Prose Poems

CREATION'S HIDDEN FOUNDATION Beneath the weight of mountains, beneath the turning of galaxies, beneath the hidden fire inside the stars, there is a silence holding everything together. Not the silence of emptiness, but the silence before a holy voice speaks. Human hands divide the world endlessly— stone into powder, time into seconds, life into numbers, souls into categories— yet still they cannot touch the hidden root of being. For creation is not suspended by iron laws alone. There is something deeper than gravity, deeper than motion, deeper than the cold precision of measured things. Mercy moves beneath existence like underground water beneath the desert. Love remains unseen, yet civilizations rise longing for it. Truth cannot be held in the fist, yet conscience trembles beneath its light. The soul cannot be photographed, yet all history bears its wounds. And somewhere beyond the noise of machines and empires, the Eternal whispers: “I AM.” Not distant. Not absent. Not trapped in...

THE BROKEN ROAD THAT BREATHES There is a road that never cracks— smooth with certainty, paved with answers that never bleed. No one stumbles there. No one weeps. No one is changed. It goes nowhere perfectly. — But there is another road. It breaks under your feet, shifts with every step, dust rising like prayer from the places you fell. This road remembers your trembling. It keeps the imprint of your trying. Here— you will stumble. Here— you will misjudge the distance, reach too far, or not far enough. Here— you will love and not be returned. — And still— this road breathes. From its fractures something rises— not certainty, but life. Not perfection, but pulse. The cracks are not endings. They are openings. Where your strength failed, roots begin. Where your voice broke, something deeper speaks. — Do not fear this road. It is alive because you were willing to walk it. Better the path that wounds and awakens than the road that never asks your heart. — For the broken road is the only one ...

LIVING TRUTH, WOUNDED LOVE There is a silence that calls itself wisdom— a still, polished thing untouched by risk, untouched by tears. It speaks in finished sentences, walks on unbroken ground, and never falls— because it never moves. But beneath its certainty there is no pulse, no trembling, no life. Only truth— already buried. — Then there is love. Uncertain, unarmed, stepping forward without guarantee. It reaches— and sometimes misses. It speaks— and sometimes fails. It gives— and is not returned. Love breaks. Love bleeds. Love is misunderstood. Yet even its wounds are breathing. Even its failures are seeds. — Who, then, is the hero? Not the one crowned by victory, nor the voice that conquers the room. Not the mind that wins the argument while the heart remains untouched. No— The hero is the one who dares to love without armor, without certainty, without escape. The one who falls forward into truth still becoming. — For everything touched by love refuses to stay dead. Even loss begi...

> NO PLACE, YET THE WAY “Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” In a world overflowing with noise, tribes, and certainty, this word cuts through everything: Follow me. Jesus Christ does not promise belonging as the world defines it. He does not secure identity through groups, ideologies, or comfort. He calls us into something deeper: truth over approval love over fear surrender over control The world fragments. The Gospel gathers. Not by making everyone the same— but by calling each person into a life where love becomes the center. To follow him today is to step out of the echo chamber and into the reality of the neighbor. The question is not where you belong— but whether you will follow. Pastor Steven G. Lee St. GMC Corps May 4, 2026  

  > MAKE ROOM No roof— yet the sky was open. No bed— yet the ground remembered him. No place— yet everywhere he stood became a crossing. He passed through voices, through sides, through walls made of certainty— and stopped where no one wanted to stop. There. Where the wounded lay. Where the silence thickened. Where the world had already moved on. “Follow me,” he said— not into comfort, but into truth. Not into safety, but into love. And the question remained after he was gone: If he stood here now— would there be room? Pastor Steven G. Lee St. GMC Corps May 4, 2026

THE PLACE THAT MOVES He had no place to lay his head— so the place began to move. Not in walls, not in names, not in circles of agreement— but wherever love refused to pass by. The world builds rooms of certainty and calls them home. But the Son walks past them— because truth cannot be contained and love cannot be owned. Follow, he says— and the ground will shift beneath you. Not into chaos— but into the only place that remains: where the other is no longer avoided, and the distance is no longer allowed. Pastor Steve G. Lee St. GMC Corps May 4, 2026  

 > GRACE IS NOT CHEAP Grace is given freely— but it is never cheap. It does not come from us, so we cannot price it, control it, or reduce it to comfort. Grace comes from the Cross. And the Cross is not a symbol of ease— it is the place where truth refused compromise, where love endured rejection, where mercy bore the full weight of sin without turning away. So when grace meets a life, it does not leave it unchanged. Cheap grace asks nothing, requires nothing, transforms nothing. It comforts without confronting, forgives without restoring, speaks peace without truth. But true grace— the grace of Jesus Christ— does something deeper. It calls you out of illusion and into reality. It exposes what is broken not to condemn, but to heal. It leads you through repentance, through surrender, through a reordering of the heart. Grace does not excuse the old life— it crucifies it so that a new life can begin. This is why grace feels costly to us— not because it demands payment, but because ...

