September 5, 2018 9:33 PM PDT
I have a friend closer than a brother
Purer than all the vaunted thoughts
Of all that's held marble pedestalled
In man's esteem beyond what is bought,
A heart that knows mine in every beat and drop
More hand-in-glove, better than a lover's.
I hear your footsteps echo mine as I walk
I turn, lean ready into your warmth, to find you gone:
Litter dances wind blown down the street
And I am torn almost over balanced as I seek you
In every face I meet, catch glimpses of your smile
On a starvling orphan giving a flower to an old woman,
A million kindnesses showered like rose petals in a storm... and still, darkness gathers at the edge, a billion demons clamor and grind their hate hard etched
In the thousand thoughtless things that happen every day, I ache pained, flinching at the thought of what you gave, hardly comprehending the loss you embraced, the cost in every sinew, every drop, the ocean in each tear, the price of love.
In one selfless act you set me free and broke forever
Fetters no one could break, fashioned me remade...
Listless tongues of spite cursing the change:
They do not know as I have known, they have not loved nor received loves draught that hate so to cause such hurt, their own pain and anger consuming from within, a house collapsing on itself as it burns.
They tried that too. Seeking to extinguish you. Like the cry of freedom on every silenced lip, your presence shakes the world and makes each tyrant fear...
You have lit a fire within the heart that canst not be dimmed, nor death itself extinguish it.
I don't deserve you, but yet you love
I watch a video, of a man giving his shirt to a homeless guy curled in a doorway: "even the least" I hear you say, feeling your smile break like sunshine over the day, I see the social shares on the page and likes: realise how many feel "good" by reposting but hardly one of them will walk late that night to hand out a t shirt or sandwich, and weep bitter tears of rage and wish the world were different.
You trace my tear down my cheek. The memory of your touch like wonder, a breeze within my soul, amid the pain a ghost of hope blooming into belief.
My world feels ripped asunder yet you hold me silent,
Peace filling me, and I laugh remembering feeding sparrows crumbs in the park and you, you chide me gently:
"my Father feeds such as these... Yet you are worth more to me than tupenny sparrows" You are Royal and I lower than a common sparrow... I drown in your eyes, hardly daring to breathe, cannot believe:I am ashamed of all my flaws counting the continent of disgrace distancing between us... You place a finger on my lips and kiss my forehead like a child, "you are perfect to me:God does not create mistakes", "noone earns grace". All the hurts and pains inside want to burst:you wipe them away with a promise and a hope.
In one aching instant I would follow you I know not where... Like children playing hide and seek you lead me- my life a mystery lived in each new day.
As a toddler running ahead I seem to stumble yet you catch me, I learn the milestones on my journey... Like living books the people I encounter. Your words come back in memory and remembrance... In sermons, phrases caught in hymns, like balloons caught in trees upon the wind... Bright, sudden, drawing my minds eye... In readings, in conversations.... In a thousand ways alive, opening wisdom like a precious flower.
I stand alone in the garden you planted, amazed at every miracle every bloom a marvel... I begin to see, all the times I thought you left me, you were always with me... My heart was ever in your hands.
With me still in fact:"I love you", you said..saying it simply, "I shall never leave you".
You never have. In all the ways that matter, you alone Saved me...
I was lost before, a casualty of war invisible and raging around me
Shell-shocked and stunned, stubborn and smarting I would not have made it.
You are the Jonathan to my flawed David, you rule my heart out of love
The King's sovereign was paid with every drop of blood every word of love
A Ransom worth more than a kingdom, my brother, my saviour, my Jesus
And Living Lord of my heart.
