I am mildly surprised as I read these words months after writing them. Mildly, I say, because it isn’t a surprise and yet it is, to see how I have been so down in my hopes, feelings and outlook on things. I marvel somewhat because I know this has happened on many occasions while in between those times I have also felt quite to the contrary, as though the Lord were very much with me and that by Him, nothing was impossible. I have particularly felt the latter way, with full conviction immediately after the Lord has manifest Himself to me in some way, unmistakably. But how soon and how able we are to forget and to be in despair!
The whole world rots before my very eyes.
Blind I am not to its corruption;
Men bide their time in vain travail
Or wait until they have to go.
Suffering and death are everywhere,
Sickness, disease and hell;
Selfishness and greed reign over all;
Each man denies another’s rights.
Hell is on the left, Death is on the right;
Fake religions promise emancipation;
Vain hopes carrot asses everywhere;
The wisest are led by them,
bled by them,
and slain by them.
God is here, God is there, God is everywhere;
And nowhere.
There is no truth, no mercy, no compassion,
No righteousness nor justice in this earth.
Men are quick to boast their virtue,
To make a show of goodness,
‘Til they have you where they want you
And slit your throat for what you have
If even so very little.
I see the wickedness and the cruelty,
The deception of every man
But though I have power to see all this,
There is nothing I can do;
I am helpless and selfish as other men,
Striving for the truth yet against it all,
Hungering for the right nowhere in sight,
Contributing to its non-existence.
I have sought to be the Lord’s,
To be His and His alone,
To serve Him well and do His will
But I have sought in vain.
There is nothing for me to do;
My searching is at an end.
I can not go on; my hope is gone;
I see no other way.
What then can there be for me?
Where will I go and what shall I do?
I despair and cry and writhe inside;
My God has forsaken me.
He has forsaken me, I do not know why.
I know that in me there is no good
But I thought and hoped that He would come
And save me if He could.
I am worse than I was a while ago,
And worse I get each day.
What can I do and where will I end?
What more am I able to say?
My depressions come more often;
They envelope me as a shroud.
My strength is fainter day by day
To withstand the onslaught of evil.
I have boasted and spoken of my God;
I have acted as though I have known Him.
Some, though few, have sought my words
To guide them on their way.
But now I find I am no guide;
I have no one to guide me.
Silent and subdued within,
After many years, I am at an end.
Promises have come and also gone;
I stand with empty hand;
Nothing to show for all my work
And sacrifice and search.
If I could find someone to end
This miserable life I have led,
I had let him have the privilege
If I knew the other side.
It may well be from pan to fire;
It may be for the worse;
I do not know so I can not go;
I must bear this curse.
Lethbridge, Sept. 1984