Across the Miles: Poems of Fantasy, Faith, and Fun

by Annie Douglass Lima

Watch a violinist spin stars and snowflakes into existence and wake dragons. Step into a bookstore full of dusty treasures, and wander through a graveyard for poems that died before their birth. Join a solitary star treading the measures of its stately dance above a rainbow like a stream of dripping jewels. Then mourn with the alien who crash-landed on Earth and can’t get home - but be careful to avoid the deadly shadow creatures slinking through the darkness.

Grab your copy of this volume of poetry now and embark on an unforgettable journey across the miles!

cover photography by Lisa Douglass

These poems touch on themes such as travel, friendship, nature, God, music, fantasy, music, animal encounters, and school. Some whimsical, some serious, they include specific, lesser-known varieties of poetry such as pantoum, rondeau, triolet, roundel, and villanelle. 

Read on to sample two of the poems in Across the Miles!

Monopoly (a Pantoum)

A pantoum consists of four-line stanzas in which the second and fourth lines of one stanza become the first and third lines of the next stanza. It works well to describe noisy places or repetitive thoughts or conversations.

“Monopoly’s such a fun game.”

“So now how much more do I owe you?”

“Did you pay as much as you claim?”

“The rules are right here, let me show you.”

“So now how much more do I owe you?”

“You’re not getting Boardwalk from me!”

“The rules are right here, let me show you.”

“It’s ‘Get out of Jail for Free’.”

“You’re not getting Boardwalk from me!”

“Will all you guys please be more quiet?”

“It’s ‘Get out of Jail for Free’.”

“You landed on mine, don’t deny it.”

“Will all you guys please be more quiet?”

“I can’t hear a word that you say.”

“You landed on mine, don’t deny it.”

“Just pass me the dice, then I’ll play.”

“I can’t hear a word that you say.”

“Are Reading and Short Line for sale?”

“Just pass me the dice, then I’ll play.”

“So how do I get out of jail?”

“Are Reading and Short Line for sale?”

“She owes you nine hundred for rent.”

“So how do I get out of jail?”

“You know how much money I’ve spent?”

“She owes you nine hundred for rent.”

“Aha, he’s advancing my way now!”

“You know how much money I’ve spent?”

“You landed on Baltic, so pay now.”

“Aha, he’s advancing my way now.”

“Did she roll a three or a four?”

“You landed on Baltic, so pay now.”

“I don’t want to play anymore.”

“Did she roll a three or a four?”

“You owe me two hundred and twenty.”

“I don’t want to play anymore.”

“Don’t buy more hotels – you’ve got plenty!”

“You owe me two hundred and twenty.”

“Did you pay as much as you claim?”

“Don’t buy more hotels – you’ve got plenty!”

“Monopoly’s such a fun game.”

Flu

For best effect, read this poem aloud with a stuffy nose and hoarse voice.

I’ve decided I hate the flu – I really do!

The soreness and aching,

the temp’rature taking

which tries to make me a believer that I’ve only got a fever

of 99.2

but I’m pretty sure that thermometer’s a liar

’cause it feels way higher

and I think I may slowly be going insane

’cause my cough’s such a pain

with its racking and its hacking

while all of the drugs that I take are in vain

and my head and my chest

are both tight and congest-

ed, and I’m faced with issues

like running out of tissues

(’cause my drippy nose never stops)

and having to bring cough drops

everywhere I go

and my eyes getting runny

 – and NO! It’s not funny!

’cause I don’t like being in pain and congested and woozy

And inconvenienced and fevered and fluzy.

Want to enjoy nearly a hundred more poems like this? Click here to download your copy of Across the Miles for just $2.99 (that's only about three cents per poem!). Or gift a paperback copy to a poetry-loving friend or family member for Christmas!

About the Poet:

Annie Douglass Lima considers herself fortunate to have traveled in twenty different countries and lived in four of them. A fifth-grade teacher in her “other” life, she loves reading to her students and sparking their imaginations. Her books include science fiction, fantasy, YA action and adventure novels, a puppet script, poetry, Bible verse coloring and activity books, and a fantasy-themed cookbook. When she isn’t teaching or writing, Annie can often be found sipping spiced chai or pomegranate green tea in exotic locations, some of which exist in this world.

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Email: AnnieDouglassLima@gmail.com
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In the Depths of Despair

What happens when a Christian becomes so totally depressed that there seems to be absolutely no way out? Except maybe one way.


Yes, Christians do become depressed. If you are a Christian out there in the depths of despair and afraid to reach out to someone for fear of being looked down upon, I'm here to tell you that it happens to the best of us. No matter how long you've been a Christian, or how tight your relationship with God is, there sometimes comes a point where you feel like you have no energy left and you just can't go on any longer. The weight on your shoulders can be so heavy sometimes, you feel like there's no getting out from under it.

