by Pat Severin

Where does my heart lie?
Is it on God or myself?
Or is it on both?
My goal and my hope is
to have my heart rely completely 
on my Lord and my Savior.
He is the Creator and Source of everything! 
He is a God of Power & Might!
How can my heart lie on anything but Him?

But my reliance wanes and I find myself
consumed with worry about 
so many things, most often my health.
I never thought my later years 
would be like this!
Sleep is often illusive as the pain
wakes me and I, once again, 
get lost in my own thoughts and concerns.

I tend to call them ‘concerns’
because although worries 
are what that really are,
by calling them concerns. 
I can fool myself into thinking
they’re not important enough 
to be given entirely over to God. 
At least, not like I should.

I say that I’m turning them over to Him,
I say the words but am I really, actually, 
giving them to God?
Where does my heart lie?
If I’m totally honest, it lies with myself. 
They’re my worries so 
I have to handle them by
relying on my own devises to solve them.
I trust myself when I should trusting God.

Looking back on my words,
I can see that they’re riddled with “I” 
when it should 
be laid at His feet.

Help me, Lord, to get out of my own way
and sincerely turn everything, all of it,
over to you, believing you will take 
all the worries on my mind
into your hands… at last. Amen.

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Pat Severin is a retired Christian school teacher who serves her Lord in many ways, including teaching, church and teen ministries, and her current ministry of creating cards that include her original poems of encouragement. She sends these cards weekly to those going through difficult life struggles.
She has been published in Agape Review, Clayjar Review, Thewayback2ourselves, Words of the Lamb, Vessels of Light, Heart of Flesh and Pure in HeartStories. In addition, she has been published in many of the Southern Arizona Press Anthologies, as well as the following three books, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Lessons I Learned from My Dog, I Chose You: Imperfectly Perfect Rescue Dogs and their Humans and most recently, When Love Wags a Tail: Inspiring Stories of Love, Loyalty and Laughter.