Some days on waking light filtering through windows dusty eyes sleep swollen and stumbling are these feet alive or dead waking to new life?
Some nights tossing worrying mistakes tiptoe around me night visitors in shadow and whisper I wonder what heaven might be like.
Some afternoons as the sun burns into my working shoulders digging in the garden's soil life hidden away and vibrant still I hope to see you again.
I know the promise and ache for more than a picture to hold an old scarf you knitted a brief laugh or song you might sing me at night when fears surrounded and you held me tight.
You are raised to life and I waiting to know you fully again can only ache from the distance knowing we will laugh and dance again together when I am raised like you.
If your heart yearns for a more it doesn’t know, if you’ve suffered blow after blow and can barely dare to lift your head, if you’ve ever wished you’d rather been - if you’ve bled, or tried to bind a wound if you’ve cried then tied a knot to choke the flow of hope before it can open up a way to disappoint again and leave you broken then this is for you. If you’ve longed, if you’ve wronged, if you choke on the words to your favourite song, if you need a Doctor, or you’re beyond medical help then come. If you’re cracked, if you’re splintered, if your Winter is just too long, if this Winter is just too long, (but the thought of Spring is terrifying,) then come. Because Jesus came for the broken brother and sister, the ache, the pain and the blister, the wrong decision, the open wound the blurred vision the won’t-ever-hope-again. Jesus came for the insane, the unfulfilled, the searching the street child, the tramp and the urchin, the poor little rich girl snorting coke and cursing, and the man who sold it to her. Jesus came for those nursing a need, nursing a drink out of control, on the blink, on the brink, falling overboard, and about to - sobbing at the kitchen sink. Jesus came for those the world drives mad, for the bad, yes the bad, Jesus came for the bad, so if that’s never been you, then fine, just go, because Jesus didn’t come for the well, the swell, “the hell – I’ve got everything I need” the nothing’s-lacking, the non-cracking up. He’s not interested in courting the sorted he came to fill the cup of the thirsty, the worst, the broken, the burst open, Jesus came for the sick. the packed-up, the cracked-up, the smashed, hopes dashed, and the picked-on, the meek, the weak, the stuttering, those who blush when they speak and the walked-out-on. Jesus came for the left behind, for the cheats and the cheated, the ones who crossed the line and the ones who still don’t know where to begin. Jesus came for the people who know how it feels when you say “sin” for the broken to open, to break for those who choke, for the people who don’t have everything we need, for the ones who know we need hope.
