Father, let me think your thoughts and feel your feelings for the people I see

My thoughts
Sometimes they get all messed up, they get all jacked up, they get all tripped up

I see the tough guy with the wife beater under the double x t shirt
Gold chains hanging down and a scowl on the brow
And I feel threatened, I feel offended, I feel defensive

I see the hipster with the precocious smirk, listening to some band he’s proud to know because other people don’t
The t shirt with the cute little graphic
New Balance shoes, Cool tattoos, the funky hat
The Ritual coffee cup and the road bike that makes him peg his right pant leg
On his oh so tight jeans

My thoughts get all messed up in my head
I’d like to love but I’d rather not
My own insecurities and my own peculiarities are calling

The little boys hop the fence into the half way fixed up park
Pipes and rocks are used instead of the baseball bats and balls that never came on Christmas morning
Rocks are whizzing past my baby girl’s head. Anger rises in my veins like a wave at Mavericks.

What feelings am I feeling now? What thoughts race through my tired brain?

When the man at the park scolds me, shaking his head, for not bringing him a bicycle
While my family sits the drunken man knocks on the window of my car and complains that we will not give him food. He shakes his head in anger and disgust, scaring my two lovely ladies

What now? Thoughts, feelings, thoughts, feelings, thoughts, feelings

I need to breathe. I need to stop. I need to rest.

My God says He loves, He cares, He sympathizes, He wishes well
He created…………In HIS IMAGE

He grieves when He sees the heroine needles
He cries when He sees the lonely child

Jesus spoke of a life abundant
A life He came for us to have

Echoes from my Sunday school childhood ring in my ear…

Change my heart oh God, Make it ever true
Change my heart oh God, May I be like you

Let me be so in tune, like a head bopping to a Jay Z tune
My thoughts full of your thoughts

May my brain be full of good thoughts, full of generosity
May my heart be filled with a compassion it has never known
May my feelings find direction and inspiration from my Creator

May all of us and all of them become simply all of us

And may we all feel His love,
ALL OF US
Swim around through it
Run in it without getting tired
Rest in it without getting bored
Float in it forever and ever and ever
May His love ooze out of our pores
And make us new