I know that at that point, the last thing you want to hear are the usual clichés from your friends or family. I know that you already know the truth. I know that you already know that God cares and he can turn your situation around and that he has all the answers you're looking for. I also know that sometimes, all you want to do is crawl into corner, fold yourself into the fetal position and scream and cry. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, I promise you.

 What words of encouragement are there for someone who knows the truth but still feels utterly despondent? It almost feels like nothing anybody says will help you get passed this point. And that may well be true. Maybe the last thing we need at the point of total despair are words from another human being.

When I get to such a point, I shut everyone out. No matter what anyone says to me, in my head, I have a counter argument. At these times, the only person who can get through to me, is God. I have discovered that if I just press the ignore button on everything and everybody else and yell and scream and cry in His presence, I become strengthened and I can go on. Why? Because when you are in the depths of darkest despair (and I mean total darkness) God is really the only one who can drag you out. He's really the only one who knows what to say. At that point, His love goes beyond human clichés.

The Bible speaks of the Holy Spirit as our Comforter (John 14:26) and I have found that He really is the best one there is. In your darkest moments, be still in His presence, he knows just what to say, not with words, but with divine comfort, the kind that leaves you with the strength to fight another day. Do it everyday if necessary (and sometimes, it's necessary), reach out to God and let Holy Spirit be the one to pull you back from the brink. He's the one who does it best.

I pray that this day will be one where you find comfort and strength to go on. Be Blessed.

Devotions like this one and others can be found in the Soul Food Series in Kindle or paperback format. To grab a copy, click one of the images below. 

That one Thing...

One of the things that I've noticed we Christians tossing around a lot is the "get your life in order" speech.  We sit on our lofty perches as pastors,  leaders, teachers, prophets etc and shout down at people: stop sinning! Do the right thing! Trust God! Let go of that thing, God will give you better! All of these are true. Extremely true and extremely good advise.  But I have come to learn that there are people who are truly, genuinely STRUGGLING to live a holy life,  or to stay away from the ONE thing that the enemy keeps using against them.  

It is easy to say that someone isn't really saved or doesn't really love God and is enjoying their sin.  However, there is a flip side.  Everybody has something; the one thing that they almost cannot resist doing. The enemy has observed us and he knows just what that one thing is.  For someone who isn't vigilant we can get them back to doing that thing without them even realising it.  And it's not that we enjoy our sinful state.  I've seen people bawl and beg and cry out to God for months just struggling to get out of a situation.  For whatever reason, they're stuck. Their love for God is very evident but when you look at their actions you can't help but wonder if this is the truth. Maybe deeper spiritual intervention is necessary to help them break through but their love for God is genuine and say that it isn't so is to fail them.  

Why am I saying all this? It's because we as Christians need to change our approach.  Our job is to reconcile humanity to Christ,  no matter how filthy we deem them to be.  We are never to condone or encourage sin,  but we are not to cast someone aside just because we believe that they are unworthy of our help either.  More souls are lost because we turn up our noses, than because they don't hear the gospel! And who are we to do that? Sinners ourselves! In a lot of ways, we have failed at our jobs. We have ignored people who are drowning but desperately pleading for help.  We've left them alone and let them drown and justified our actions by saying that they deserved to drown and "God doesn't always strive with men".

My admonishment to us all today is to stop turning up our noses and ignoring the drowning man.  

There is more that is required of us all. 

Stay blessed everyone. 

Devotions like this one and others can be found in the Soul Food Series in Kindle or paperback format. 

To grab a copy, click one of the images below. 

Persistent Mustard Seed Faith

The thing about being a Christian is that you don't make the decision one day and then all of a sudden become a good person living a holy life and walking in perfect communion with God.  It takes work,  actual work,  some tears,  a lot of sweat and maybe even some blood to get that point. 

That's where today's topic comes in.  You hear about mustard seed faith all the time.  You know,  the kind that moves mountains (Matthew 17:20). No there isn't a special kind of faith that we must all work to get.  We simply need to learn to have faith.  Jesus told us just how little we needed to have to move a big mountain.  I have always heard about mustard seeds and how tiny they were,  but recently I had the good fortune to hold a packet of them in my hands.  Those things can fit on the head of a pin.  In other words,  it doesn't take a whole lot of faith to make things happen in our lives. 

But what about those situations that drag on forever.  It's easy to believe God for something and then see it fixed right away,  but there are certain situations in our lives that require not just a quick fix prayer and moment of faith.  Some situations require that we believe and remain faithful for weeks,  months,  years, maybe even a decade or two. 

