By Sarah Spradlin

 

Sister, I see your arms are trembling.

Brother, I see your tears,

your stone-set face,

how this fire

rattling in your bones,

shut up no longer,

has burned you in the telling.

 

May I be your Aaron?

Do I have your permission,

as you weave a hedge around us with your words,

as you raise your brush like a sword

and your easel like a shield,

your desk like a ladder,

and you lash your hopes to paper in tattoos of paint and ink,

to lift up your arms?

 

May I care for you,

cradle you,

repair and restore what death and darkness have destroyed

of your many labors set adrift in uncertain waters?

There are so many fingerprints in the dough:

I am uncertain which are yours and which are mine.

But in these potsherds

we have gathered,

we have reforged,

we have refined

that we might reflect the sun:

broken mirrors,

breaking curses,

breathing life

like the Maker taught us to.

 

May You, Creator God,

receive our humble offering

as we wrestle with this mantle,

this name You whispered over us in watery wombs,

receive our broken body,

receive Your church,

receive these sore-footed shepherds

who have wandered for many miles

searching for lost ones,

to whom we also belong.

 

May You continue to bless us with the courage

to seek and find the one

even when ninety-nine looks better for business.

We give thanks for this eternal wrestling,

this beautiful calling

to be artists

without any strings attached.

 

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Sarah grew up in Georgia with her mom, dad, and little sister, Merry. She attended the University of Georgia, where she majored in International Affairs and Agriscience Environmental Systems. After graduating in 2019, Sarah took a job working alongside small-holder farmers in Chinandega, Nicaragua as a missionary with Amigos for Christ. She loves telling the story of the global farmer and nerding out about how nature works. Sarah has been homeschooled, private schooled, and public schooled, graduating from the Madison County High School in 2015. She lived in Costa Rica for seven months, and even hung out in Panama for a few days. She’ll read pretty much anything and has tried her hand at almost every kind of writing, though she likes poetry best. (Although fiction books are making a surprise, now-that-I’ve-graduated-from-college-I-have-time-to-read-again comeback.) But because writing bios is a struggle, if you really want to get to know Sarah, shove some words in her general direction on her Instagram, email her at sarah.beth.spradlin@gmail.com, or visit her blog.