THE GOSPEL'S URGENT NOW Not tomorrow— the Gospel breathes in now, in the narrow space between your thought and your choice. It does not wait for the perfect hour, for quiet conditions, for a heart without hesitation. It speaks where you are standing. Now— where a face appears you did not plan to see, where a need interrupts what you thought mattered more. Now— where mercy is not theory, but a hand extended, or withheld. The moment is small only to those who measure it. But within it something unseen opens— a door without hinges, a weight without sound. Eternity leans close and does not announce itself. Now is not loud, but it is not weak. It carries a quiet urgency— like light fading before you notice the dark. “Do not delay,” it whispers, not with fear, but with truth. Because now does not remain. It passes— not empty, but bearing witness to what you chose when it called. And still it comes again— this urgent now, this offered moment, this unrepeatable gift. Not asking how much ti...

> MERCY WITHOUT PRICE It came to me when I had nothing left to offer— no strength to bargain, no goodness to present, no words that could make me worthy. I stood empty. And still— it came. Not as a reward for something I had done, not as a wage for effort or endurance, not as a prize for finally becoming enough— but as a gift that asked nothing in return. I did not earn it. I could not. For mercy does not measure. It does not calculate. It does not wait for balance. It sees the broken place and enters anyway. Like light that does not ask permission from the darkness it removes, it found me where I had already given up on being found. And in that moment, I understood: this is a wealth no hand can hold, no system can trade, no power can control. It is given where there is no claim. It remains where there is no right. It grows where it is received, not deserved. So I let go of the need to prove, the need to justify, the need to stand on something of my own— and simply received. And in ...

> THE UNSEEN RICHES OF GRACE There is a wealth that does not shine, no coin, no crown, no guarded gate— it walks the earth in quiet form, unnoticed by the eyes of haste. It does not gather to itself, nor boast of what it holds secure; it gives, and in the giving lives— a hidden life, a life made pure. We chased the gold that glitters loud, we built our towers, named our gain, yet found within the richest rooms a subtle hunger, still the same. For what is held can slip away, what is praised can fade with time, but grace does not depend on hands— it moves beyond what we define. It meets the soul in broken hours, in places stripped of borrowed light, where nothing left can be defended, and truth stands bare before the night. There—without price, without demand— it enters not as earned reward, but as a gift the heart receives when it no longer claims its own. A mercy rising without cause, a love that does not calculate, a quiet strength that does not shout, yet outlasts all that we crea...

> TO HEAR IS TO SURRENDER To hear— not the echo of my own asking, not the chorus of my fears— but the quiet that waits beneath them. I came with a thousand sentences, each one a small attempt to hold the world in place. I spoke as though sound could steady me, as though naming could save me. But the more I said, the less I knew. So the words loosened— their grip softening, their urgency thinning— until they fell like rain that has finished its work. And I was left with nothing to say. Nothing— except to remain. In that remaining, I felt the tremor of letting go: the need to be right, the need to be heard, the need to shape what would come. To hear was to release them all. To stand unguarded before what is, before what cannot be moved by my insistence. And in that yielding, I found not absence, but a nearness that did not wait for my words. A presence that asked only this: Be still enough to receive. So I stayed— not speaking, not striving, not holding— but opening. And what entered ...

> WHEN PRAYER FINDS ITS TRUE VOICE At first, it is only sound— a reaching, a searching, a voice learning its own echo. It rises quickly, afraid of silence, afraid that quiet might mean absence. So it fills the air with careful words, with urgent needs, with the trembling hope of being heard. But time teaches what noise cannot: that the deepest things do not answer to volume. And so the voice begins to change. It softens— not from weakness, but from truth. It slows— not from doubt, but from listening. Until what remains is not the force of speaking, but the courage to wait. Here, prayer sheds its disguise. No longer a striving, no longer a shaping of desire, no longer a reaching outward to move the heavens— it turns inward, and upward, and deeper still. The voice grows quiet. Not lost— but refined. Not absent— but awakened. And in that quiet, a new voice is born— not one that demands, but one that yields. Not one that explains, but one that trusts. Not one that speaks to be heard, bu...

> WHERE WORDS FALL AWAY I came with words— armfuls of them— carefully chosen, carefully arranged, afraid that silence might mean You were not there. So I spoke. I spoke of needs, of fears that circled like restless birds, of thoughts that would not rest until they were named. And still— something in me remained unheard. Not by You, but within me. So the words began to loosen, not taken, not silenced— but gently released. Like leaves that no longer cling to the branch when the season has turned. One by one, they fell. Until what remained was not emptiness, but a stillness I had never trusted before. There— without the sound of my own voice— I felt something closer than all my speaking had reached. Not a reply, not an answer shaped in language, but a presence that did not need to be explained. And I stayed. Without rehearsing, without asking, without needing to be heard— only listening. And in that listening, I began to understand: nothing essential had been lost in the falling of wor...

THE WEALTH HIDDEN IN THE SOUL There is a treasure without a name, no weight, no measure, no vault to hold it— it does not glitter in the light, yet it outlasts the stars we count. We searched for it in open hands, in coins that rang with borrowed worth, in towers built against the night, in things that promised, “You are secure.” But every promise learned to fade. For what is gathered can be scattered, what is guarded can be gone, and what is praised can turn to silence when the world withdraws its breath. Still—something remains. Not in the noise of what we owned, but in the quiet of what endured when loss had finished speaking. A stillness. A knowing. A light that does not ask to be seen to prove that it is there. Here is the hidden wealth: A conscience that does not bend with fear. A mercy that rises without command. A truth that stands when nothing else does. A love that is not bought, and cannot be undone. It is not found by reaching outward, but by returning— through the narrow d...