Poem - For the Savior's Sake

Try it again
Release the heavy breath
and shake loose the clenched jaw
Speak.
Just speak up, for heaven’s sake!
For the blessed Savior’s sake
Just open your mouth and
the Spirit will provide
Yes, Lord, but I’m scared and visibly scarred
I choke and fumble
I curse my own being for the introverted station I inhabit
for serial failures
for pitiful paralysis of the tongue

“Who made man’s mouth?!”
Yes, Lord, but rote evangelistic rhetoric somehow
tastes foreign stumbling from this particular mouth You made
Feels memorized and inorganic
My pockets are overflowing with excuses – what’s wrong with me?

Try it again
Release the breath
And manage a song about
Him and for Him
So, yes, I sing loudly
I craft verses on pages and share them without request or prompting
I clumsily grab a hammer and a handful of bruised nails and
in the quiet I begin to hang pictures on the dark
Then steal away to pray
I plead, begging the Spirit to drop little
bread-of-life crumbs on the paths where the lost ones linger
Yes, Lord, use those verses to awaken need and to
point with great poise --
in ways my prefab elevator pitch never does --
point to the Light, seduce their vision:
“Behold, the Lamb of God!”
“Behold, your King!”

Oh, Great God, Lord, work
Work despite this tangled work of me
Let the fruit be rich, even if deeply blemished and unorthodox
Let the offering be sweet and sweetly accepted
for the blessed Savior’s sake