Chrystie Cole
Morning Pages: A Poem For The Weary Soul

Some days are heavy.
Yesterday was one of them.
Today is too.
A low-level sadness descends.
Some days are just like that.
Days when I am all too aware of the brokenness in me and around me.
Days when I feel the gap between what I long for and what is.
Days when I can’t unsee or unknow, and I wish for innocence and ignorance instead.
And days when I long to see or know—
Because not knowing raises questions about how I came to be who I am.
My soul is a well-worn wood floor that’s known ten thousand heavy footfalls.
Creaking and cracking and popping under the weight of it all.
What would these floors want to say if I gave them voice?
What pain would they reveal, and what resilience would they display?
I close my eyes and listen for God in me.
What is it he wants me to know?
What is it he whispers in the stillness?
What salve does he want to apply to the wounded places?
He is there.
He is with me.
He knows sorrow.
He knows.
He sees what I can’t and knows what I don’t—
How I came to be who I am, and better yet, how he is mending me.
He builds the bridge between what is and what I long for.
His groans echo each creak and crack and pop of my soul,
Reminding me, I am not alone.
He calls to me.
Come—
As you are, weary and heavy-laden.
Come—
Let me feed you and give you strength.
Come—
Let me sit with you while you weep.
Come—
Let me remind you that sorrow may tarry, but it will not prevail.
Come—
Let me labor while you sleep.
Can that be my comfort in sorrow,
My hope in the long night,
My healing in the ache,
My freedom in the uncertainty?
Where else would I go?
He is life.
Still, I long
To see what is true and good and beautiful
In the land of the living.
Chrystie Cole
10/5/2022