Watering
A poem by Chinasa
I witnessed the tears run down,
Salty,
But you hid your face.
And I saw the prophet that ran from God.
Jonah, this salt water is bigger than the pool in my eyes.
We were running away from the big eyes that watch, as the children of God often do.
Salt tears mock us don’t they?
The sea, we couldn’t quite walk on, laughs.
Child of God
Child so small, so salty,
Your tears fall to the Earth.
Touching ground, they blossom as covenants.
And the angels swarm to harvest because The Father always pays His debts.
C.
Author’s Note
This poem was inspired by the scripture Matthew 5:13 that describes children of God as the “salt of the Earth”. It’s ironic that tears, something produced from sadness, can remind us of our position and responsibility on Earth. The weight of responsibility being a child of God is precious and we don’t want to mess up what we’ve been trusted to steward, hence why we sometimes run away just as Prophet Jonah did. If you’re familiar with the story you will understand the line: “Jonah, this salt water is bigger than the pool in my eyes.”
Sometimes not listening to God’s call puts us in worst situations.
But the poem ends with encouragement that God sees us. The theme of eyes highlights one of God’s names El Roi (the God who sees me).
What I mean by the “Father always pays his debts” is in relation to Jesus Christ who took on the sins of the world and died which meant he paid the price for our wrongdoings. A debt we owed God, God Himself became our guarantor and gave his only son so that we could have eternal life.
Tears blossoming into covenants was inspiration from King David’s Psalm 34:18 that “God is close to the brokenhearted and crushed in spirit”. We serve a compassionate God who doesn’t ignore our cries.
P.S. Tears are very powerful spiritually.