An ordinary suburban girl with an extraordinary passion for seeking the Lord’s will in her life, Sherrill is more than a poet. She is a retired elementary school teacher, mother of two grown children, and wife for over 31 years. One dreary morning's drive awakened her passion for writing prayer-poetry as God greeted her with a spectacular sunrise. Her flow of words and faith has filled two self-published books so far.
A New Year
By Sherrill Schlimpert
Okay, I finally admit it. I’ve spent half a century denying it – but I give up. Now that I’m having a mammoth struggle with the hormone fluctuations of menopause, I finally admit it – I am my mother.
Okay, I don’t have to get maudlin. To be perfectly truthful, I guess it would be better to say, I am my mother’s daughter, with many of her tendencies. My name is Sherrill, and I am a somewhat neurotic, often Type A, sometimes pessimistic….Christian. I worry, I fret, I tend to get depressed and hopeless at times, seeing the cup as half empty. I’ve tried not to be all of the above, but finally recognize my need of a twelve step resolution.
Now, in this attempt at complete honesty, I must be careful not to be too negative about myself. No one but my closest friends – and my poor, dear husband would know this about me. In fact, the people I work with see me as the most positive, upbeat, never-upset employee among them. Quite a façade I’ve put over on them – and on most of the people that know me!
Therefore, as I contemplate my New Year’s Resolution as this year ends, I am resolving to let down my mask as a with-it, together person. Oh, maybe not to the secular world, for they might eat me alive, but at least to you, my fellow Christian seekers that I write to. But mostly, to God.
For what I want to do better at this year – and every year hereafter, for the negative, (or is it realistic) side of me recognizes that I won’t arrive at this resolution completely by 2007- is not only to confess and recognize my tendencies, and to quit trying to mask them, as much as to offer them as a reason for complete surrender and dependence on my Savior. I hope to get a step closer to spending my days – each day – asking God for my next step, recognizing my utter dependence on His help as I acknowledge my weaknesses. I want to include Him in my decision-making, to ask Him to help me to decide what book to aid me in my quiet time, to ask when to have my quiet time. I want Him to be included in how much time I spend picking out my clothes, or what to have for supper, or when to let something go and rest instead. I want to actually practice His presence, to actually recognize He’s with me in my day – ready to help me know how to respond to unexpected rudeness sent my way, or to the fact that I forgot something again and want to beat myself up over it, or even to just sit and know He’s in control of these hormonal jittery attacks and exhausting hot flashes.
How can I summarize my resolution this year as I take down my mask and look at the basket-case of anxiety that I struggle to contain? I want to be the one who like David, like Peter, like Paul, acknowledges their weaknesses while they continue to follow hard after their savior.
Maybe it’s not a twelve step resolution I need, but just a simple, profound one: I want to be more fully His.
Trying to Nail Down Life:
A Resolution for 2007
I long this year to nail down life,
You know finally arrive,
Where all is beauty and right,
Where I feel together, fully alive.
Where the house gets finally clean,
And I feel at last mature,
Where the days flow in harmony
And I don’t worry about the future.
Where I know what to have for supper,
And how to help my friend who’s hurtin’,
And how to keep my husband happy,
That’s one wish for certain.
But then I recognize
Once more I’ve fallen into my fixation,
That I strive to reach heaven on earth,
That’s my childish anticipation.
And that, “In this world you will have trouble”,
Is simply part of your plan.
You understand our dilemma,
You experienced it as man.
Life for you wasn’t easy.
You didn’t live the life of a king.
But what you did in three short years
Is of what through the ages we continue to sing.
So when I want all to be neat and simple,
For life to be nailed down all easy, and clean,
Let me look to the only thing nailed down,
That’s clear, on the cross, to be seen.
That what is true and right and noble,
Pure and simple to see,
Is that as I go through life with all of its confusing diversions…
You are there with your promises to me.
