Shattered Silence

Built Up Walls I've built up the walls around me so high that I can no longer see over them. They guard me and protect me from the people who say they want to know me, but are merely only curious. They keep me locked inside like dungeon walls as if that can save me from heartache. For I once learned to love and it was all wrong. It broke me.   It shattered me. It tore down my walls. So over time I started stacking and I built up those walls. I created them by scratch as I surfaced from the fall. They comforted me, they balanced me, they echoed my cries. But if that's the truth, then why am I so lonely inside? Perhaps I guess it is time that I tear back down those walls. That I let this new person get to know me, and break down my walls. That I believe they are good and at least give them a chance, for what good are these walls if all they do is keep me in? It is time to love again, so I tear down these walls. As my heart quivers and my body shakes I pull ...

The Art of Prayer When I was little, I used to have a notebook where I would write down who I would pray for every single day. As I filtered through the pages I laughed at how much paper I had wasted. How worthless the little book was. How I had only written a handful of names in sloppy big colorful writing on each page and then designated a new one for each day even if the names were the same.   But then I stopped for a second and I started to think. How much time do I take now to write down who I am going to pray for?   Designating a separate page for the hand scrawled names? And sadly, the reality to that question is that I don't , but I need to . I need to go back to that inner child who found joy in writing those names and truly remembering to pray for them each night as my mom held my hand. And I wept . I wept because that's what Jesus calls of each of us to do . That I would laugh at such an innocent but beautiful act that I didn't know the val...