Letting Go

Letting Go


This is a hard one Father

She’s further away now than ever.

Where gone that little girl

In delicate spring dress

Skipping away with us

From the Meeting Hall?



The friends came

Of dubious influence

With smirks and smeared

Rebellion.

The curfews ignored

The substances tried.



The studies neglected

And then abandoned.

Her Mother’s tears

At the lessening calls

A Big New City tried

A daughter lost to us.



And now we shiver

Thinking of her common day.

The mistakes, the men

The miasma and muck

Of it all, Lord.

She’s out of reach.



But your arms

Are big, Father

You see, and operate

Through innumerable agents.

Undertake now we pray

Our daughter on your altar.



Note: This one was provoked by a video I saw this morning featuring the testimony of just such a runaway woman who sank lower and lower until she came to an apartment in New York City just down the street from the Brooklyn Tabernacle. The story of her recovery relates one revelation and healing after another. The prayers of devastated parents were answered.

Take Now Thy Son


“My Lord God, is that you,
This strange thing must I do;
In taking my dear son unto Moriah,
To have him harshly bound
And flung upon the ground,
A sacrifice consumed with holy fire?”

“Yes friend, that was my voice.
I’m giving you the choice
To render all according to my will.
The child you had from me,
And now I plan to see
If you intend to trust my wisdom still.”

We know the glad outcome,
Young Isaac rescued from
His father’s hand poised high with gleaming blade.
An angel halts the knife:
“Take not the young lad’s life.
Your precious faith in God has been displayed.”

And do we all not yearn
In each our ways to earn
The thrilling blessing of the Lord’s “well done”?
Who knows what test will try
Our mettle bye and bye,
In giving up a treasure, dream or son?

For no delight on earth
May jeopardize the worth
Of growing in the Lord’s love, hour by hour.
Perhaps He may require
That loved thing for the fire,
To give it back in resurrection power.

The Dialogue


“Just shake him

And he falls

I tell ya’.

Shake him and he falls.

Remove the perks

And pandering

The sense of

E’er do well

And in short time

This Job of yours

Will court my gates

Of Hell.”



“You have him

For your worst

A season

House and home

And health.

All standing lost

The hedge removed

Men’s praises too;

That heart is still

My dwelling place

Now do the worst

You do.”



Friends add

Into the mix

Their error:

“Why God strikes

So hard.”

They charge the man

With hidden sin

And judgment earned.

He strains into

The storm to hear

His Master’s voice

And mercy learned.