Know-Love-Obey God

All summer long
I have folded,
created. Why do I find
such solace in this?
Origami calms,
comforts, heals, reassures.

It begins with a little sheet,
a simple square of paper
unadorned, plain,
smooth and untouched.

What can come
of such a thing,
so thin, so frail
and blank?

The sheet has nothing yet.
I precision-align corner to corner,
edge to edge, and make
the first folds,
mountain- and valley-folds, all
irreversible,
hard creases it will remember;
creases that cannot be undone.

I am the paper
with such a memory
and each crease is a word said
to me, or a deed done
by me, words and deeds,
mountains and valleys
that cannot be
undone, I remember
each one.

I find solace in folding.
To make each crease is to
remember grace,
that God can take me—
thin, frail, plain—
and, despite flaws
and can’t-go-back
life choices, He can transform me
into something of beauty,
something redeemed
into beauty.

I keep my folds
and will not try to smooth
out the creases. He is the one
to make lines invisible,
if He will. If not,
His grace makes those same lines
into the good
He will make of them.

For the High Calling Blogs “solace” poetry prompt)