Rebuild Haiku

Shaken to the core

Our crumbling foundations

Words of hope rebuild

Fiery Darts

Accusing darts fired relentlessly

A hailstorm of fiery arrows

A flurry of lies that pierce to the heart

A flurry of lies that cut to the bone

 

Are we resisting this onslaught?

Or are we standing by passively?

Accepting this barrage of baseless guilt

Letting it define our identity

 

Wake up!

The punishment has already been taken

Our guilt has been transferred

Jesus takes all of our blame

 

So lift up your shield of faith

And bat every lie away

Never forget what Christ has done

Never let guilt from the past define you

Reject the Lies

I am not worthless

I am not an outcast

I am not hopeless

I am not hated

 

Depart from me empty lies

No longer will I tolerate you

You try to degrade me, to bring me to my knees in shame

But I will not yield

I will stand strong in what Christ has done for me

 

My God will tear down the strongholds you have made

His Love will heal the scars you left

What you convinced me to hide, He will call back to the light

In His acceptance will I find peace

And I will revel in the truth about myself

 

I am holy

I am righteous

I am redeemed

I am restored

Worth

I saw no worth in me

Yet You gave up all You had for me

Hurtful words stuck to my forehead like labels

You spun Your loving words into a crown for me

You rebuilt the ruins of my self esteem

Into a castle, secure and steadfast

Though my heart was locked away

Guarded by tangles of barbed wire

You walked in and healed my deep hurts

You told me I was more

Than the mistakes I had made

You told me I was Yours and nothing could change that

The lies that bound me fell away

And I found my worth in You

Condemnation

Like a bludgeon
Condemnation aims low
Trying to cripple us
Trying to keep us on the ground

It tells us that we are not worthy
That our guilt is still on us
It urges us to wallow in our failure
That we don’t deserve to finish our race

With every blow we allow
We lose hope
Our self-esteem becomes distorted
The resolute faith on which we stood
Doesn’t seem as sure

But just because you fell
It doesn’t mean it is the end of the race
You only lose
If you choose not to get up

Don’t stay on the ground
You can and will finish your race
Block the savage blows with the shield of faith
Jesus has taken our guilt
He has paid the price

“For there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:1

The Dunce Hat

A throw away remark said without thought
Clings to you like glue
Slowly becoming a part of you
And somewhere along the line
We let the dunce hat be put on our head

Every time we walk into a room
We think everyone is looking at us
We hear our name in every murmur and whisper
Every quiet chuckle echoes in our head

After every mistake those words come back
With horror we start thinking they’re true
We sit in the corner
Pull back from the world, afraid of risk
Then we cry as we become alone

But come to Him
And instead of carrying painful memories
Of hateful words and careless remarks
He will give you a Book full of promises
That tells you how much He loves you

Instead of being driven to isolation
By your fear of how people think of you
He will give you a family who will accept you
Who have had the same battles
And got through the other side

He will take your shame
Your disgrace
Your damaged self esteem
Your dunce hat
And He will give you a crown

“Instead of their shame my people will receive a double portion, and instead of disgrace they will rejoice in their inheritance.” Isaiah 61:7

Ignore the Doubters

Who told you that you couldn’t?
Whose laugh shattered your world?
People will put a limit on your dreams
“No one’s done that.”
“I don’t think you can do both of those things.”
They will say it with such certainty
As if they’ve meet every person whose tried

So should we stop thinking for ourselves?
Give up having any ambition in life?
Is dreaming like a child’s toy
That us grown-ups are too mature to play with?
We already have people showing initiative
Should I dare to think that I too have something to contribute?
Maybe I should just slip back into mediocrity
And let life pass me by

Careless opinions
Thrown around without thought
Can snap the wings of a fledging dream

Don’t let negativity stop you
Have a go
Take a risk
Who knows
You might succeed

Self Pity

When we experience failure in our lives, there is a voice that comes to tell us that we’ve ruined God’s plan for our lives and that we are worthless. It lures us in, urging us to mourn ourselves.

But self-pity is like a fish hook that traps us in our past; draining our motivation and strangling our hope. As Christians our guilt has been taken away. We don’t have to wade the depths of despair. We can ignore that voice, repent and push into the future God has for us.

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Throw off the cloth of self pity
Remove its coarse texture from your skin
It leaves you wallowing in the mud
When you should be climbing mountains
It makes you focus on the dark clouds
When you can soar above them
Its sorrowful cry is strangely pleasant
When you choose to mope in its arms
But its continuing screeching seems stupid
When you realise that Christ died to make you a victor
It comes as a friend on the path of your life, offering comfort
But it is a thief who will do anything to delay you
It will make you sit down on the side of the road while the race passes by
It will make you look inward when there is a dying world around you
Ignore its caring exterior and see its true treachery
Pick yourself up, dust yourself down
And wear the crown of victory Christ has given you

The Broken Record

You carry the fragmented disc all day
The demeaning words burned onto them
The cruel comments of a so-called friend
Glued to the inside of your palm

You hide it behind your back
As you joke about your day with Mum
You head up to your room, the mask dropped
You close the door tightly and sit down

You put the CD on to play
A screeching sound plays, piercing your soul like a knife
Then the vocal starts
The hateful lyrics shock you like a slap to your face
Like a finger jabbing into your stomach
The clanging tones repeat in an endless cycle

There you sit, tears in your eyes
As the words hit again and again
Until they are imprinted in your mind
And still crying, you sing along

No matter what the world says about you, no matter how you feel. God values you and He is thinking of you.
“How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!” Psalm 139:17 (NIV)

Words Like Daggers

We all have words spoken over us that cut deep. They can define us, shape our very image of ourselves. But in Jesus we have a new identity and we no longer need to live under those lies

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Words have been spoken
Like daggers they have pierced my soul
They wormed their way into my heart
So deep I didn’t know they were there
Apart from the silent twinge inside
That kept me up at night
And brought tears to my eyes

But now I know and now I see
The lies that my enemy has put in me
The words that would never leave me alone
They were never my own
They were not my ideas
And now I reject them from my mind
No more will I suffer in silence
With wounds that others inflicted
No more will I be defined by them
Today I know the truth

I am cleansed and holy
There are no stains on me