Palettes and Pages

I began my poetry journey in 2024, and since then, poetry has become an integral part of my daily life. Whenever I think of an idea I write it down even just a thought and not yet a whole poem, whenever I feel something I write as such; love, sadness, romance, and anger I write something about it, whenever I learn something I write about it, and even every moment I try to see something that I can write about. But although I started to be more compelled by poetry and in the "Art of Words" I have been writing poems from time to time. Here is one of these poems I wrote back in 2019.

Inspired after reading the Christian allegorical book by John Bunyan "Pilgrim's Progress", this is the time when my faith was introduced to the Reformed teachings, and I was also introduced to this book by the late evangelist John Bunyan, his work in this book deeply influenced my beliefs and my faith.

It's an allegory of a guy named Christian, who represents the Christian believer, who journeys his way up to the Celestial City with the help of the Lord, the King of the Celestial City, all the way to the end, saving him from the beginning and keeping him till the end. A reminder that our way to salvation is not by our own but only through faith and through the grace of the Lord at work in us (Ephesians 2:8-9). The protagonist Christian often chooses to stray from the path the Evangelist told him to embark on, but each time he does, the Lord always saves him.

The part which inspire me the most in the story is the time when Christian run and fell into the "Slough of Despond" because of the giant burden that he has been carrying, it is where "the sinner is awakened about his lost condition, and there ariseth in his soul many fears, and doubts, and discouraging apprehensions, which all of them get together, and settle in this place...", Christian almost on the brink of being drowned, came upon a character named Help that saved him, the character represents the Lord Jesus Christ who is our "...very present help in trouble" (Psalm 46:1). He help Christian from his sin and guilt. Later on in the story Christian after carrying his burden of sin and guilt has finally came across Mount Calvary where he sees the cross (The Cross of Christ), that is when "his burden loosed from off his shoulders, and fell from off his back," Christian is finally free from his sin and guilt through the justification by faith.

The guilt of sin and the burden that it follows for those who understand their sinful state are truly unbearable, but say I that you wait on the Lord and bear his wrath for awhile for this is but the Lord's rod to chastise those that he loves. And when the time comes that the Lord has taken the burden and exchange it with hope, we will truly be free and enjoy Him all the more. Soli Deo Gloria!

Anotation:

Some days feel like wrong turns stacked on top of each other. Plans fail, timelines shift, prayers seem unanswered, and my first instinct is to call it a mistake.

But I’m learning from something as ordinary as a GPS: it never shames you for missing the turn. It simply recalculates and keeps guiding you forward. I realized that faith works the same way. When life doesn’t unfold the way I imagined, it isn’t proof that God has abandoned the route, it may be Him redirecting it.