It is the proverbial "dark and rainy night," here at my home. It's also October. Sunrise and sunset are accompanied by misty fog most days, and there is a distinct chill in the air; the leaves are beginning to change before they fall to the ground. Today, I have many blessings to count, but tonight I am reminded of an October evening from many years ago, when it was hard to see my blessings to count them.
That October was a time of great upheaval for me. My husband and I went through one of the most challenging times of our lives together; he had recently been laid off from his job of 14 years, and I had just changed jobs. With four young children we weren't quite certain what our next step would be. It was then that I was also newly diagnosed with a dreadful, chronic disease - ulcerative colitis. My gastoenterologist would later go on to change this diagnosis to Crohn's disease, a condition that continues to affect my daily life today.
The following is a poem I wrote that October, on Halloween night to be exact, in the year 2000.
Molasses Miracle
Darkness surrounds me and I am trapped
As surely as a fly in Molasses…
It’s not an insignificant, passing thing
waved away with a mere positive thought or pill.
It’s a heavy, tangible thing,
That fights you the more that you fight it,
And I am powerless.
The more that I fight against it, the more it
consumes me; just like a fly trying to swim
In Molasses…Our only hope is a miracle.
A miracle where the jar falls and breaks
and all of the molasses run off, before we,
the fly and I, just give up and quit
swimming.
Oh Lord, how we need a miracle, a
jar smashing miracle, someone to come along
and break that glass and save us, instead of
waving us off with a best wish and a pill.
Lord we all need someone. We all need a
molasses miracle every now and then.
Photo Credit: wht_wolf9653
