The most precious journey, a poem

For thirty years I ran alone
Believing I was free.
I linked my arms and chained myself
With any just like me.

I danced a pretty pace to hell
In sins aloud and bright,
Tempting God to fling me down
But thinking I was right.

I did not know what horror loomed,
What darkness dogged my soul
by my own invitation and
with sin my only goal.

Free to live by any means
And growing in excess,
but free to hurt with carefree stings
and causing such distress.

But good I thought I really was,
Born worthy from the womb.
Not thinking that my self-made rules
would lead me to my doom.

But then one day God placed on me
the burden of my shame,
and wakened from my living sleep
would never be the same.

The shame embraced me like a net
Contempt was cutting deep,
With no escape from what I’d done
Not even in my sleep.

Only he could break my chains,
Release me from my fate.
Only he could love like that
full knowing my sad state.

No payment charged for this great gift,
No price for this great grace.
But now I’m freed to live full life
And look upon his face.

I used to stumble in the dark
Thinking I was free,
But Jesus brought me to the light
When he came for me.

You have freed me Father God
Unbound me from my shame.
Now released in blessed joy
to live freely in your name.

You made me hungry for your word
and eager in your ways,
Desirous to abide in Christ,
United all my days.

Jesus is my only jewel,
An un-surpassing prize
in whom we blissfully reside
and in him then to rise.

Just one thing to ask the Lord,
This only do I pray,
That I may dwell inside your house
Every single day.

To gaze upon his holy face
Whose ways I do adore,
To meet him daily in his word
And know him more and more.

By Ruth Baker