Volume > Issue > Pain of Late Conversion

Pain of Late Conversion

A POEM

By Dianne Clode | October 1984

Have mercy, Lord, and by your blood

wash from my brain

the sly recurring pain

that asks:

How is it that I lived so long outside your reign?

 

The thief intrudes when joy is at its height

and changes joy into a tight and choking pain

whose voice has one refrain:

Why did I sleep so long?

Why was I deaf to your new song?

 

Give me the grace to consecrate

the tender, raw regret that I came late —

To consecrate that deathly wait

into a crown to offer you as I kneel down

before you, Lord;

Then so ignored!

Now so adored!

 

Help me to understand

that I could love the cross at last

only by passing through my past;

Give me your gentleness about my history,

Help me to see as lovely mystery

the use you made of each poor day

before in blessed brokenness

I saw and heard and chose the Way.

 

Help me to thank you, Lord,

for resurrecting me before the Judgment day

so I can say that You Are Lord by faith

for these few years

before I shout it out from sight

through rapture tears.

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