Redemption

If I pass through Gethsemane to writhe in cold, dark agony, if Fear's hounds track me through the night till like a wounded fawn in fright I thrash through forests, strange, unknown, that seem so far away from home, would love in me grow weak and die? would stones of hatred be piled high to mark the plot, engraved by Shame, "It was here that love at last was slain!" Would my heart lie entombed, content, or would the stones by Love be rent, and Love o'er Hate triumphant pour because the sting of death Christ bore? Or if my love were crucified, rejected, left to bleed and die, if Sorrow pierced my fainting heart with every bitter, burning dart, I pray that love would stand the test; that while my soul Grief did molest, I would not stoop to hate the foe, but yield to pain that Love might flow. Would Love in me refuse to die and live again though crucified? Oh, that the seed felled by Hate's cry through suffering would multiply and rise to reap the greater store because my Love your sorrows bore. © 1987, Faye Lanham Gibson