Applause for Heaven - Part I

I ask you to release me and give me freedom
And you give me bondage
Not physical chains
But an emotional bondage called devotion
Called loyalty
That keeps me bound to people and to places
Bound by time and circumstance
A prisoner of you, oh Lord
You gave me bondage and taught me surrender
And through that surrender, I learned to free myself in You

I ask you to give me patience
And you gave me trials
Not small feats overcome effortlessly
But encounters that force me far beyond my threshold
Beyond my own strength and might
And through the tumult and degradation
You rebuilt me, a quintessential being
Fortifying me in ways I can't begin to conceive

And then, oh God, I ask you to teach me love
Instead you taught me how to hurt.
Not with physical pain,
But pain that runs deep into my self
And grips the very soul of me
And I want to cry for the fatherless sons
I want to weep for the daughters of mothers
And wail for rape of the innocent
And agonize over the Godless nations
Because you have joined my soul to a cause
You have anchored my mind to a purpose
You have fastened my heart to humanity
Thus, gifting me love

Amen