The Façade

Drawing by: Fourar Amira

Staring at people in a masquerade, living secret lives, hidden, as in unmarked graves
They move and walk in circles, made by unseen forces, with chattering voices, that no one hears…

Shrouded with blank faces, smeared with mystery, full of fear and dark history, but do not dare, show their river of tears…

What would others think if they saw behind the façade?
Deception keeps them from knowing the true and living God…
So, they live lives of deep, silent sorrow…with no hope for tomorrow
While they steal and borrow what they think is love…

Full of flesh and full of pride, only death walks by their side
Eyes have they but they cannot see…ears to hear but cannot be heard
Speaking, but utter no words…broken, wingless, birds…

There’s the man living in his mansion who has no food to eat…
There’s the business woman in fine attire, living on the street…
There’s the fine, respectable couple, but each night they weep, and cannot sleep…
Screams of hatred as he beats, the woman who lies, lifeless on the sheets…

Men and women without identities…looking for answers but cannot believe anything; unbelief drives them to despair…
Walking in midair…among the crowed streets…

Could be a neighbor, or the stranger that you meet…
Could be the bartender, or fallen woman that you greet…
In the church, or, doctor’s office, who stood while you took their seat…

It could even be, your family…

How do you treat…the people that you meet?

Maybe it’s you, with secret hurts and wounds, who stagger on weary feet…
Singing happy songs and little tunes to cover up your defeat…
Disguising torment, behind your seeking eyes…

So, here’s the thing I want to say…
We’re not perfect, we’re forgiven along our way…
We’re no better than any other…each person is a sister, or, a brother…
Love is the only cure, for this sin, sick, world we’re living in…
And in the end, of a long hard day…
Turn around, and walk the other way…
Open the door and let in the light, then the darkness cannot stay…

Jesus is the Light!

In him there is no judgement, no self-righteousness, no condemnation, walk in His divine love…

The grave will only house the body…your spirit will live forever…choose life!

~Marla Shaw O’Neill November 11, 2019

Proverbs 14:12 The Passion Translation (TPT) You can rationalize it all you want
and justify the path of error you have chosen, but you’ll find out in the end that you took the road to destruction.

Romans 6:20-23 The Passion Translation (TPT) For when you were bound as servants to sin, you lived your lives free from any obligation to righteousness.

So, tell me, what benefit ensued from doing those things that you’re now ashamed of? It left you with nothing but a legacy of shame and death.

But now, as God’s loving servants, you live in joyous freedom from the power of sin. So, consider the benefits you now enjoy—you are brought deeper into the experience of true holiness that ends with eternal life!

For sin’s meager wages is death,[a] but God’s lavish gift is life eternal, found in your union with our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One.

Footnotes:
a. Romans 6:23 The Greek word translated “meager wages” actually means “the wages of a foot soldier.” This Greek word, opsonion, is taken from the word used for a piece of dried fish: opsarion. The Aramaic can be translated “The business of sin is death.”
John 14:6 The Passion Translation (TPT) Jesus explained, “I am the Way, I am the Truth,[a] and I am the Life. No one comes next to the Father[b] except through union with me.[c] To know me is to know my Father too.