Grace in Need

Last night I had trouble sleeping my mind would not be still from yesterdays events. There are two peices to this post. The first is a frustrated poem about senseless violence. The second is a song I wrote for a friend many many years ago.

What right have you to make us feel afraid

To trap us here inside our boundaries

And make us cease to trust our fellow man

What ghoulish power joined with you today

To make us wince at breezes in the trees

and hide indoors in day as best we can

Did anger, hate, distraught, or helpless rage

Convert you to a mindless, thoughtless fool

Determined to a violent good bye

Your final act upon a blood bath stage

The devils advocate or demons tool

And leave behind a land too shocked to cry

You serve us doubt in ladles round and deep

As hearts fly to the ones we hold so dear

Imagining what we cannot believe

And draw us out from needed peaceful sleep

To reconcile the senseless things we hear

With feelings rationale cannot conceive.

My friend left my friendship to marry my ex. In the long run I came out ahead and free and with an enviable life. Yet for many, many days while everything grew darker, it seemed like the end. Then the song I wrote for my friend came back to lift me back into belief. Somehow it seems appropriate now for so many reasons.

My load was heavy and my road seemed so long 

My heart was broken and I could not find a song 

The empty void that I call life had pushed me down 

But I found Jesus when I turned around

Now I can see the way He gave me good for bad

I may not see the reasons for the pain I've had

but yet his grace my troubled heart from fear has freed

He was beside me in my hour of need.

Out of the darkest part of the night there came the dawn

Out of the deepest hurt the sweetest songs are born

In my loneliness I looked to find His face

And in my helplessness I found His grace.

May we as individuals and may our reeling nation find peace and grace in this time of need.