Meditation, Psalm 86
By Kevin Bezner - Charlotte, North Carolina, USA - 4 March 2012
I was near death, an empty man
With a granite heart and an icy soul.
My family had abandoned me,
So I sought comfort in the arms of shades,
Lonely women who longed like me
For moments of life in the dead land.
Poor souls, all they found with me was more death.
I tormented one, rejected others, failed
To see the good in some,
The women who may have made good wives.
Still, I sought them out, their painful lives,
And together we eased our pain.
I traveled in the waste land of my culture,
Until I reached its end. There were only
Two roads left, death or life,
The choice was mine to make,
But I did not know what life was,
Until the Holy Spirit came to me as light.
I was given new life and this story to tell:
That the Lord waits patiently for each of us,
Even though we wander far from him,
And so I sing with the psalmist,
"For great is your merciful love toward me;
You have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol."