Editing

these illusions wrap themselves like Adam
tight against her ribcage
her bone, her breath, her dust to dust self
fig leaves and flesh...

These are leftover lines from a poem I am working on today. They are good lines... well, not-bad lines at least. I like them, but they don't belong in the poem so I chopped them out. To keep the focus of the poem they had to be sacrificed. Not because they were horrible, but because they are not a part of what I want the finished poem to say or be.

I think sometimes life is a little bit like that.

I imagine we are like poems, some of us are traditional rhyme, some amuse in metered syllables, some touch the emotions and spirit evoking mood in word choice and free verse. As we go through life we come to moments when we are revised and edited. Sometimes God asks us to remove a line or two from our lives. Not necessarily because these things are sins, just because those few phrases don't fit with what He wants us to be.

He is the Author of the Universe. He knows how to write good poetry, and how to shape good lives. When God asks us to edit something out of our lives, no matter how much we like those things we will be stronger poems without them.