5 Single Words
There is a poem I wrote several years ago that several people have written me saying how it helped them decide not to take their own life. Several people have asked me "How can you write a poem that can actually save the life of another?" My answer is simple, spend a day in bed with a loaded gun and then be willing to tell the entire world what it took to keep you from pulling the trigger. With me it came down to ---
5 Single Words
There was a man
Only 30 years of age
Yet
He found himself at the end of the road
He had lost his job
His career
His money
His savings
What there had been of it anyway
All because of a simple accident
Well, not so simple of an accident
For he was also facing the possibility
The possibility that he would never walk
Again
He had fought
Tried to look at every possible angle
Until he came to but one conclusion
One that a person
That has never been in this situation
Could possibly ever understand
He waited
Waited there in bed
The bed that he was becoming way too accustomed to
Until his wife had left for work
Until the kids had been sent off to school
Waited there until he was finally
All alone
Yes
He had argued and fought
This was against all that he believed in
But there it was
Hidden in the words of an obscure insurance policy
To some
He was worth more dead
Than alive
Surely they would understand
He tried to explain it in a note
He knew that God might not be able to
But he pleaded for their forgiveness
And he was afraid that somehow
Somehow he might just become to them
A burden
This was just more than he could take
So he laid there in that bed
All alone
With a loaded pistol in his hand
Fighting a losing battle
With the simple reasoning and logic
That had driven him to this decision
In the very instant
The moment when it had finally come down
Down to raising the barrel to his head
He heard a whisper
A voice
Barely audible
But familiar somehow
5 words
That was it
19 letters
That made him stop
Who will find your body
Would it be one of the kids
Possibly his father
That said that he might come over
Or would it be his wife
There were so many possibilities
So many different people
And that was when it hit him
Hit him how really blinded
He had let himself become
He put the gun away
And was very careful
Careful that no one else saw how often
For the next few days
That he cried
Some people would argue
That this was simply his conscious
That there really isn’t such a person
As God in heaven
But
I know one man that will argue this point
And do so with great reason
For in the darkest hour and moments
Of a 30-year-old man’s life
God himself came down from heaven
And spoke just 5 single words
And if you haven’t figured it out by now
I thank Him every single day of my life
That He was there
To give me the strength
And the courage
To listen
Ed Roberts 8/04/02
At the age of 30 I had 3 1/2 gallons of 350 degree grease spill down both of my legs from my knees down. Two different doctors told me I would probably never get out of a wheelchair. By the grace of God I have climbed three mountains since then.
Copyright © Ed Roberts | Year Posted 2014
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