There was a time...

This poem originally was started almost 20 yrs ago, during the course of my marriage and the beginning was different than what it is now. I have the original crumpled paper, in my time capsule box. I tried to finish it over the years and never came close until a few weeks ago when I was winding my way home and then bam, it hit me. It was never meant to be about a man on earth. The original and only lines read:

"There was a time a time ago, I asked a prayer of how things should go,

A man that I should find, forever loving, forever mine."

There was a time a time ago, I asked a prayer of how things should go, where should it be found, the moment of help when no one was around. The moment of peace when on the ground. The tears that fell the agonies that screamed forever never to cease So that's the way it felt Lord help me please.

Minutes fly to hours Hours sometimes creep to days days burnt to years given yourself buckets of hiddden tears.

A cry for help release from pain not beliving in a faith that reigns

Prayer after prayer while barely believing it must have been faith that kept you there the hidden well of hope of a love that cared.

Trial upon trial little seeds of faith planted never realizing the harvest of moments you took for granted.

For every darkness you prayed to come through a little daylight was given to help see you through.

Year faded into years you continued to ignore the knock upon your heart to open up the door.

You never saw the daylight as it was meant to be you felt better for the few days of what you thought you would need

Even in silence of sitting still you never understood, never sought but one day you will.

It will be the painful cost the last straw that bends your knees and in your heart you will finally be free

The crossing path of a long ago past A seconds god bless and a prayer for you it never dawned the path you were on, it will take the very depth of all the excruciating bottom as you fall.

It will take a moments grace the shinging light of god's pace it will be the almighty shining from above You won't know in what form it comes the grace of prayer in a moment awry the extreme hope to silence your cries, find comfort in the fear take away the pain despite the cost of what was just gained.

The moments of barely a faith, to none indeed to hope and prayers of peace to not feeling what you seek to not believing except for when you need to your rock bottom you have fallen and nowhere else to go and you thought you were fine before this moment in time.

Oh what you didn't know. In my last hopes and fears in the painful drowing tears the silent screams the violent no the please take away and not make this so. The moment of no more running because you can run no more.

The brick walls mortised in my soul the moat and drawbridge chained tight and close in an instant...gone That was God taking the chains that bound the walls that never really sheltered, and made them crumble to the ground.

The revelations of what you have seen the moment that you heard the very calling of a moment where peace is finally heard.

As a parent that teaches a child so must we be taught The understanding of so much loss brings about the painful cost the moment you know the moment you live for real the moment you walk on away with a faith that is believed will always stay, the very second you feel healed.

My eyes have seen much in the days most recent past my heart has opened in unexplained ways. As an addict must find ways to recovery, so must a faithless person who seldom chose to believe. that you know wouldn't have come from any other door things that cannot be ignored.

Unreal as they are and the decisions that were made have brought a bout a new life rearrange not just for me but for others too, those that left the fold have come back to you.

It took my daughters death to make me see where I was and what could finally be. the grace of God that finally let me see.