For the Christian folk

For the Christian folk

In all my many days of life, 
I realize I have failed. 
I never knew what hope I had, 
or learned what it entailed.

I tried to boast. I tried to brag. 
But never did I climb
up to the top of freedoms life, 
not even in a rhyme. 

But you were always there with me
a whisper in the night. 
Whenever shadows threatened pain, 
you made the darkness bright. 

But still I failed to realize then, 
how much within your hands, 
my hope. My faith. My very truth,
took shape within your lands. 

These hills were not a solid place, 
but more a heartfelt worth. 
That in the darkest place in life, 
a beauty can give birth 

to love and joy,  and hopeful tears
as sudden, all around, 
a spirit of the highest form
fills me... and then Im drowned. 

The living water fills my lungs, 
bathes me in holy flame. 
Til guilt and need and want and such, 
is gone,  just like my shame. 

So then I pick my new cross up, 
and look at it with glee. 
For there within its shiny depths,
the Lord has set me free.