There’s Always Been A Place of Grace
On the Desert Road
Isaiah 60:1-3 NIV
“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you. [2] See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the LORD rises upon you and his glory appears over you. [3] Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.
*As I was asking the Lord to give me a poem, I was reminded of the inspiration I had in the Casting Crowns album I got my friend, knowing how deeply music touches her along with the verses in Isaiah!
Life isn’t always easy
It throws some hard balls
The kind that knock you
To your knees
And leave you
Searching to
The very depths.
There are those
Roads desert roads
That wind and wind
Leaving us wondering
If we will ever
Make it to our
Destination
But on those
Paths
No matter how
Hard
How winding
There’s a place
Of Grace
When we reach
Out and cry
Out his name
Jesus
The one
Who died for us.
The paths don’t
Disappear
Simply because
We believe
We don’t get
A free path
From pain
Or sorrow
But one day
All the pain
The sorrow
Will be wiped away!
And on this path
As the roads
Take us down
The winding path
He sends reminders
Along the way,
People he uses
To sit with us
Through those
Desert roads!
And he reminds us
The ones who are willing
To sit with us
As we learn to navigate
Grief and pain
Are the ones
Worth fighting
For!
Copyright Michelle R Kidwell
February.11.2026
About the Creator
Michelle Renee Kidwell
Abled does not mean enabled. Disabled does not mean less abled.” ― Khang Kijarro Nguyen
Fighting to end ableism, one, poem, story, article at a time. Will you join me?
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Foot Bindings
I asked my grandmother how she knew she'd fallen in love. I am not sure I ever did love him, she said. This was before I met my husband. I was naive, a naked spring, a raw nerve of a thing. That cannot ever be me, I knew. Sadness swept in gently like a Moscow thaw. It is no simple thing, looking into a woman's vast soul and seeing its foot bindings. Now, in Italy divorced with my skin singed off, when I say I don't love him mean: I have succeeded at feeling nothing most days and it mostly works. Do you want the comfort of Nothing? Do you want Nothing, too? Be warned: you'll never be free, even when you are nothing. Here is what doesn't work: Accepting the stages of grief. Talking about it. Sitting with the feeling. Missing him—no, the person you were when you believed in death do us part. Writing poetry. That, too. When I say I don't love him I mean: I feel capsized in an endless, starved tide. What sometimes works: selective memory. You must forget ripe tomatoes and his beard and feeling perfectly sheltered in a big blue world. Forget coffee in bed, laughter watching TV, blowing out the candles on the birthday cake and the quiet all-encompassing knowledge that you are chosen. Remember only how love turned to a banal everyday survival act, a trapeze act unsure whether he will catch you, how the warmth stagnated and became sour, remember the foot bindings and remember the resentment boiling in your veins as you stick it out for the kids. Six-hour Netflix binges help, too. A man's fingers tracing your spine. Frozen pizza at 2 a.m. Random trips to the museum just to stand near things that last a while. The realization that crying won’t change anything. Seeing that life is just a dream, and refusing to participate in your own suffering. Bite your fist. Walk on eggshells around joy. When I say I don't love him, I mean he didn’t break my heart, he just stopped touching it and it forgot how to beat right.
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A Recipe for Nostalgia
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