April 2022 Poetry Column

Dr. Latayne C. Scott・04/16/22

Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!" Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." ~ John 20:28-29

Ego Eimi

He is the Mighty One
He is the Creator,
The Great One
He who can bring victory
Out of the mingled paste
Of blood and ashes of defeat

How do I know
How can I say this

I stand with my elbows touching
Those of sorrowing men and women
Frozen in a slice of Friday-time
When all the world's hopes
Were laid in a hastily-washed heap
In a borrowed tomb
With no hope
No hope
No hope

Until the first rays of Sunday
Bathed the empty tomb ledge

God's power is most evident when everything is past salvaging, when things have gone beyond hopelessness. The Jewish believers in Jesus that we refer to as His disciples would have also identified themselves as children of Abraham.

Abraham, however, had greater faith than any of them: "He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were. Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed, and so became the father of many nations..." (Romans 4:17-18).

Calling the non-existent, fact.

Operating against all hope.

We, though, are more blessed than Abraham when we muster up that kind of faith. We are more blessed, even, than the disciples who saw the risen Lord.

For we have the great privilege of honoring Him with faith that is not sight.

Dr. Latayne C. Scott is the recipient of Pepperdine University’s Distinguished Christian Service Award for “Creative Christian Writing,” and is Trinity Southwest University’s Author in Residence. Guidepost’s newest book release is Angels All Around Us: True Stories of Encounters with God’s Heavenly Messengers, in which her essay, “The Warrior Angels” appears. The author of over two dozen published books, guest appearances on radio, television and podcasts, and thousands of published short essays and poems, she lives and writes in New Mexico. She maintains three websites: Latayne.com, mapmyfaith.org , and  Representationalresearch.com.