My Strength is Renewed

My bones are weary with great weariness

Of living, yet my heart sings like a bird

(The one who had escaped the fowler’s net),

I find renewal in your every word.

You draw me, draw me, from the depths of dark

Into that light which pierces like a sword

Unmake, remake me, shatter and re-form;

You are my life, therefore I call you Lord.

You were undone to do me up again,

Broken for me to reconstruct my soul

Out of the stuff of your transforming grace

And in this great defeat I am made whole.

Therefore I love and laugh and lift and live

In you who are my treasure and my king

And though death stalks my every mortal breath

Your life in me will give me everything.

The hermitage

I carry my own hermitage within:

A place apart, the world can wait outside

And nothing know, nor ever penetrate

The recess of the self where I abide.

My cell is furnished with such pretty things:

The stars of night, the sunlight on the sea,

And every lovely flower’s tenderness,

And music of heart-stopping poetry.

Here my beloveds, in the arms of prayer,

Rest tranquil, and my terrors are laid by

With tears of thankfulness. I can let go

Of all the busyness which I decry.

Here trembling hope has learned to reach in trust

And smile again; here peace with folded wings

Waits to embrace, to still my tottering doubts,

And whisper melodies till my heart sings.

And here is rest until my rest shall come;

Here, at the heart of all, my altar stands,

For underneath all things is utter love,

And I am held forever in his hands.