How Rest Exposed My Inner Critic

a poem after a vacation

Three days, two nights on a camping trip

put space between me and my inner critic,
that voice that spoils all the good stuff
by showing me how it’s never enough.

She spoils sleep by saying I should dress.
She spoils work by saying it’s not the best.
She spoils order by saying it won’t last.
She spoils progress by saying it’s a waste.

Like a bully blocking the hallways at school,
she belittles my efforts and makes me a fool.
She mocks my attempts to follow Christ, to be good.
She says it’s hopeless to hope that I could.

But three days, two nights on a camping trip
has put space between me and that inner critic.
I see she’s not me. She’s a separate entity
exposed through rest as naught in reality.

A mixture of rules and laws perhaps,
criticisms of teachers and parents in the past
a gallon of advert'ments, a dash of advice,
Sunday school teachers telling me to be nice.

What does it matter? That voice is not me.
And that voice isn’t God who loves infinitely.
That voice is the old life, the dead one, the skull
of the body made alive, and all criticisms null.

So back to my house, my work, and my rest,
I tell the inner critic that to her I don’t trust
an accurate assessment of the new me with Him
who made this chasm between me and the old life of sin.

Our campground sycamore tree was an attraction to the children in the sites on either side of us.

A seed ball, colorful shell, and quail egg. We cracked open the quail egg and were relieved to find a yolk  inside instead of a dead chick.

At the top of a lookout hike. Benny is in a don't-take-a-picture-of-me phase.

Me and my sweetie on our morning hike.