Lukewarm Gold.

They say gold don’t choose,

it moves.

Drips like fire,

hardens like ice,

spends its life shifting between both sides.

Heat refines it, cold preserves it,

but still, it stays gold, doesn’t it? .

*

But they tell me, Be hot. Be cold.

Pick a side, be bold.

But I have danced on both sides of the flame,

felt the burn, felt the chill,

felt the weight of choosing still.

And what if I told you the middle isn’t weak?

That the center isn’t hollow,

that the shifting isn’t cheap?

What if the wrestle is part of the dance,

what if the wandering is still in His hands?

*

They say the lukewarm get spat out,

Like I’m some bitter taste on the tongue of the Almighty,

like if I’m not blazing or frozen solid, I’m not worth keeping.

But who told you God only holds onto the extremes?

Who told you He lets go when the fire dims?

Who told you He forgets the ones in between?

*

I have been scorched with devotion,

singing loud, burning bright,

calling His name in the heat of the night.

And I have been cold, lips locked tight,

too numb to pray, too frozen to fight.

And tell me…

was I any less His in the fire or the frost?

Did He lose me between?

Was my soul ever lost?

*

Some days I am a wildfire,

consuming, ablaze, unstoppable.

Some days I am a flickering wick,

barely holding my own against the wind.

And some days, I don’t burn at all.

Some days I am still, waiting, watching, wondering,

standing in the space between my past and my future,

between who I was and who I am meant to be,

between the zeal I once had

and the faith I am still learning to keep.

*

And they tell me, Choose.

Like I haven’t been choosing every day.

Like I haven’t been fighting to keep this flame alive,

even when the fire isn’t what it used to be.

Like I haven’t been breathing through the frost,

even when the cold tries to choke me out.

Like the middle isn’t also a battlefield,

like standing here isn’t its own kind of war.

*

Because standing still isn’t the same as standing empty.

And moving slow ain’t the same as losing faith.

I have been burned, and I have been frozen,

but I am still here.

I am still gold.

And gold don’t stop being gold

just because it moves between fire and frost.

Gold don’t lose its worth

just because it shifts in the heat,

just because it bends, just because it breaks.

*

And isn’t that worship?

Not the perfect, not the pristine,

but the process,

the breaking, the building,

the lost, the found,

the hands raised high,

the knees on the ground.

The cry in the dark, the whisper of grace,

the stumbling steps, the slow embrace.

Not just the fire that burns wild and bright,

not just the cold where the air is tight,

but the middle, the movement, the in-between,

the faith that flickers but is never unseen.

*

So no, I am not lost in the middle.

I am passing through.

I am learning, I am shifting, I am being made new.

Like gold in the fire, like ice in the sun.

God is not done with me,

not until He’s WON.