Five-Minute Friday: Joy

There are gray-clouded mornings
-- like today -- 
when I roll over, exhausted, exasperated
after swimming through heavy dreams
thick with emotion that's overflowed 
from long days


And I linger here, sitting in it.


I am weak. 


I am flesh 
and I am blood. 


And I dip deep into my own fears, 
realized,
I wade in worry, the gripping kind
that paralyzes me into shallow
breathing, 
as though one deep breathe
from my lungs could 
trigger a tsunami in my heart.


I am the rich man 
who is not willing to give up 
what he wants
in exchange for what he
so desperately needs.


I am the thief in the night
robbing my own house.


And in a moment of grace
whispered in the hallways 
of my mind, 
I am the the young boy's father, 
exclaiming through tears
"I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!"


And in my cries,
my heart pleas
to save me from the water
in which I wade too deeply, 
to save me from myself,
I am me, 
and
He is still good,
and
I choose joy.