I felt a twinge.

On the train, saw a sign,
Online, read a rant,
A pouring out of pain
On the train,
Overheard a tense conversation 
Overhead, graffiti vituperation
I felt a twinge.

How sad…
Such hurt!
Why so angry?
What’s behind it all?
I wonder.

And I could leave it there,
At that momentary ouch,
As I have often done before;
But I sense for a breath
The shadow of a greater ache
The brush of a deeper bruise
The edge of a piercing grief
And dimly I perceive, 
as if through that foggy train window,
the source of this twinge;

For if I bear His Name
How not His pain?
How not His sorrow?
Perhaps I’ve not yet known enough of His heart.

And when I leave it there
At that momentary ouch
I realise now how much I miss.
Brushing off exclusions’s misery may dismiss the patience of hope;
Squashing down stings of anger dampens my fire to seek justice;
Cutting off betrayal blinds me to the beauty of mercy.
Deadening the pain of loss risks shutting out enduring, unconquerable love.

For truly weeping with the weeper,
laughing with the laugher,
is hunger and thirst for only that which satisfies – 
Only Him who satisfies.

Yet I?
I feed my hunger with the take out of tolerance,
I suck down great mouthfuls of ignorance, and apathy,
I snack away on self-righteous indignation.
And I don’t even know I’m starving!

But by His grace,
the pins and needles of the Spirit spark again in my soul,
I feel. That. Twinge.

And dare I leave it there,
At that momentary ouch?
Grab my preferred painkiller and live numb?
Or dare I awake
Accept the ache
and become my Father’s daughter, 
Fully alive?