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Let Peace Come Out My Mouth

Some mornings I wake up already arguing. Not out loud. Just internally. With bills. With fear. With people. With timelines. With memories. With disappointment. With exhaustion.

Before my feet even hit the floor, my spirit already feels like somebody shook the snow globe and forgot to let it settle.

And if I am not careful, whatever fills my heart first starts leaking out my mouth next.

Sharp answers. Heavy sighs. Sarcasm dressed up as humor. Silence that punishes. Worry disguised as “being realistic.”

And whew… some folks can turn one bad mood into a ministry of misery before breakfast.

The older I get, the more I realize peace is not just a feeling God gives me. Sometimes peace is a discipline God teaches me.

Because anybody can speak panic. Anybody can repeat bitterness. Anybody can echo chaos. But it takes maturity to walk into a tense room and refuse to multiply the storm.

That does not mean pretending everything is fine.

Jesus calmed storms while acknowledging they were real storms.

What I am learning is this: I can tell the truth without setting fires. I can be tired without becoming cruel. I can be overwhelmed without making everybody around me drink from the same anxiety.

And honestly? Some days the prayer is not deep or fancy.

It is simply:

“Lord… before I answer this text, before I walk into this office, before I react to this situation, before I say something I cannot unsay, before my face says it before my mouth does… let peace come out my mouth.”

Not perfection. Not fake positivity. Peace.

The kind that pauses before speaking. The kind that softens hard words. The kind that leaves room for grace. The kind that remembers exhausted people often wound each other accidentally.

Because once words leave us, we do not get to gather them back like spilled sugar.

And some of us survived entire childhoods built from somebody else’s unhealed mouth.

So now I ask God to help mine become safer.

Not silent. Not weak. Safer.

Especially in seasons where my own heart feels stretched thin like a dollar menu meal feeding six people.

Scripture says:

“Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt…”
Colossians 4:6

Not bland. Not passive. Seasoned.

Truthful words with wisdom in them.

Maybe that is the real miracle some days. Not that the storm disappeared. But that peace came out of us anyway.

And in a loud world amplified by too many of the wrong words, that is holy.

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My Rib Struggles To Breathe

March 1, 2026

God of dirt under fingernails, of headlines and heartbeats, of babies born into chaos
and mamas who don’t sleep.
Lord hear our prayer
Sit with us in sackcloth and ash.

Hear the Latina scream for her familia.
Hear the Black mama beat her chest
from the weight of knees and crushed souls
Hear the confused person of no color
whisper, “Am I next?”

See my father’s shadow.
The brown father working double shifts
with documents that feel like paper shields.
The Black father teaching his son
how to survive a traffic stop.
The father from somewhere else
trying to sound less foreign
so his children sound more safe.

The one who has never been taught how to weep, but learns that privileged skin
offers no protection.

Watch how they swallow fear so their families can eat.
Watch how they stand tall while history presses down.
Do not turn Your face from the trembling.

Is Abraham’s argument still valid?
Is there still one worth saving?
If there are fifty…
If there are forty…
If there are ten…
Will mercy outrun destruction?

Because we be something else.
We invent vaccines and vendettas.
We cure disease and cultivate grudges.
We build greenhouses and graveyards
in the same generation.

We scream “save the babies” while demanding their mothers bleed in parking lots outside buildings bearing neon  crosses and snakes on stakes.

And if that little bundle of hope
takes breath….. we ration mercy.
We starve truth. We feed them fear.
We hand them a system and call it destiny.

Forgive us for mistaking loud for strong,
revenge for justice,
power for wisdom,
money for mattering.

Slow the hands hovering over buttons.
Cool the tongues that set nations on fire.
Remind the mighty that bleeding does not discriminate.

When leaders puff up,
deflate egos with a firm hand.
When citizens rage-scroll at 3:33 a.m.,
tuck them back into cradles of mercy.

Teach us that being right is not the same thing as being righteous.

And teach us this, Lord –
That Holy is set apart, not divided asunder.

Set apart does not mean split down the middle.
It does not mean camps or corners
or color-coded salvation.

Holy is not red. Holy is not blue. Holy is not loud.

Holy is careful. Holy is weighty.
Holy is handled like heirloom glass passed from trembling hands.

Do not let us carve You up to fit our arguments.
Do not let us drape Your name over fear and call it faith.

If we must be set apart, let it be in compassion.
If we must be different, let it be in mercy.
Separate us from cruelty.
Separate us from arrogance.
Separate us from the need to win
at the cost of one another.

But do not divide us beyond repair.
Remind us that what is sacred is never meant to be torn.

Lord Hear Our Prayer

For the refugee in the cold,
the soldier on watch,
the child learning history from a textbook that left something out —
Cover them.

Guard democracy like a fragile seedling in late frost.
Guard dignity like Grandma’s good china.
Guard hope like a porch light left on for whoever comes home late.

When we start thinking the sky is falling,
Whisper,
“Dead and dormant are not the same thing.”

Let wars stall. Let hatred get tired. Let truth outlive the loud.

And if we must walk through fire, let it burn off what is false and leave what is faithful.

While presidents posture and pundits perform
Let ordinary people sleep.
Let Nama rest. Let grandchildren dream of gardens instead of sirens.

My bladed pen is hot. It does not drip ink.
It draws blood from silence. It refuses anesthesia. I tire  of gentle prayers that never name the wound.

If my words burn, let them cauterize.
If they cut, let them carve truth
from marble lies.

Out of all the people in this great big world,
please hear me. Please know my voice.
Hear me when I pray.
For I will not whisper  when my rib struggles to breathe.

Amen.  Ameen. Aṣẹ̀ Olódùmarè. Selah. Shanti. Alafia. Tathāstu. Ubuntu

from Poems My Mama Would Have Wrote ( If She Had Been Allowed”
Althea’s Daughter: Michelle Gillison-Robinson