Barely audible
easily ignored
a voice whispers
“come back”
imploring
never demanding
“come back”
to heed the voice moves me
toward fellowship
to ignore it brings
loneliness and alienation
I strain to hear that voice
“come back”
longing for the day I hear
“come home.”
Holy Sonnet XIV by John Donne
This sonnet has been on my mind a lot this past week and I thought that I would share it. I won’t spoil it by adding commentary. This is Holy Sonnet XIV by John Donne:
Batter my heart, three-person’d God ; for you
As yet but knock ; breathe, shine, and seek to mend ;
That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp’d town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth’d unto your enemy ;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
Surgery
I stand before my maker,
becoming unmade and then made again,
sometimes yielding, sometimes fighting,
but always under the surgeon’s knife.
Which is greater, the pain of being shaped
or the pain of being left as I am?
God knows what He’s about . . .
Events of recent days reminded me of this anonymous poem. I originally heard Ravi Zacharias read it in a sermon and called RZIM to get the text.
When God wants to drill a man, and thrill a man, and skill a man;
When God wants to mold a man to play the noblest part;
When He yearns with all his heart to create so great and bold a man that all the world might be amazed;
Watch His methods, watch His ways.
How He ruthlessly perfects whom He royally elects.
How He hammers and hurts him,
and with mighty blows converts him,
Into trial shapes of clay that only God understands,
while his tortured heart is crying and he lifts beseeching hands.
How He bends but never breaks, when His good He undertakes.
How He uses whom He chooses and with every purpose fuses him,
With mighty acts induces him to try His splendor out.
God knows what He’s about.
-Author Unknown
