An easy target, shot at from the hip,
With sneer of scorn and curling of the lip.
Beyond accounting, tongue-lashed with a whip.
For this, it would appear, I have been born.

But I can live – a “prisoner of hope,”
And can forgive, with far-forgiving scope,
The ones who wound because they cannot cope,
Or kiss away a tear, or pray, or mourn.

I have been sheared of all I feared to lose
Of every argument that I might use
In self-defence, apart from grace to choose
The place where I may live “in Christ,” untorn.