Sunday 7th March

The prodigal (Luke 15:11-32)

How bleak

This inner landscape:

No comforting velvet cover

Of night

With promise of stars

Or even dawn.

Instead

The punishing scorching

Of unrelenting sun:

Remorseless heat

Sapping energy

And courage.

Your absence

The hardest punishment:

This barren panorama

Stretching endlessly

With no sign

Of life.

I cannot find my way,

Have no heart left to search,

No hope that you will

Be watching, longing

For my shamed return.

I need You

To come to find me:

To shelter my bleeding, shabby soul,

Cradling its tattered pieces

In Your healing hands

And carry me home.

By Jeannie Kendall