Storytellers Poetry Contest Winner: Behold! He Who Was, Long Before Us (2nd Place)
by Jessica Jolley
Cappella Lago di Braies, Italy, photograph by Jessica Jolley
THE STORY BEHIND THE POEM:
I've had the great privilege of living in a culture and land quite distinct from my own, which has allowed me to experience both the differences and similarities that we all share throughout humanity. Also, I've seen how we all search for eternity in our surroundings, as I've witnessed both my Kenyan and American friends looking to the mountains in some form of worship, albeit for different reasons. Often, we overlook the entire purpose of it all too quickly, regardless of where the Lord has placed us. As I wrote this piece, staring outside my Nairobi window at the blooming jacarandas and remembering the emotions God invokes in me when I, too, stand at the base of such grand creations, my heart burst with the desire for us to all see HIM, the Creator of it all—from the dear ones of my previous home near the Smoky Mountains to Mt. Kilimanjaro now just south of me.
BEHOLD! HE WHO WAS, LONG BEFORE US
I.
I live in a land where its people say the hills are alive—
beautifully browned skin with necks craned toward their
dry dusty savannas, winding wild rivers, opulent open skies, striking spired baobabs.
They enter the throne room of these foothills, which house
thatched roofs and patched souls,
alongside the memories and religions of their ancestors—
all in search of
answers,
meaning,
majesty.
Worshipping and wanting,
wondering and wishing,
calloused hands and resilient wills, asking:
Do you see me,
oh Creation?
Will you answer my prayers,
oh Earth?
The Lord answers with his rain, soaking the cracked desert,
his ripening maize enclosed in feathery shells,
his cattle lowing as they give birth to another generation of provision.
Yet tribe after tribe, person after person, continues missing him
in devotion, instead, to the very nature
he breathed into place.
II.
I come from a land where its people say they don't need anything,
yet they rush to
experiences
places,
feelings,
mountaintop moments, if you will,
answering the longing call to marvel
or forget all else
or adventure themselves into delight
—a search for an escape—
from the deafening noise of information and material offerings.
They are free to live and brave enough to do so
but are still heavy with a weight
of emptiness.
They, too, strain toward smoky-covered hills they might believe were created by
a far-off God
or came into being with a
B A N G !—
but not by a Creator who is altogether lovely and present,
who placed those ranges there as a magnifying glass
to his love.
No, they say. That is not rational.
Their necks stiffen as they climb up the rocky crags of life and success
And in their logic and excess,
they miss him, too.
III.
But when I look to the jacarandas outside my barred windows,
just beyond the metal that supposedly safeguards me from the dangers
o u t t h e r e,
I see fingerprints—
a careful covering of bark,
an offering of protection.
The fill of their branches shifts with the cue of the seasons,
shedding their delicate fern-like leaves, a seeming winter.
Then suddenly, there is a bursting
into delicious purple blooms,
vibrant after their long sleep,
at the onset of my birthday, no less:
new birth, year after year.
My soul adapts alongside these fellow transformations,
opportunities of grace,
cycling reminders of
who positioned them there—made them that way—in the first place.
IV.
When I look to the mountains of this East African home,
the snow-capped tops jutting through overlying cloud,
wild beasts wandering amongst the acacia thorns below,
I see majesty.
A walking culture traverses the dirt roads, almost unaware
of the looming magnitude resting above,
dangerous, yet enduring,
set apart, yet unmistakably close.
I used to be them;
I, too, could have missed it—
this overall purpose.
But the eyes of my heart have opened, revelation dousing my soul,
and now I know,
—I k n o w—
these structures' strength is
but a testament to something—
Someone—
far greater.
Intricate designs by an intentional Designer,
a declaration to all peoples
of his marvelous works.
V.
They all—the trees, the hills, the mountains—cry out
with lengthening limbs and jutting rocks and cycling blooms:
Look to our Maker! His splendor on display,
dazzling you, the greatest of all his works, with his wonders.
Don't simply end your gaze in amazement
at little old us.
We are but a shadow of the fullness of glory,
a mirror reflecting the majesty of he who is set apart,
yet is so clearly near.
He who wrote our very existence!
A beckoning:
He is why we are here.
Behold who was long before us,
who sustains us even still, and
who will be after us
forevermore!
He is the only One
worthy
of all of our
longing and
adoration.
Worship.
JESSICA JOLLEY
Jessica Jolley is a wife, a momma to two littles and soon-to-be three through adoption, and a missionary, but most importantly, she is a follower of Christ who wants others to also taste and see how good He is.
She and her family have been living in Nairobi, Kenya, since 2017 and are continuously learning to stay on their toes in the beautiful chaos that is East Africa.
Her writing has been published at Risen Motherhood, Thrive Ministry, and elsewhere. You can find her musings on faith, cross-cultural living, and motherhood on Substack Entrusted With Grace and Instagram @jesselaine.jolley.