Amber C Haines
About the Author

Amber C Haines, author of Wild in the Hollow, has 4 sons, a guitar-playing husband, theRunaMuck, and rare friends. She loves the funky, the narrative, and the dirty South. She finds community among the broken and wants to know your story. Amber is curator with her husband Seth Haines of Mother...

(in)side DaySpring: things we love
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(in)side DaySpring:
things we love
& you will too!
Find more at
DaySpring.com
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  1. Oops…meant to add that bearing my burdens alone makes me stall out, falter (like Deidra wrote about yesterday!) When I bear them with Christ I have the strength to “keep on keeping on” because of Him who lives in me.
    LOVED this!

  2. Amber, this was beautiful. I love the image of God not choosing to “prop His throne back and use earth as a soggy footstool”. Such a good reminder of the need for this Servant-King. Thanks for posting this. You have a real gift with words.

  3. “He speaks… and tells me what I don’t have, like hunger and thirst…. the right to keep up appearances…the right to bear up alone.” I like that! I liked the whole poem AND hearing it in your own voice. (Print the text!)

  4. aloneness. what a novel concept that that isn’t a right of mine. i complain and rail against lonliness all the time, yet i choose to think i’m solitary so often in the face of my god.
    i love this poem, love the weight it carries.
    i’ve carried the burden of a big, stretched belly from secret sin alone… whispered confessions to my god, but not believing him b/cs his Church shunned. 9 months is a heavy burden, as heavy as new motherhood. i’ve carried the burden of trying to be my sons’ all, try to be all for my husband and myself.
    we simply can’t go it alone, we’ll crumble every time.

  5. I feel both full and empty after hearing that. Oh Amber – your words are good good food. I wish you would put the text up for us to read along as you read it to us. There are so many words I would go back and linger long in if I could find them again.
    Love to you and your Southern accent,
    Lisa-Jo

  6. What accent? 😀 The line that got me is “not ears so aimed at my own praise that I forget my lamb status.” Thanks for sharing your poem!

  7. Amber, this is beautiful. Thank you so much for reading it to me.
    As a Missouri-grown girl, transplanted to Northern Ohio (where they talk funny)…I say, WHAT accent? LOL!!!
    Much love!

  8. A new girl started coming to school and Candice quickly became friends with her. Lindelani and Candice would sit at lunch and talk about their families. Candice finally felt comfortable taking the necessary steps to tell someone about the abuse she experienced from her father.

  9. Thank you Amber for sharing a precious gem, Holy Spirit-inspired.
    A wonderful reminder of the song, “How Beautiful,” based on Song of Solomon 7:1.
    Also, that although God is ‘invisible’, He is brought to full expression in us, 1 John 4:12. And, finally, how Christ uses us, a part of His Body, filling us with Himself, Ephesians 1:23.
    God bless you for ministering to the Body today! In His love…

  10. Oh My! How amazingly beautiful! It is refreshing to know that no, God iS NOT in His easy chair kicked back with the earth as His ottoman! That really touched me! Thank you for sharing

  11. You make me cry (again). Moving me from a shallow place where it is easy to flit through life and gorge on temporal filler, to a deep place where I can only breathe, quietly, so very aware that we were created for so much more.
    I just love you. But you know that, don’t you?

  12. Yes Amber – you put the failing and the longing and the humble, all-sufficient Him into such beautiful words.

  13. Poetry is meant to be spoken aloud. Thank you for this, friend.
    I’ve had poetry on the mind and heart lately. I asked a few friends, what makes a poem good? How do you know when it’s good? And one friend paraphrased Emily Dickinson and said she knows it’s good when the poem has removed the top of her head,
    and that’s how I feel when I read (and hear) your poetry, Amber.
    xo elizabeth

  14. Thank you Amber. Such a good reminder that God never leaves our side. You are so gifted and God gave you that poem just for me! It really spoke to my heart.

  15. Beautifully spoken – beautifully written. What insite. Thank you Amber. And thank you to my daughter for sending this to me. Would love to have a copy of your poem, as a reminder each day of God’s grace and love for me!

  16. Never mind about the copy of your poem… I found it and was just blessed again by reading it. Thank you.

  17. first of all, i miss your southern accent. i love it.
    secondly, i’m sitting here with my 4yr old and we are both just watching you (she’s waving b/c she thinks you can see her) and i haven’t said a thing to her except that you are a video and that you are my friend.
    out of the blue she asks
    Mama, Can we see jesus?
    She understood your beautiful poem without me even giving commentary.
    love you.

  18. Thank you Amber.
    Since the death of my son to SIDS in March, God has been placing books,poems, quotes, pictures, people and songs in my life that echo those words you’re shared.
    Thank you!

  19. This was completely beautiful.
    I just stuck this post it on my desk:
    “He tells me what I don’t have…like the right to keep up appearances.”
    Thank you SO MUCH.

  20. Amber, how lovely! You did a wonderful job. I love your Southern accent, sister.
    I’m sitting here uploading my first vlog post for YouTube. Awkward… 😉