Shall we, this side of glory ever know
What each appointed trial here below
Accomplishes in us through chastening?
Love guards our crucibles, unhastening.

Shall we, beset by doubts and unbelief,
Here comprehend how Christ can lift our grief?
The end will show, although the course is long,
How He, out of our weakness makes us strong.

Shall sense explain the reasons for our tears?
Our hopes belong to Him. So do our fears.
No circumstance is able to displace
A single refugee in His embrace.

Shall we, when in our worst extremity,
Compare our pain to His Gethsemane,
Without remembering how on His cross,
He bore its cause, transfiguring our loss?

Shall we, when faced with death’s contingencies,
Conclude that Christ misrules emergencies?
That microcosmic needs elude His care?
Do our afflictions catch Him unaware?

Shall He, in whom despair can not exist,
Be powerless to help us to resist
The dark erosions of the aching heart,
By deepest disappointments torn apart?

And when it seems impossible to plumb
The protocols of prayer, and tongues are dumb,
Then He is everywhere our Advocate
And Spokesman, even when it seems too late.

Our goal is God, whatever blurs the view.
He cannot break His word or be untrue.
Were He to fail; all life would cease to be.
Christ is our Guarantor and Guarantee.

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.

You are my fellow ensign
On the road, my goad, my inspiration
Under anguish, under load, and in your
Fire of forebearance tried, refined in life
And limb, I learn anew of our Messiah
Through your higher view of Him.

The new beginnings that we taste
Will never end, though want and waste
And sinnings have defaced the image that
We share. But rare indeed, your heart’s capacity
To bleed for me beside you, poor, unsure, a child,
A broken reed, so commonly defiled.

You take it in your stride
When blessings hide their faces
On our onward journeys to unlisted places,
Knowing that Yeshua’s Spirit will invest us
With the courage and the graces
We shall need until the end.

The deep assurance of a thankful heart
Nothing can uproot. Faith’s ascendency
Is Christ. His praises soar above the chart
Of circumstance. Like Him, they walk on foot –
But winged, they fly in freedom – far apart
From murmuring. They take another route.
These fledgling verses, feathered from the start
By His great love and grace, are yet too young
To fly unaided. As they now depart
Their nest, may He guide them to their far-flung
Destinations, each one of them a dart
Of faith and hope and love on this dark night,
When terror and despondency impart
Despair – and gratitude is put to flight.
Appreciation is a simple art.
The love of Christ constrains our urgency
To speed His gospel to its counterpart.