Love’s Reach

I reach for You
With my life,
All my life.

It is not for naught,
That You labored,
Bore my sins.

I reach for You
With my thoughts.
In the night,
I contemplate Your Dying.

Writhing in agony,
Alone with hell’s phantoms,
Blood called
From Your flesh.
More than a drop
Spoke my name.

Here in the dark,
The echo resounds,
Scatters my foes.

I reach for You
With my heart,
All my heart.

The scourge,
The nails,
The Cross,
Crown Your life,
Given for my life.

You reach out,
Nailed to Your Cross,
Stretched across the ages.
I am but one
Who feels Your Pain.

Your Passion reaches me,
Saves my life,
All my life.

© 2013 Joann Nelander

All rights reserved

Your Eyes Are Upon Me

Your eyes are upon
Your lowly servant.
I have a sense
Of being with You
This day in Paradise.
I know you are here
With me,
In the Flesh
For these holy moments,
And, by my Baptism and Confirmation,
By character and grace
In Your Holy Spirit.

Amen to all you choose
To do in me.
I am Yours.
Make me a cleansed vessel
A vessel covered in gold
Fit for Your service,
A chalice full
Of willingness.
I pray, I wait, I obey.

Holy, holy,holy Lord.

©2013 Joann Nelander

At My Death

At my death,
My kind and loving Jesus,
Friend and Savior of my soul ,
See again and always
My Baptism,
By and in which I entered
Into Your Divine Life,
As humble and grateful partaker,
Becoming priest, prophet, and king,
By the Victory and Resurrection
That is Yours,
And I now share.

Here, the Life giving Water
Of Your Father’s Plan
And Will for me,
Invited me into Your Death,
That I might live,
Another Christ,
By and in His Only Begotten Son,
By the Will of the Most Holy Trinity.

I will with all my heart,
“Amen”
To all you have done for me
In Your Passion and Death.

May this New Life,
That is Your embrace
Of all my life,
Nailed to the Cross,
That is Your Death
And ransom for my life,
Breathe New Life
Into my soul eternally.

At my death
Take to Yourself,
Your Own.

©2013 Joann Nelander

All rights reserved

Sweet Presence

You are here.
My soul drinks
Of Your Presence.
Here is sweetness pervading,
Time with no measure,
Eternity kissing the moment,
Stillness, though fleeting.
Your touch stirs the life of me.

I want to dance,
Charged with new vigor.
I should simply gaze on You
But the power of life
Is hard to resist,
And unless You take me captive,
I’m tempted to fly.

I am the beggar,
Who finding his pockets full,
Hurries off to spend his treasure.
Teach me Lord to bask
In the sunshine of Your smile.

© 2013 Joann Nelander

All Glory to You

My dear Jesus,
My merciful Jesus,
I rejoice in Your Presence.
Pour ever fresh graces
Into my soul,
That I may draw life From Your Life,
And that Your living Presence in me
May light my corner of the world
With Your Glory.

©2013 Joann Nelander  All rights reserved

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God Creator

God creates,
And then goes forth
Into His creation.

I come to be in Thee,
And in Love,
I make return.

©2013 Joann Nelander