Sanctuaries

You are fearfully and wonderfully made.
An anchor that refuses to sink beneath the dead-tossed waves.
Jesus holds you in the highest of arms,
Because even on the ocean floor on which you lie, where the deepest of sins
Are slain, His loss still drowns the flames.

Believe in the love that guides from the True North,
Even when you hide in the shell of past mistakes,
The screams of dying dreams burst forth
And the whispering wind claims your life a funeral wake.

Love has warped out of sincerity into concluding conversations,
It’s become a lazy I-L-Y abbreviation, when it’s meant for your heart,
Your soul, your strength, your mind,
For your neighbor, your spouse, your child, your God.
A color visible only to the blind.

Do not wish hell on even the bitterest enemies,
For we know not when we entertain angels,
caught as patron saints of lost causes
or lukewarm worshippers of inactivity.

Be still in the equality of sin and the unfairness of life,
A seemingly broken and scattered church-wife,
Regard the sanctuaries without steeples, missions mismarked, off course,
The crooks will steal, and the possessed pigs squeal,
But there is no evil
that could ever divorce God from His people.

So, my God is enough for me, and it is well with my soul!
For who have I but You to conquer the things I’ll never need,
Who have I but You to claim my victory?
My freedom is here, with the spirit that touches the coal to my lips,
The One that designed the most delicate of maps on my fingertips.

For even the smallest of sparrows are fed,
By faith as swift and sure as resurrected eagles mounting the morning air,
On each created crown, not one unaccounted for hair,
As a seal upon my heart, a debt paid crimson red,
I have been crucified with Christ, and

The Savior is not Dead.