That's where Persistent Mustard Seed Faith comes in.  It's the kind of faith you need to move not just one mountain,  but every one that comes in your way.  It's the kind that you need to ensure not just survival but actual conquering of the situations that you may face.  It's the kind that you need EVERY morning when you wake so that you will not doubt God's purpose and plan for your life.  It's the kind that says over and over "yes Lord,  I believe you can move this new mountain".

Why do we need such persistent,  unrelenting faith? Because the enemy is persistent and unrelenting! He NEVER stops.  He will come coming and keep throwing mountains in your path.  There will be emotional mountains,  like despair but there will be others.  Like losing your job,  or blockages that will try to prevent your business from taking off. And let me tell you, "in-the-moment"  faith won't help you overcome a consistent barrage of new mountains,  what is going to help is a level of faith that is strong and persistent. 

That's what Persistent Mustard Seed Faith is.  Faith that moves mountains every day without doubting God and his plan. 

Devotions like this one and others can be found in the Soul Food Series in Kindle or paperback format. 

To grab a copy, click one of the images below. 

Just One Thought

Sin begins with one thought.  Yes,  just one thought.  We Christians recognize that something is not right the second we are faced with it.  As soon as we are faced with a situation,  the Holy Spirit living inside of us alerts us to the fact that it is wrong and we should not do it.  However,  there is this moment,  the split second when you wonder,  what would it be like if I did it? The seed has been planted. 

You see,  for the true Christian,  the devil can't just say to us "do it"  because we have the Holy Spirit guiding us and saying "don't do it".  Instead,  he has to make us feel comfortable with doing the thing that we shouldn't.  So,  in the back of our minds,  the thought comes.  Of course,  at first,  you dismiss it because you know better. But the thought comes again,  and again and again until you don't realize that you are spending the entire day thinking about this thing that you know that you should not do. 

Let's use a big example, something that we all frown upon (the "big" sin).  Over the years I've always wondered how a genuine Christian man or woman finds himself/herself entwined in adultery.  I realized  that it starts with one moment when somebody other than your spouse looks a little nicer than normal one day.  You pay them a compliment and the two of you smile and leave it at that.  The devil notices the opportunity and plants the thought.  You dismiss it immediately.  The next day,  you see the person and you smile at them from across the room,  noticing how attractive they are.  Before you know it,  your mind is stewing over that attractiveness, over and over.  If you don't recognize what is happening and nip the thought at the source you have already started sliding towards the point of no return.  Slowly,  you're becoming desensitized to the fact that what you are thinking is wrong. Justification statements like "they're just my friend" slowly start to follow the thoughts that you know that you should be rebuking.  Slowly,  more thoughts, slowly,  more justification until one day,  you're not quite so comfortable but having lunch with this person that you're thinking about all the time doesn't seem like such a bad thing and of course it only goes downhill from there. 

Not all of us will find ourselves faced with a situation where we may cheat on our spouses,  however we all will be faced with situations where sin is justified in our heads long before we actually do it.  No genuine Christian actually wants to sin.  Every genuine Christian wants to live a holy life that is pleasing and acceptable to God.  However,  our enemy wants anything but that.  We are to be wise concerning his devices,  plots and plans and be ready to deal with them as they come. 

Just about every sin begins with a single errant thought.  Let's learn to recognize them and stop them at the source.  Let's learn to take control of our minds and our thought life and make it subject to the will of God and not that of the enemy. 

Have a blessed and thought controlled day. 

Devotions like this one and others can be found in the Soul Food Series in Kindle or paperback format. 

To grab a copy, click one of the images below. 

Get Up!

It can be pretty difficult to move on passed heartache of any kind.  Emotional scars tend to run deep and each new one seems to reach further into the soul,  making recovery harder and harder and harder. But recovery isn't impossible.  

One thing I've learned though is that recovery will only happen if you want it to.  Depression has a way of getting worse the longer you stay in it. The more you cry, the more you sit around doing nothing and the more you stay away from the world, the worse it gets. It just hurts more to sit there and think about why you're hurting. 

People always say "get up,  shake yourself off" to others in such situations and of course it's very annoying to the person who is hurting but I've learned that as cliché as that is,  it's the only way to start the healing process. 

Of course,  there's more to healing than just forgetting your problems.  As a matter of fact, you'll run into bigger issues if you just bury stuff away,  but you can't dwell on them forever. You will only recover if you want to recover. YOU should be your own motivation.  You must want your life to improve for it to happen. You must want to move on for it to happen. You must want change for it to happen. 

My encouragement today for all us is to be your own motivation.  Be determined to rise above,  to move forward,  to grow and to change. 

Devotions like this one and others can be found in the Soul Food Series in Kindle or paperback format. 

To grab a copy, click one of the images below. 

Tenure Vs Maturity

After many years spent doing anything, one gains valuable experience. Experience usually breeds skill and take us to the point where we can do something without even thinking about it sometimes. Experience is important and in the secular world, length of service (tenure) is valuable and comes with all sorts of perks.


