Come, ye disconsolate, where'er ye languish;
Come to the mercy-seat, fervently kneel;
Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish;
Earth has no sorrow that heav'n cannot heal.
Now that's an old hymn you don't hear too often. But, boy, do I love it. "Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish, earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal."
You know, it's the heart that goes through real hardship. It's that heart that resonates like some tuning fork with the words of this hymn. And it's the person who suffers who identifies with the following poem. It's an anonymous poem and one of my favorites over the many years I've been in this wheelchair. It goes...
When God wants to drill a man, And thrill a man, and skill a man,
When God wants to mold a man To play the noblest part,
When He yearns with all His heart To build so great and bold a man
That all the world shall be amazed, Then watch His methods, watch His ways!
How He ruthlessly perfects Whom He royally elects;
How He hammers him and hurts him, And with mighty blows converts him
Into shapes and forms of clay Which only God can understand
While man's tortured heart is crying And he lifts beseeching hands...
Yet God bends but never breaks When man's good He undertakes;
How He uses whom He chooses, And with mighty power infuses him,
With every act includes him to try His splendor out,
God knows what He's about!
AL: Someone once said that you can't have a mountain without valleys... another saying goes, "When it's dark enough, men see the stars." The hymns and poems and sayings on our program today have been written by people who have suffered, and suffered greatly.
Used by permission of
JONI AND FRIENDS
P.O. Box 3333
Agoura Hills, CA 91376
© Joni and Friends