his own blood,
Hungry, harrowed,
Stunned in horror.
The knots of revenge entangle,
Cry for evermore blood,
Ever more abasement,
Ever more widows,
Ever more orphans,
Ever more refuse and waste.
A crying child becomes hundreds,
Then thousands,
Then millions,
Left to wander,
Left to dissipate and hate.
Vengeance is sweeter than food,
To one who chooses to live
Without Love,
Without Light,
Without the Holy and the True,
For such is the abode of Sin,
And many the roads
Leading to its gate.
Bestial brutality,
Raging insanity,
Now reigns the malignant.
The disconsolate refuse all solace,
Wounds of the heart,
Wounds of the mind,
Wounds of the body of Man.
Look to the high mountain,
Eyes to the heavens,
Wake the long dead,
Who await the promised Banquet,
Those, who now know,
They are one Family of Man,
Divested of tribal allegiance,
Awaiting the One,
And coming, King.
Offer a sacrifice of prayer.
Pour forth the balm of Gilead.
Speak, in the tongue of angels,
The comfort of peoples,
Hope in the Darkness.
Humanity’s ties are stronger than its sins,
More numerous than the cords
That draw it down in the Dark Night.
For its One God
Is Father Forever.
