THE ANCIENT FAITH RECLAIMED!
Up perpendicular ledges
and towering granite cliffs,
We’ve snatched at jutting projections
and clung to cloud-wrapped rifts!
Souls despairing in anguish
We’ve struggled in hopeless dismay,
Seeking His trail to follow
as we’ve climbed our rugged way!
Never were craigs so awesome!
Nor ever a mountain so steep!
Nor ever a need so urgent
a rendezvous to keep!
Of’t with torn, bleeding bodies
we’ve clung to some swaying ledge,
Or only held on blindly to some
crumbling, precarious edge!
We’ve snatched at roots or gravel
to feel them give way at our touch
We’ve asked so very little!
And needed that “little” so much!
Once, hurled back by a landslide,
we lay bruised against a tree,
While above, on the top of that mountain,
awaited a destiny!
A thousand times we were hurled back
in a broken, anguished heap!
A thousand pit-falls overcome,
our rendezvous to keep!
A million hazardous testings we faced
in that upward climb!
A million sobbing heartbreaks,
etched deep on the face of “time“!
The top of the mountain was cloud-banked,
the goal obscure, unclear–
It was only a dream, seen vaguely,
as we climbed those crags in fear!
‘Twas only a vision beckoned,
above the dreary world—
Only a vision of glory
that ever its promise unfurled!
At last! Aft’r years of struggle!
A seeming eternity!
Our goal loomed high above us!
Our rendezvoused destiny!
Inch by inch! Slowly! Soul-searing!
We grappled with elements wild!
Exiled! Cast out in discredit
like destiny’s orphaned child!
So many times, on that last cliff,
we were hurled to the ledge below!
But somewhere along that upward climb
our “faith” had advanced to “KNOW”!
Up that ledge we dug our way!
Up! Up the mountain so steep!
Up! Up through those exiled years of life,
our destiny to keep.
Our strength increased with our progress!
Joy became mighty and strong!
In danger, or heart-rending setbacks,
we’d lift up our hearts in song!
When we’d finally reached the top,
place of our noble, destined tryst
We breathed in humbled, breathless awe
as we kneeled at the feet of Christ!
“You’ve traveled the road I mapped for man,
the way to overcome!
You’ve learned to hear the voice of God!
And let His will be done!
The road I left the map for,
that age-dimmed, forgotten Way
You have blazed anew in power
more brilliant than the day!
Turn! And look back where you’ve traveled!
Look back where the mountain has been!
There’s my open highway of glory you’ve rebuilt for the
Race of men!
By Annalee Skarin; “Secrets of Eternity”
