Remnants

I’ve destroyed everything that was good in my life.
I’ve broken each vow that I made.
I’ve disgraced my two children, my friends, and my wife
For this mindless, relentless charade.

Think of the worst person you’ve ever known,
And I’ll wager he’s better than me.
Hell is a place I would hate to call home,
And yet it’s where I ought to be.

As a youth, I was favored, a virgin to sin,
A light to the wavering soul.
My thoughts were perverted and wrong now and then,
But I kept them in constant control.

In bad times, they’d soothe me and take me away
Like a Heroin dose to my brain.
I’d yield to their lure more and more everyday,
And my heart grew more selfish and vain.

In time, I had yielded my body and soul
To the venomous dreams of my mind,
Refusing to see they had taken control
As I left all that mattered behind.

Like a bird that has fallen from heaven to hell,
Like the snow when it’s trampled and gray,
I’ve traded my life for a cold, prison cell
And chased all that loved me away.

And the dreams that destroyed me will not let me be,
Enhancing my torment and shame,
While the one who deceived me is laughing at me
And telling me God is to blame.

And he tells me it’s over; there’s no use to try.
What good is a life of regret?
But I’ve just enough vision to discover his lie,
For God is not done with me yet.

I can’t do it over and change what I’ve done.
What a joy it would be if I could!
And the wages of sin is a ponderous one;
It exceeds twenty lifetimes of good.

But all of my sin and my guilt and my shame,
Jesus has claimed for His own.
He bore them to Calvary and took all the blame,
Bleeding and dying alone.

The debt has been paid, and I’m spreading the news,
“My life for the devil is through!”
What little I’m left with is God’s, now, to use,
And that’s why I write this to you.

by Bob H. Cook 8/l7/Z011
Prison Inmate