I am a pyromaniac--
I'll set us on fire,
just to watch it all burn,
and I'll smile to myself.
My path is devastatingly haunted
by the wake of a hurricane of insecurity,
and the aftermath of a forest fire,
set by my tongue.
I sit surrounded by the destruction I made,
and I run my fingers through the past,
combing through,
certain of the uncertainty of finding anything worth holding,
if I could,
if the ashes weren't caught in me,
choking me,
making me unable to breathe.
I watch my history in scenes rewinding,
I see my screenplay burning
before my eyes, dry from heat and ash.
But my Lord cannot bear to hold my sin,
he cannot hold to see,
and so he sent his beloved son to hold,
his beloved son to see,
his beloved son to become,
and even now in me
he sifts to find
a remnant to be beautiful again.
He will rake beauty out of the scenes I burned,
out of the buildings and bridges I burned to dust;
he will sift beauty from the pile of ashes I left,
and quench the fire of my tonge.
He will create life within me over and over,
and death will not set fire to my bones and skin;
it will have no hold on my heart,
and my eyes on fire will water ashen cheeks
until a remnant of beauty grows in life once again.
Redemption and restoration are held out to me,
and though I know I am rotting away,
burning slowly in my own ash,
I find that my name is being called,
and my hand is being drawn,
and my hope is rising.
So I reach out,
and when my fingers touch the edge of His cloak,
the decay of my heart falls away,
and the ash that became a part of my blood
turns over and fades;
and so from the ashes I created,
I am given the beauty He made.
