How I Need Thee: prose poem and two photos by Michael Shoemaker
- cmbharris
- Sep 19
- 2 min read
"Daydreaming"
photograph by Michael Shoemaker
Oh, How I Need Thee
Help of the helpless, Lord. Do not know how to speed up the healing of scars on my left knee from a bike accident. Unsure how to advise a friend on how to find a better job.
What is going on that my car’s engine service light is coming on again? Where should I take it
in to get it checked? I wonder why these tomato plants aren’t sprouting. Is it too hot, windy,
or dry, or is it just my inattention in caring for them? Should a supervisor call out and make fun of a co-worker in front of others? What can I do about it, if anything? Why do I keep on
losing my temper again, again, and as You know, again, when it is the last thing that I want to
do? I hope this seventy-times-seven thing is really working. I thought by my age I would be wiser, kinder, and gentler, yet I wonder why so often it doesn’t appear to be working out
that way. What can I do to help the poor when their daily calls threaten to engulf and overwhelm me? How can I help them if I am not always well? What can I do with the sorrow
I feel over losing wild places of reflection, animals, plants, water, and air? Will Isaiah’s prophecy of the desert blooming as a rose come to pass? What do I need to do so I don’t tire of the desert and move out before Christ comes again? Refresh, oh, refresh me, Dear Father.
Do I need to worry about pruning those future rose bushes now? Don’t know how to help family members who are far and away. No guesses left on how to stop wars, hate, and famine in this multiple spinning-plate world of ours.
How well You listen to what my heart says: words can’t express and lips can’t form.
I bring these to Thee. You know all things. Help of the helpless… Lord, abide with me.
(Song reference: “Abide with Me,” lyrics by Henry Francis Lyte)
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Falling Water
photograph by Michael Shoemaker
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Michael Shoemaker is a poet and photographer from
Magna, Utah. He is the author of three poetry/photography collections including ‘Sacred Strains of Praise,’ winner of
a 2025 ChristLit Award. He’s received two Artist Career Development grants from the Utah State Division of Arts
and Museums, is a three-time nominee for Best of the Net (poetry and photography), and a Pushcart Prize nominee. Michael’s poems appear in Boundless 2025 and 2024:
The Journal of International Poetry Festival of the Rio Grande Valley and ‘Tranquility: An Anthology of Haiku,’ (publisher, Literary Revelations) #1 Amazon bestseller new release
(Haiku & Japanese Poetry). Michael has been awarded
a residency through Woolf Cottage Writer-in-Residence Program sponsored by the Fairhope Center for the Writing Arts in Fairhope, Alabama, for October 2025. He is the associate editor of Cantos: A Literary and Arts Journal at Missouri Baptist
University. More of his work can be found at:
September 2025 issue
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