Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: Escape (01/02/06)
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TITLE: Taken, by Joy | Previous Challenge Entry
By Theresa Veach
01/09/06 -
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Painful memories taunt me try to make me go insane
When I’m alone in the dark You are my only spark
I’m nothing but ashes from the inescapable lashes--
By those who had me taken in Your name.
Just a child, lured and beguiled
By church-attending pedophiles
Where my innocence was taken leaving me violently forsaken
Terrified, naked and bleeding from the lies--
That I, the child, was the one to blame.
All that’s left of me is You
My only prayer is that somehow I’ll get through
All the nightmares of sexual sin holding me captive within
Keeping me locked inside myself by a rape I could never escape--
Until finally I cried out and You came.
I pray and I fast that the nightmares won’t last
They do subside but only for a season, make sense of this, give me a reason
For the injustices I endured I need to be reassured
And set free from-- the need to get numb--
By using alcohol to escape all the shame.
Though very unsteady, Lord You know I am ready
To let you wash away my disgust and to give me strength to trust
In You and in Your power to help me escape those dark hours
For when You enter in daybreak slowly begins--
To warm and to heal all of my pain.
Thank-you dear Lord for sending me a friend
By You, through her, I believe I’m now on the mend
Because I’m learning to make the unspoken, spoken
Now I’m not nearly as lost or as broken--
Still, I can’t breathe from the memories that remain.
Some victims taken to this dark side, end their misery in suicide
That kind of death I was barely spared
But only because You, my friend, and my then unborn child cared
Enough to love me and to give me hope--
For one last final escape from hell’s unmerciful chains.
Through desperation and my need to know love
I found You, You who brings good things from heaven above
Good things like the true meaning of shalom
Noting missing, nothing broken, the safe haven of home--
Where there I can count every trial as gain.
Like Your Son, I now have scars, but only He could bend back the bars
Of my thoughts that once held me prisoner to pain--now my mind is set free under His reign.
Some days I’ve learned to escape the memories
Of being taken by man’s most selfish ploy, so please Jesus have me now taken by joy—
For only by Jesus will my joy be set free and only by Jesus will my joy be sustained!
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This poem is beautiful. Even though the meter is irregular, it worked for me with the topic. Your word choices were superb, and the emotion of this heart's prayer were very evident. Fine piece of writing; thank you.
One of my favorite lines: "For only by Jesus will my joy be set free and only by Jesus will my joy be sustained!"
Victims of sexual abuse need the wisdom and hope of this poem!
Thank you for broaching a difficult topic.