The Blank Line

In illustrating the importance of the spirit-world, we wanted each youth in our teen class to create their timelines. We created a blank birth certificate and blank tombstones for the occasion. After the activity was finished, I found myself flabbergasted. There were more tombstones than birth certificates.  Upon a closer examination, I saw that many of the youth did not fill in the blank for “father’s name” on their birth certificates. Others simply put “I Don’t Care” in the blank space or did not create a birth certificate at all.

It saddened me and I found myself starring at one birth certificate with tears in my eyes. That blank line was a reminder that they once were abandoned and unwanted.  The truth was, in fact, that I was that kid roughly fifteen years ago and those were the thoughts circulating through my head and soul. I seriously do not know where I would be without the word and knowledge of God. I’m not saying I’ve arrived, but I’m not where I was.

The more I contemplated what I witnessed, the more I realized the affects that the blank line has had on my own life.

————–

I watched as my young ones glared at you, loathed you with gnashing teeth

Detesting with every ounce they possessed

See, their caress was limited by your existence

Abandonment confirmed by your act of omission

What was it that proved to them that empty-space pained? I know . . .

It’s that blank line that should have carried your name

 

 

Even from the day I was born, you plagued me with your emptiness

And that lover’s caress you bestowed only a few months earlier was gone

And it was her name that was alone-My mother’s

As she lay in a pool of her own sin, tears and red water

Cradling in her arms, with burdensome joy, a ghost’s daughter

What was that which gave her no choice as she looked down to where I lay? I know . . .

It’s the blank line that should have carried your name.

 

What were You teaching me? What was it a part of Your plan

To let stand at a distance a love I could not touch, an aromatic hope I could not smell

Worthiness I could not behold lest I lust for it?

There was no hand to hold there in the separation of that vacant streak

Though my fragile heartbeat, I feared, would not survive should we convene

What was that which created this vast, bottomless void of sheer darkness and rain?

I know…

 

It’s the blank line that should have carried your name.

 

Yet, here I am, Jehovah Elohim. Here am I, shouting across the aloofness

Because the truth is that I cannot live as a child without a face, detached from Agape

A child inundated by a blank space

Therefore, My Creator, take this clay I call my flesh

Hurl it onto your Potter’s wheel and mend the ego fractured by shame

Knead with Your thumbs the solidified rubbish of malice, guilt, anguish and hate

Shave off dead weights that hold me hostage from sublime,

Imprisoning me to be a victim of that void line

 

Render null and void time, Elohim

Refold that flat span with Your vast hands that laid mountains and oceans

Go back past the children of my youth, a child at every age

Pass that babe at her mother’s bosom, before the ailing through which I was born

Spin until the world is without form and without nights and days

And there, I see, You knew me and gave me Your name

I am you and You are me, My Love

There, I heard His voice echo and let the sound waves invigorate the depths of my being

Completing in me the song I thought was lost until I arose with my feet dancing

My hands waving, my heart singing as I became one who was entire, lacking no thing

 

You see, only then could I love you

Only then could I embrace you and your good intentions

Taking no care to mention the acts of the past

Only then could I understand, discover and find

That your heart, too, was afflicted by the presence of that vacant line

 

When they ask what gives me the right to edify youth though my womb’s seen no heir

If they dare inquire how my young age will help turn the hearts of children to the heart of our Father

Without bother, I will tell you what I will proclaim and know . . .

It’s the blank line that should have carried your name . . . That now carries His.

~by Vickie Bowman

Editor’s Note: It is with deep humility and gratitude that we post this heart wrenching poem by Vickie. It took great courage for her to write it, and we share it here with hope that it will inspire others to allow God to step in and fill that void for them as He did so faithfully for Vickie.

That Dang Bell

Meditation Scriptures: Romans 12:2, Revelation 21:1-7, Philippians 4:8-9

Have you heard of Ivan Pavlov?

Ivan Pavlov was a Russian physicist made famous in the world of psychology through a study in digestion. Pavlov wanted to see if external stimuli could affect salivation and digestion. Every time he gave food to the dogs in his experiment, he would ring a bell. At first, the dogs only salivated when they saw, smelled and ate their food, but after a while, they began to salivate when the bell sounded, even when no food was present. In 1903, Pavlov published his results, calling this learning process “conditioning.”

Although, I would not categorize myself as an “animal lover,” I found myself very sympathetic towards those dogs. I mean, I’m glad that Pavlov’s great discovery snowballed many other studies in behavioral sciences, but what about those dogs’ lives post-Pavlov? I imagine that they were completely ruined by the presence of that dang bell!

A tornado drill bell rings while Spot is in obedience school. The result: drool. Spot’s friend, Tuffy, rides her new bicycle through their neighborhood and rings her little bell. The result: drool. Spot and his family attend a Christmas bell choir special. The result: drool galore! Little Spot ends up spending a lot of time standing in a pool of his own saliva.

It’s so unfair! It’s so wrong! It’s so pathetic . . . especially when I realized that, just like Spot, I have lived most of my life waist-deep in drool.