However, in the Christian world, tenure or length of service as a Christian can lead to complacency and make us comfortable with our current state.  Save for the fact that we have had the opportunity to make more mistakes and therefore have a bit more experience correcting them,  tenure does not make us better off than a newborn babe. 

Sometimes,  with all those years come some pretty bad habits and the refusal to change.  Some of us have spent a lot of years getting away with certain things and even though it's not consciously done,  we feel like we can continue to get away with those things.

Today,  I realized that,  by not knowing what I know now when I started my walk 17 years ago,  I developed some pretty bad habits that are difficult to let go of.  Whilst in my head I know there are a lot of things that I have not done or are not doing right,  it's hard to make the changes because I have been doing it this way for so long.

I had the opportunity to speak to a friend recently who has been a Christian for almost as long as I have. We were at a social gathering and were having fun catching up on old times when did something in my presence. I remarked casually in joking fashion "girl, you haven't changed one bit". Her response shocked me into silence. She said "no, I haven't and I won't change for anybody." What was just a casual conversation between friends suddenly became a stark realization in my head and I almost couldn't continue our conversation. It was then I realized that length of service sometimes brings us to a point where we simply refuse to change our bad habits. We become so comfortable with ourselves just the way we are that we fail to realize that Christianity is all about change. It is about waking up daily and saying Lord, those things that are still in me that need to be changed, please, continue to work on it. Christianity is about recognizing where we are wrong and making a conscious decision to be different. The only way to be like Christ is to be less like ourselves, and we can't do that by becoming comfortable with where we are.

So this is one disadvantage of tenure.  We sometimes think of Romans 12:1 - 2 as advice for the young Christian to learn to renew their minds,  but I'm learning that the renewal of the mind must be constant.  We never stop growing and because we are always living,  there will always be a necessity for change.  Transformation is not an overnight thing,  it is a process that will never end simply because our sinful nature will never go away.

Tenure cannot be traded for Christian maturity.  Maturity requires action.  Tenure is only an existence.  If you never do anything,  you will still have tenure but you will never mature. 

Today, my encouragement to all of us to remember that Christianity is about change, growth and maturity. Let us not become comfortable with our bad habits or simply make a decision to stay the way we are. Let us remember that no matter how many years we have been Christians, we can still be immature.

May we change, grow and mature together.

Devotions like this one and others can be found in the Soul Food Series in Kindle or paperback format. 

To grab a copy, click one of the images below. 

The Emergency Fund

We all have an "emergency fund" - a safety net in the event that we fall sick or have an accident or need to fix a leaky roof etc. The emergency fund is not only a bank account - it could comprise of family members and friends who provide emotional support, a good job, a country with a good economy, a university education and more.  If you're honest with yourself, your stress levels are way lower when you have something to lean on in the case of an emergency. It's common sense. You feel that if something were to happen to you, then you'd at least have the money to take care of yourself, people to help take care of you etc. An emergency fund is a good thing - a great thing really, but it becomes a problem when we trust the emergency fund more that we trust God.


What do I mean by that?

You see, I've been noticing some thing about myself, and I'm pretty sure that I'm not the only one. As a chronic worrier (yes, I know, that needs to change), when I have nothing or no one to fall back on, I go into panic mode. My human nature needs something that I can see to make me feel safe. However, as a child of God, my hope, trust and confidence should be in God, not what I can see. In other words, my automatic reaction should be faith (Hebrews 11:1) and not panic.

So here's where the emergency fund gets us in trouble. Whilst it is an excellent thing to have (and we should all be working on one), when we have it, we tend to lose sight of the fact that God is our provider - He's our source and everything comes from him. We lose sight of the fact that we don't provide for ourselves, God does. Our faith level drops a little bit because we feel that if something happens we'll be fine. We don't remember that it is God who gave the emergency fund in the first place and He loses a little bit of his significance in our lives. That is why, when our emergency fund is depleted, we go into panic mode.

I believe that faith is like a muscle. It must be exercised or it will deteriorate. If we don't learn to have faith even in the good times, when times become desperate it is going to be difficult to wrap our heads around that fact that God can and WILL take care of us.

So what's the message of today's post? As children of a living God, we must remember to put our faith not in the material things that we have, or the persons that we may have around us, or the jobs that we currently hold or the current state of the economy of the country that we live in. Our faith should ALWAYS be in God. He has given us wisdom and has taught us to save for the future, to educate ourselves, to work diligently at whatever job we have and invest in the future. However, let us not let that "emergency fund" distract us from have total faith in our ultimate source.

Be blessed and have a great day.

Devotions like this one and others can be found in the Soul Food Series in Kindle or paperback format. 

To grab a copy, click one of the images below.

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