The Joy I Want… The Eternal Weight of Glory

(Quite a lot of people to thank for contribution, some more than others… Jack Lewis’ intro to The Great Divorce and A2 for getting me to read it, Griffin for getting me to read Heretics/Orthodoxy and for writing a somewhat similar song.  Also Joni, Elisabeth Elliot, A1, Mom, Ross, Derek Webb, whichever Piper wrote the Camel poem, T.S. Eliot, Till We Have Faces, and Madeliene L’Engle.)

You cannot take it all with you

So sorry to disappoint but

The truth is often brash and hard

You cannot hang onto all these

Relics of the lower regions

I begin to get the impression

That you really just don’t understand

This one journey you may find

That you are called to leave behind

Your right eye, your right hand

And have we ever sacrificed anything?

And what have we ever given?

Blessed to be a blessing

The greatest curse was the taking

Of all our sin and all it entailed

There is no evolution

Of evil into good

There is only the Master

Who purges us through the flames

Maybe all roads lead to Rome

But we are running from hollow and deceptive 

Philosophy, sophistry

These roads all come to divides

Like a cross…

And will we ever be clean?

Does Your blood wash [,] not stain?

Wine can kill what will kill us

Some days it seems that You are always

Killing me

As Your hands gently and graciously

Pull me through a space

That makes it look like nothing 

For a camel to go through a needle’s eye

You come as a kinsman-Redeemer

As a thief in the night

How joyful is the Bridegroom’s coming

If He finds His bride a whore

In the bed of a false god?

Shall we shudder at Your coming

And try to hide ourselves?

Or rather shout with joy

Confident in the One Man? 

I choose the wedding

For to such a purpose You called me

And have been sanctifying me

You picked me up dead

And sent Your wind-breath-Spirit into me

All that I am is and is to be Yours

(Late night… and… yeah.  Late nights often make me realize how frighteningly raw I still am, and very much in need of a Saviour.)

Hold this child, full of fears

Pull me close and whisper in my ear

Your blessing

Something to hold onto 

When the night is dark and long

When my heart is not strong

Hide me with your hand

Don’t let me fall

Don’t let me go

And sometimes my wounds

Are all too raw

And I get blood and tears

All over everything

Shivering against a coldness

Which you can’t even feel

Please, please

I cry… I cry

Can’t think of what to say

Locked in this daze

And so tired.

(I’m not sure if this properly qualifies as a song.  Whatever.)

Shatter

Shatter

Crushed beneath the pressure

Darkness in your eyes

And all the pieces fall apart

And I can only stand here

Watching in horror

Running and being too late

All my nightmares 

Coming true

All the King’s Laws

And all the King’s men

Couldn’t put us

Together again

So I lie in broken shards 

At Your feet

And Your hands touch me

With infinite gentle pain

Pick me up

Make me new again

And being reborn 

Hurts as much as death

So I come crying

Crying to You

Salvation is found in no one else

Save us tonight

For there is no other name

King, Oh Lord, we cry to You

And You hear

Even when we are too broken to cry

Too dead to bleed

You pick us up

Gently as we cut You

And refit us

And breathe life into us.

(It’s not done, but I am so horribly bad at coming back to songs that it seems better to put them up in very unfinished format rather than never.  Advice is welcome, but, as I said, I’m bad at rewriting.)

Wooden splinters, feel the blood

Soaking into you

From the torn back of your Creator

The earth cries out against this blood

Long ago in a field

A shepherd fell beneath a farmer’s hand

Death bleeds into the land

We wonder where the promise is

Today the Shepherd is killed

By the hand of earth’s steward

And all my sins before were as nothing

You saw this end from the beginning

The cross does not need the blood

Saturating it

Tree cursed for my sake

Creation cries out for redemption

Although I bought the curse

The suffering land waits eagerly

To see the revelation of God’s sons

My salvation

I tremble beneath Your blood

Reborn to You, Dread Lord

Who am I to stand before Your face?

Much less be taken as Your lover

Your blood soaks through me

Filling all the broken places of my sin