Now, I am one who has professed to be “anti-spit,” stating that saliva is one bodily fluid God never biologically intended to have outside the human body. So, this metaphor comes at a great price of gags and esophageal spasms for me.

Nevertheless, the “bells” in my life have resulted in my waddling in my own pool of drool. The bells of my past experiences have elicited conditioned responses from me, typically in the form of habits, mindsets and emotional reactions. For example, life taught me early on that people would, without a doubt, hurt me. My conditioned response: build emotional walls and relational barriers to keep people away. That worked just fine until my teenage years when I realized that I desperately required access to God and His word. Suddenly, the Old Faithful responses were not getting me the results I needed and it was apparent that my thinking HAD to change if I desired to know God.

Although I was ready for a trigonometry formula, the solution was simple: THINK LIKE THE KINGS GOD INTENDED US TO BE.

“Bells” happen, folks! Unexpected events and circumstances have been around since the beginning of time. It isn’t the presence of bells that limits us, but our conditioned responses. Old Faithful responses limit our ability to be Kingdom thinkers. The biggest battle we fight regarding Kingdom thinking is changing what is between our right and left ears! It’s the fight to relinquish “approved” survival skills, learned coping skills, fragile self-images with over-sized egos, “well-thought out” and “expectant” plans and self-acquired knowledge to the King who said in Revelation 21 that He would make all things new in Heaven and earth alike. Without faith, it sounds scary enough to fall back on our Old Faithful conditioned responses.

God desires for us to be prosperous in every area of life: spirit, soul, body, finances, relationships, and more. Part of that is the willingness to change our thought-life. Prosperity is not the result of how much God wants it for us, but how much we want it for ourselves, and how willing we are to renew our minds so that we may know and operate in the good, acceptable and perfect will of God.

The bells are ringing, people. Instead of your conditioned responses . .

Choose to fight the good fight of faith and confess the Word.

Choose the wisdom of God, the power of God, and think accordingly.

Choose to trust in El Elyon, who makes all things new.

Or . . . stand in a pool of your own drool.

~Vickie Bowman

 

The Voice at the Finish Line

When I was in third grade, I was finally able to run in the Junior Olympics. Our P.E. coaches, Mrs. Arthur and Mr. Parson, had begun preparing Ann and I early in our first and second grade years. They boasted on our natural ability to run, enjoyed our healthy, competitive attitudes and established a bond of trust with us that boosted our confidence. We trained until we were standing on the track at the Franklin County High School for Junior Olympics.

Now, Mama loved putting our hair in ponytails. Each ponytail was decorated with a pretty, colorful plastic bow at the end.  It would have been fine, except our hair was long and every time we swung our heads from side to side, we became victims of the ponytails’ wrath. They nearly wrapped around our little throats and left unnecessary scratches and cuts on our faces.

Nevertheless, we were on the track for the preliminary 200 meter relay race with our long ponytails and blue hair bows, which matched the blue “LES” shirt I proudly wore. I stood ready with great anticipation in the first lane and stretched my arms as I believed Jim Thorpe or Jesse Owens would have.

BANG!

The gun sounded and I took off like lightening around the curve. I watched as Coach Parson dashed across the field for the finish line. He yelled, spit and flung his arms in the air as he encouraged me on. When I hit the straight-a-way, I noticed that I was running the race all by myself and Coach Parson was ahead of me. I closed my eyes confidently, swung my head from side to side with a huge smile on my face, and ran faster as I silenced all other voices in the stands, including my mother, and listened for Coach Parson’s voice at the finish line.

I won that race that day. When my racing buddies told that story when we were in high school, they insisted that my ponytails with blue bows and side-to-side head swing were the lethal forces that took them out of the race, leaving them with cuts and bruises. Me . . . all I remembered was hearing Coach’s voice at the finish line.

The passages in Mark 4:24-25 and Luke 8:18 are scriptures I have often found myself meditating. Jesus told his disciples to heed what and how they heard, because that was the determining factor for the quantity of faith they were given. It made sense to me: faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God (Romans 10:17). The more I heard, the more faith I had; the more faith I had, the more access I had to God and His promises. Simple . . . or so I thought.

I remember times when those words weren’t so simple. I listened to friends who praised me as long as I pleased them. I listened to the words of my abuser who told me I was wasting my time believing for a solution that was never coming. I listened to my fearful words convincing myself I was not worth loving. In time, those words overrode the voice of God. They overrode Jesus, Himself, as He yelled and flung His hands, which were pierced for my sake, wildly above His head. Eventually, their love and what they did were not enough for me because other voices kept me from seeing their worth.

We’ve heard it time and time again; we must silence the “extra” voices we hear in our mind, will and emotions, as well as those voices from others around us, so that we may hear God’s voice and heed His words. Only then, when we hear His voice, are we able to breakthrough and overcome.

I encourage you, my loved ones. Don’t be drawn aside by the crowds in the stands. Instead, close your eyes, swing your head from side to side as your hair beats against your face and listen for God’s voice beckoning at the finish line.

~Vickie Bowman