If Only I Were Like You

 I can hurt and cause pain

I can force tears to fall, without a reason,

The storm the strife the rain:

Are all mine.

If only I were like you.

You are gentle and forgiving,

Your touch is the caress of a woman.

Tall and tender trees in spring:

All are yours.

If only I were like you.

The crowds shrink with disdain

As I pass through the throng;

Many bless your name

As you walk through the masses.

Oh, if only I were like you.

My hands, beautifully fashioned,

Can only wreak disaster through the lands;

Your Hands, sorrowfully pinioned,

Have saved uncounted souls.

If only I could be like you.

With your amazing love

You have forgiven the unforgivable.

I, want this love from above

But, alas, I am the unforgivable one.

If only, oh, if only I could be like you.

Before clouds of witnesses, you have risen;

And to my surprise, I have risen too.

Is this that mysterious love that’s christened

My undeserving head?

What does this mean?

My broken head, I bow,

What rock of ages have you cleft for me?

My eyes were blind, but now,

These eyes can see!

Could I really ever be like you?

Your promises are true and real

Your ways are just and pure,

I bow to you and kneel.

If I but trust and walk with you:

I can be like you.

You have mounted me on eagle’s wings

When I did not deserve it,

You have given me a chance to sing

With you, forever, in glory:

Now, only now, can I be like you.

Though the storm rage on...

A cold stone with his slimy seal,

Rocks my world with his bones of steal.

There is no place for my soul,

Just a heart of acid coal,

With the waves rolling through in low

Rough tumbling turns below,

Etching their design

With no room to resign.

No rest is within his bowls

Or peace between the winds wild howls.

Oh, to be free of him;

To believe and live without the slime of sin,

To reach a hopeful hand to heaven,

And feel a hand reach down and sever

The chains holding fast to a toiling wretch

Below a raging sea of boiling stench.

Oh, to feel the safety of God’s arms,

Rather than the fear before the storm.

This is a sinner’s plight,

But there is still no life,

Until that plight be turned around,

And we are brought down

In prayer, to give our soul a resting place

By trusting in God’s everlasting grace.

Then one day, though the sea rage on,

And pull us down to the great beyond,

We will see our fate sealed,

By the bloody hand of a perfect lamb,

And no more fill our trusting toiling soul,

With the cold slimy stone that rests beneath the heartless sea below.

© 2012 db