I’m sorry I failed you.
I’m sorry I silenced my scream and did not sustain the fight.
I’m sorry I laid still and let him in, I’m sorry I was weak.
As fear swallowed my voice and tears made a home of my cheeks that.
Daddy,
You sent me to bake him cakes
Didn’t you know he was intoxicated in lust’s cage.
He said that my beauty was a distraction.
My voice a soft seduction,
he said it was my fault, the way I looked at him. My eyes were Sirens calling, so he touched me and did not make me whole.
So cast me now away from your presence, please take your sweet love away from me.
For like soured beans he spewed me out after
And now I stink of shame,
He took my breath away,
I do not want to live again
Tamar is my name.
Daddy,
Can you hear me?
I said I’m sorry…
For dragging your name in the mud.
Even as I bend under the scorching sun.
Waiting for their stones to kiss my back
As I scream in pain as penance for my sin.
Caught in the very act of adultery.
And they would say: Here lies a loose loose woman.
But I say, here lies a bruised bruised woman…who was once whole.
So go ahead…
Cast the first stone and the second, and third… I’m waiting.
(Pause and bent)
where are my accusers?
Where is this condemnation?
Why do you stoop in silence?
To wash my sins away?
Give me a drink you say
I don’t understand this way.
How does a king ask a peasant for a drink?
I’m sorry, I have no drink.
No life left to give,
But,
I have nightmares and
A basket of bitterness
A well of condemnation
A warehouse of guilt and
A mansion filled with anger…
how dare you ask me for a drink?
John 4:10-
Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.””
But how?
How does one trade a drink for an living spring?
How do I pour my pain as an offering
and partake of your sweet washing?
Give me this living water.
this life eternal.
crucify my shame on the cross.
And Let me rise from the curse
For you give beauty for ashes,
The oil of joy for my mourning,
You take a bruised reed and call it a tree,
the planting of the Lord.
You take dead bones and breath life to it.
You say breath again, walk again, go again, you can try again.
and out of your belly will flow rivers of living water.
So let healing flow, let life flow.
Let light show for the night is over and the morning is here.
So to you hurting,
I know you have bound your wounds in layers of makeup,
Pushed undo, but the mouse stopped clicking.
Tried delete, but the recycle bin refused to empty and the pain, like a tattoo has not been washed away.
God is saying,
give me a drink and I will give you a well of peace.
To you hurting,
God is standing at the well starting a conversation, he says:
I have washed you holy, righteous, pure, sanctified saint of God, chosen, new whole, beautiful, once dead bones recreated in Christ.
So come and drink.
