Amazing Grace

brothers, originally uploaded by andebos.

"Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound, That saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found, Was blind, but now I see."

I share the following with this verse in mind, "Come and listen, all you who fear God; let me tell you what he has done for me." Psalm 66:16
Tonight was a night that forever stays with you. In sleep you remember the songs and echoes of words many years from now. Unfortunately the picture above does not do these men justice, several are even missing, but these men make up the group that helps focus my life. Weekly we interact, share, pray, discuss, together we live. I love these guys and I know I am loved. Tonight, one of my loved brothers shared about the many difficulties within his own heart - a moving experience just in hearing his words...let alone when he fully broke down. Several of us embraced our broken brother and together we sang amazing grace aloud. It's not an experience I'm eager to repeat, it was crushingly realistic, frightfully close, and so hopeless that you're left with nothing but the thought, "God...Lord, please, deliver me." Yet, in the brokeness you see the hands of God lived out through his people and their community. These men may never be spoken on the lips of daily men and women across the globe, but they will forever be etched in the memories and experiences of my heart.

All of my life I've been in hiding wishing there was someone just like you. Now that you're here...now that you've found me, I pray you're the one to pull me through."

Through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come. 'Tis Grace hath brought me safe thus far, And Grace will lead me home.

The Lord has promised good to me. His Word my hope secures.
He will my shield and portion be, As long as life endures.

When we've been there ten thousand years, Bright shining as the sun, We've no less days to sing God's praise, Than when we'd first begun.