Where the Empty Places Shine

There are distances

the map can’t measure—

those long, invisible miles

between one heartbeat and another.

Sometimes they open like canyons

cut by disappointment,

sometimes like frost

on a window no one meant to close.

Illness can hush a room,

silencing the familiar footsteps;

discord can turn a family tree

into winter branches,

each twig trembling alone.

Yet—even here—

a strange warmth hums beneath the cold.

It moves like light

seeping through the seams

of a cracked horizon,

making even the fractures

glimmer gold.

It is the Presence

who keeps vigil in the hollows,

the One who folds Himself

into every absence

until absence feels less sharp.

Gratitude grows differently in this terrain.

Not like harvest wheat—

tall, proud, obvious—

but like desert bloom,

awakening out of hard ground,

soft petals opening

where logic said nothing could live.

It teaches the soul

to read the language of lack,

to find God

in the negative space.

For the One who promised,

“I will never leave thee,”

walks like a loyal shadow

that refuses to obey the light—

always near,

even when every earthly bond

feels stretched thin.

He is the unseen guest

who fills every empty chair

with peace,

the quiet architect

who builds bridges

over gaps no human hand can span.

So the heart gives thanks,

even when the table is ringed

with unspoken prayers

instead of familiar faces.

For Love Himself

keeps the lamp lit,

warming the cold corners,

turning the vacant places

into windows—

open to a sky

that never stops shining.

If this poem stirred something in your heart, remember that the deepest roots grow from God’s Word itself. “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee” (Psalm 119:11). If you’d like simple, practical help in tucking Scripture into memory…

👉 Sign up for the free FAST Crash Course in Bible Memorization: http://fast.st/cc/21419