In the desert

I hear voices telling me I'm not enough.
My inadequacies gang up for an intervention, 
And I'm the center of their morbid attention:
"You are and will be found wanting."

Camel skin marked the way way back. 
The desert stirred as "Repent" echoed along 
The lonely shores of the River Jordan, and throng
Upon throng came to listen. I'm not there. 

A straight, flattened way for the Lord
Was the requirement for any form of joy. 
Yet all I bring are curves, hills and voids, 
And inability to do better or more. 

"Before birth, before you were formed..."
I've read that, but should I believe it? 
Definitely it was meant for some great prophet, 
Not me, seed on rocky soil wilting away

How shall the Lord travel these traps 
That my hungry angry soul sets in despair? 
How shall he navigate a heart so in disrepair
Even spiders won't build webs there? 

"Don't be afraid, for I am with you...."
Whispers floating to my cowering ears
To persuade me to cast away the fears
That gang up to jail-bar my attention. 

With four candles burning on the wreath, 
And my healing heart still thinking about my fate 
While making the straight to welcome the babe
I move to not be afraid for He is with me

It's a child's craft on the potter's wheel, 
The trembling fingers on the archer's bow, 
A wrench eating at a loose nut, but I sure know
That I'm not alone in fixing that manger 
Which for the Architect is Heaven's harbinger

(c) nyonglema