Waiting for God

This prayer-a-phrased poem from today's Daily Bible Reading in the Psalms gives a glimpse of the Psalmist's prayer stance as he awaited a response from God:

Psalm 62:1-2

For God alone
in silence waits
my soul.
From Him alone
in strength waits
my salvation.
My Rock! My Fortress!
I shall not be moved.
In God alone
my soul shall not be shaken.

© 1998, Mary Harwell Sayler, all rights reserved. The poem first appeared in 1998 in UpSouth and the Saints Alive chapbook then the Letters to a Priest anthology in 2010.


©2013, Mary Sayler

Christ our Passover: the lasting sacrifice

Christ our Lasting Sacrifice
by Mary Harwell Sayler

I have come to do Your Will, O God
for the blood of animals cannot take away
sin forever.
Short-lived sacrifices, short-term offerings
do not cover sin forever,
and so You have prepared for Me
a Body
ready to be sacrificed –
the First to Last –
ready to do Your Will.

I have come to do Your Will, O God
as Holy Scriptures said I would
for You can no longer tolerate
temporary fixes:
interim sacrifices, itinerant offerings, burnt
offerings, sin offerings once accorded by Law.

You Will, O God, I have come to do to
fulfill the first way and establish the second
to sanctify All by offering
Myself –
the Body of Christ
arising – First and Last –
to do Your Will, O God.
I have come to do Your Will.



© Mary Harwell Sayler, all rights reserved; prayer-a-phrase poem from today’s Bible reading in Hebrews 10:4-10

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Name change and changing plans

One of my favorite quotes comes from the movie Sabrina where the title character says, “Sometimes more isn’t better. Sometimes it’s just more,” to which I add, “Amen!” But I still wound up with 7 blogs and 2 websites so also add, “Oops.”

Too many good ideas, good activities, and even good ministries can be too much of a good thing.

Therefore, I recently let one website go but couldn’t get a handle on how to regroup the blogs. Since I believe in the importance of each one, I’ve been praying about this longer than Lent. But finally, clarity came the first day of Holy Week.

Having written about writing for many years, I have numerous articles to draw from that could be helpful, I hope, for members of the Christian Poets and Writers group on Facebook. Many of those articles, which will gradually appear in the Christian Poets and Writers blog, have previously appeared here, but In a Christian Writer’s Life is no longer my primary focus for newly written articles. The Bible is.

If you have visited my blogs on Bible People, Bible Prayers, Christian Healing Arts, and What the Bible Says About Love, I pray you’ll follow the newly revised blog here, where, Lord willing, new posts will most likely arise in prayer-a-phrases from Daily Bible Readings.

In addition some of my poems previously published in books or secular journals will soon be on the Poetry Editor blog, Lord willing, which means that the only blog of mine that may stay as is for now are reviews of new translations, study editions, and children’s Bibles on the Bible Reviewer blog.

With two new reviews still waiting to be winged, others may depend on whether Bible publishers add me to their list of reviewers. And, oh, I pray they do because when it comes to the Bible less just doesn’t work for me! Sometimes more is better.

© 2013, Mary Harwell Sayler

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