Blog

“Until the pain is just a memory,

God, hold me steady until it ceases,

 Don’t stop carrying my broken pieces,

Until the pain turns into joy for me.”

Sometimes our deepest wounds become the doorway to our greatest healing. In “My Soul to Keep” by Sarah Merritt Ryan, we find the magic of transforming pain into three quatrains and a couplet.

“I believe my suffering has deepened me and refined my character, where these sonnets are the fruit born of trials that provide me with the privilege to make a difference through what I have been through.”

Ryan has not presented faith as an easy path to achieve salvation. She portrays faith as a lifelong dialogue with suffering, doubt, hope, and grace.

Structured in four sections, “Suffering”, “Faith”, “Deliverance”, “Praise”, this collection is more like a memoir tracing the poetess’ journey from despair and confusion toward hope, recovery, and spiritual fulfillment. As a public speaker on mental health healing, I draw on more than two decades of lived experience.

“Faith tells me God won’t leave me this way.

 I pray that faith is not just a fable.”

In these poems, such as “Pain”, “Sky”, “Reality”, “Breathe”, and “Contempt”, Sarah repeatedly confronts grief, fear, betrayal, loneliness, and emotional devastation. But even when her speaker wrestles with inner darkness, her search for purpose never ends. For Ryan, faith is not certainty but a struggle, a constant negotiation with the feeling of abandonment.

“Grieve with me so I have a chance to live,

Feel my sorrow when You died at the cross.”

Poems like “Bride”, “Love”, “Mended”, and “Promises” celebrate connection, family, spiritual belonging, and gratitude.

“Strength to look back at the sadness and know,

Showing steadfast courage and endurance,”

Language, though imbued in agony, is throbbing with powerful conviction.

This meditative collection is a rare gem with its natural imagery, Biblical allusions, and Christian theology of prayer, grace, and salvation. Ryan relies heavily on imagery and symbolism in her way of communication. In the poem “Oak,” the oak tree symbolizes endurance and strength. Using natural imagery such as rain, wind, fire, storms, fields, rivers, trees, and stars, Ryan creates a vivid sensory experience that transforms intangible emotional turmoil into something tangible. Ryan’s aphoristic style is a noteworthy feature of her collection:

“To think and being sure are two other things,”

Or

“Moon’s glow much safer than sun’s conviction,”

Sarah Merritt Ryan’s collection will resonate with readers who value authenticity and understand that faith grows strongest amidst the turmoil of life’s struggles. It is a book to read slowly and reflectively, and to return to hope.

Buy the book