BROODING ON THE EDGE

Sorrow and grief, you have become my closest friend
Wooing me with such ferocity, to you time has no end
Excluding me from the world beyond my mind
Is it insanity, madness you wish me to find . . .

Despair and devastation, you have had your way with me
Haunting, wounding, hours of tears draw no mercy from thee
Piercing my depths, ah, not a soul to hear my wail
I whimper through the hours, where I once thought I would sail

Desperation and rejection, crushing my heart, oh, yet again
I fear thee, I fear thee, no song but darkness where I once sang
Another teardrop splashes right on my wounded heart
Insisting breathlessness and hopelessness still be of me a part

Desolation and loneliness, I thought I had you at bay
But so surely, oh, so surely I was such a fool to say
To underestimate your power to kill and to maim
There seems none but death that will find you tamed

But they say there is Jesus who can mend a broken heart
Joy for sorrow is what he promised from the start
He did not say our trials and troubles soon would end
But hope, help and comfort he promised he would send

From the grave of despair and sorrow You lept up high
You are the One who will never, never die
Creator, our Maker, the Lord that healeth me
Please grant me hope and healing, in your promises may I be.

Robyn Toh
March 1999



Isaiah 61:3 He will bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.


By the way, I have just found out that a storm is called a "hurricane" when it develops over the Atlantic and eastern Pacific Oceans; a "cyclone" when it develops over the Bay of Bengal and the northern Indian Ocean and a "typhoon" when it develops over the western Pacific.

Photograph : Florida; by Otis Imboden 1973