Gone

Though dawn is distant, I wake again, to sit in Your Presence, to wonder at you.

You've ruined me, You know, for anything else. Longing for one vocation fills my soul:

To consider You, to feel You, to worship You, To find words (O, vain and futile task!) that capture what's burning in my heart.

Your gaze presses in upon me - warm, yet weighty, on the edge between tender and terrible;

And the oldest truth I know comes back again in plain yet haunting tones: You love me. I matter to You, and you are never not there.

My heart swells with yearning, quickened to what the Shulamite knew, so long ago, Your image gazing through the lattice, Your touch upon the door. Her pounding heart sets the tempo for mine as desire mounts - To be loved, purely and completely, O, wonder beyond wonder! I will follow after You, lovesick, for all my days.

You draw me upward, expanding my heart like a balloon over fire, And I am carried on Spirit-wings to regions only dreams have known 'til now. You cause all thoughts of place and power to become as nothing, Vapors with no reality, for nothing matters but to be with You.

I want nothing from You now, save this one thing: Let me live forever in a place like this - with You, just with You. Only touch my eyes. Please, Lord - I want to see.

I prayed last night for words that would declare Your Beauty, And now You answer my longing with joy that strips my tongue of speech, And renders me helpless, hopelessly in love, trembling my only choice.

This is the manner of man, is it not? To be before You, listening to Your heart, To feel Your love, to know without a doubt the oldest story is true. I sing with teary voice. I'm gone. You've taken me, O Lord. Do not put me back.

I believe You now. Such wondrous things in store! Words will come, and other ears will hear, and other hearts will be inflamed, And You will crown Your Church with Beauty, and She, With all who come and all who've gone before, Will gaze on You, and every moment fall fresh in love, and be Your Bride.