I.

How stricken I am, my mind and my heart!
Even my innermost being feels ripped apart.

Really I know this cannot be,
Even a child could tell me this fact.
So why is it so real for me?
Covered in terror I make to flee:
Unconsciously, where my mind's somewhat intact,
Even deeper, I know, as truth flutters so distantly,
Dark, demonic death my pursuer has been and shall be.

Underneath it all I just want to lie down and sleep;
So desperate for death or for life, for something more than this limbo, I weep.

Fearsome forms surround me and fill my every thought.
Rancid smells and decay fill my mind's nostrils.
Oh the sandpaper on my bleeding heart, the rot,
My whole self the raging darkness fills.

This cannot be, this cannot be:
Hell rampant inside my soul and body.
Even a child would wave away the possibility.

Doom booms
Outside my window;
Maybe it's a curse the Enemy cast:
Anything seems death's shadow to assume
In how, by some strange ferocity, every thing brings me low.
No one, surely, could this siege outlast.

O the betrayal, O the darkness, O the anguish that I fear,
For such terror is not distant but demonically near.

Do I listen?
And rip my soul apart, piece by piece,
Reaching deep inside the heart, my fears to release?
Kind of like putting your hand in the cookie jar, this seems a sin
No worse than a small indistinguishable stain
Even though my mind cries out to refrain,
Soulfully, my heart sings out for the darkness to win.
Soulfully, someone celebrates that darkness will win.

II.

And yet...
No...
Darkness is not mine to carry...

III.

Truly, truly, I say to You:
Rather than live with darkness my only view
And injury my only feeling, my heart I send to You for sealing.
No longer must I be stealing
Satan's thoughts and “insights,”
For You tell me there is more to believe in than terrified nights.
Even the most scarlet can, by Christ's blood, be bleached white.
Ready, I am, for something new,
Ready to be broken for something of You:
Ever only stricken by the grief of You've had from the start,
Destined to hold Your Spirit ever in my heart.

Under the waves of sin, a stronger current stirs,
So deep within I hardly notice,

‘Til it rises with the tide to surface of the things that were,
Overwhelmingly victorious.

This current is Your love,
Held and lifted high.
Ever will it be my praise, and in the dark, my cry!

Kindness leads to repentance;
I find Your love leads me to belief.
No sin is unforgivable, by the cross You bore as Your grief,
God's wrath poured out on Innocence,
Does Christ over sinners weep?
Oh, most assuredly, over me,
My burden He bears and treats me so gently.

Oh what burden now I bear,
Fair weight of love, borne back to me as I release a prayer.

How darkness will be vanquished
In this love,
Surely even in my heart this darkness will be vanquished.

Beloved, beautiful, God above
Exquisitely adorns me with grace and love.
Lowly I am, lowly and meek,
Overwhelmed, heart in tatters, in faith so weak;
Very truly You say You love me,
Each small moment of healing grace, so lovely,
Does more for my soul than a lifetime of grief.

So I adore You, my Christ,
Oh Lord of truth, of grace, of all things bright:
No more do I belong to darkness, I've been delivered to Light.