Take my fervor, take my will.
Make me silent, yielded, still;
wounded, if these wounds may be
windows to eternity.
Take my talent. What’s it worth?
Nothing, save Your humble birth
lights the chamber of my heart,
truth and meaning to impart.
Take my ego. Take my pride.
Let docility abide
in the soul of who I am,
kneeling by my brother Lamb.
Take my intellect and find
faith and trust and peace of mind,
making me content to see
mercy as a mystery.
Take my dwelling. Take my land,
offered to an Unseen Hand
that will give them back to me,
anchored in eternity.
Take my future. Take my past.
Both lie in the shadow cast
by a rugged cross of wood
raised on Friday, known as Good.
Take my living. Take my death.
Let the Spirit breathe Its breath
into this dark lung of me,
lit by Your nativity.
DANIEL POTTS is a ruling elder at First Presbyterian Church in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He started writing poetry after his father began creating visual art in the throes of Alzheimer’s disease.
