Father’s Eyes Author:  Cherie Burbach

 

 

Cherie Burbach arranged her poetry in such a way that even reading the Table of Contents was a book in itself, delightful to read. The different sections of the book were compared to her walk in life, to try and find herself (or for her to find God).

 

While reading the first section “The Struggle”, I found myself struggling with her, even though I had not been abused as a child, I felt like I had been. She brought me right into her life through her written words. “The Search” made me feel like I was searching and that I could not wait to see, to read, to know, that she found what she was searching for.

 

At times, I cried for her, I cried for the deep deep search, the search for the answers she was looking for. I thought of today’s teens and how they hurt. Many of them are in the same situations, the same kind of life. I thought of what it would do to them if I could read portions of Ms. Burbach’s book out loud to them. Would it help their walk in life? Then, there was “The Surrender”. One could feel the surrendering of a broken life through the words that were on the paper representing a life that could not go on without a surrender. And then “The Embrace”….

 

I thought that “The Surrender” would have been a good conclusion to the book, but “The Embrace” proved me wrong. Just like hearing a good preacher giving a good sermon, Ms. Burbach wrapped her whole life up with embracing the truth in having God in her life.

 

One has to embrace something (or Someone) after a surrender. She preached, through poems, what her life was like, and then there was the alter call. The bulk of her sermon was the searching, and then the application (the alter call) was the embracing of the truth in our own life.

 

I was able to really look at myself and try to apply her struggles, her searching, her surrendering, to my own life. Afterwards, I was happy to embrace the truth. In her last poem, I too am “lazy and slow. I have a long way to go, and then, I still won’t be close”. But then her last words, “I’m His child. His delight. He wants me here, and I belong”. Yes… I belong.  It is wonderful to be reassured that I belong.

 

Review by: Margaret Werden