Paint With the Color of Pain

This poem is really late. I wrote it early this year and then "let it sit." But I came back to it today and it actually convicted me. So, on that note, here you go--

Paint with the Color of Pain
(Written for Bethany Rose, anyone who needs it, and for myself)

So brittle 

I might break.

What's it like 

not to ache?

Pushed it too far--

my mistake.

This smile

is getting

hard
to fake.

I ask the inevitable, 

dear Lord, why me?

I look down the long road.

I'm so weary.

It's part of Your plan,

but did it have to be?

My pain and confusion 

are all I can see.

So strange

how short my memory.

My wish for change

gets the best of me.

To not feel pain--

how glad I'd be!

But I'd forget that

once I was freed.

The rose is perfect,

the shape of grace

and heavenly peace

upon its face.

But see the color,

the brightest red

like the living blood

our Savior bled.

The color of both

joy and sorrow

--scarlett--

it chases the sunset

and

heralds tomorrow.

The trials are ugly

because you stand too close:

step back,

they're the spiraling petals

that form the rose.

This is meant to make you look

in the right direction,

so that His plan

and your purpose

won't escape your detection.

Do you want your life to be
built on a cloud
 that shifts more than sand,
 is a fast-fading pink?
 That deep, bright, bold red speaks
clear and loud:
 it spells "suffered but saved"
in permanent ink.

So remember the heartbreaking
 beauty
your life will retain
when He chooses
 to paint
with the color 
of pain.