Agonizing

"After withdrawing about a stone's throw from them and kneeling, he prayed, saying, 'Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done.' (And to strengthen him an angel from heaven appeared to him. He was in such agony and he prayed so fervently that his sweat became like drops of blood falling on the ground.)" 1

Burden of Brokenness

Oh heavy beams of misery,
Weighed down with all my grief and loss;
This burden of a rough-hewn tree:
Dead weight of spirit crushed by cross.

Father, take this cup if You will,
Let not my will but Yours be done.
I struggle, burdened, up death's hill;
Heart sinking with the late day sun.

A night of anguish falls on me:
An opaque veil of hopelessness.
And now Your angel strengthens me;
Your shoulder lifts my brokenness.

My God, who had forsaken me,
To be crushed by the weight of night;
To taste of death's pure misery;
Now transforms me with Love and Light.

Each cross He hands me, I embrace;
I anguish deeply from the pain.
I kneel, accepting it as grace:
Each loss of self is Heaven's gain.

(c) Paul Buis, 2000

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1. Luke 22:41-44