He alone is my safe place; His wraparound presence always protects me.
For He is my champion defender; there is no risk of failure with God.
So why would I let worry paralyze me, even when troubles multiply around me?
– PSALM 62:2 TPT –

As I consider Poetice in 2023, our year was marked by and filled with so much. Statistics, single stories, highlights, and overviews dramatically diminish the fullness of the actual life that measures ministry. What’s better, I think, is a simple yet profound peek into our story through a moment in mine.

I have a deep longing to fully experience the richness of life as God intended. I have lived much of my life muted. I’ve often diminished my most profound responses and emotions, hesitant to allow myself to react authentically to life around me.

“Jesus was a man full of emotion. He said, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.” That means God is emotional.” ¹

When I sit on that, it’s like full color bursting into human skin. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “One man [Jesus] was true to what was in you and me. He, as I think, is the only soul in history who has appreciated the worth of man.” Though Jesus clearly wasn’t led by His emotions, He must have felt and experienced them as pure and complete as humanly possible. His grief, though not without hope, must have unapologetically swelled unobstructed as it lingered over his soul. His joy- purely childlike, wild, untamed, and unjudged. Why would He choose to save and dwell in humanity but not savor it? Why would He reject or diminish it? Jesus came into humanity, and He actually experienced it. He filled it.

Yet, I have learned the opposite. Repeatedly, I’ve played down hard or massive moments in my story to exude the air of ‘unaffected’ and maintain the picture of cool. Because of the fear of being made a fool, putting too much on anyone else, or the pain of being hurt, I’ve told myself and the rest of the world, “Yo, I’m good, no big.”

And it has cost me my humanity.

It has cost me the experience of life. Sentimental moments that have shaped me are lost, swept over like another bowl of cereal on a Monday morning. Huge challenges or significant times of grief or rejection have been buried, silently and steadily knocking inside my soul, unable to get out and cease their influence.

But a longing is rising in me to take off the sunnies and pull back the shades, to close up the umbrella, and step into the storm. I desire to know it and feel it, knowing that the “Ultimate Playmate, Almighty Healer, and Divine Peace Bringer” ² is alive in my soul. I can safely venture in and give value back to my own human experience. I want to welcome an awareness of what is going on inside me and learn how to dry in His radiance after I’ve been drenched. I want to gain the reward of living the risk in this treasure called life.

In reality, this is it. Our whole aim is simple: learn to live life with God on the inside of us.Though definitely worth sharing, we aren’t shaped by our external accomplishments, events, or victories. As we venture forward, our dream is to see our lives, community, and city molded from the inside as we learn to let Jesus dwell there. In every part of our ministry and work – from our prayer sets to our preschool – this is what we are actually after.

So, I share with you a piece of my heart and a brief moment in my growth story. It is not unlike the wrestles that we are guiding our community into as we press on towards the Lord. This is just an example of what it means to be part of the Poetice family. We are learning to embrace life as God intended. Whether it’s learning to welcome and navigate emotions, or something else on this journey with Jesus. It is through these moments that we are witnessing the world change and a city refined into the likeness of His House, His Kingdom, and His Family.

Our prayer for you as this year draws to a close is that you also meet Him there, happily abiding on the inside. We pray He reveals real, practical ways for you to continue allowing Him to dwell within you and fully embrace the dream He has for you in this treasure called life.

Abigail Van Peursem
POETICE CEO

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¹ Johnathan Helser, Cultivate Volume 1
² Erin Gravitt, Cultivate Volume 1