Lord, You Have Got My Country In Your Hand Poem by Gert Strydom

I

Lord, you have got my country in your hand,
have broken my whole world that’s around me,
stripped it, the precipice is everywhere
and have also taken my whole career.
Like the apostle Paul I stand in your light,
are blinded, try to get some direction,
but am smitten down upon this old earth
with a kind of pain that cuts right through me

still sight is being revealed to me
and where I pray, fall humble at your feet
you know everything, keep protecting me
as the great ruler of the universe.
Sometimes it feels like a life sentence,
but now I really know the true meaning.


II

But now I really know the true meaning
of being your child, your adopted son,
in the night around me, I know no fear
when everything suddenly is worthless
and destiny firmly, definitely
takes my property, wife and her children,
with my life broken as if it cannot heal
my country rejects me as if I am missing

but I had to come to a turn around,
while I still see your bright light shining,
that life sometimes brings a kind of poverty
had to become my own dim reality,
I had to wander in the black darkness,
I had to learn to only hold your hand.

III

I had to learn to only hold your hand,
how long do I have to beg for mercy,
do I have to trust you only blindly,
when real demons reach with their hands to me?
As a human stand against this rebellion,
when my own world is declining with me,
it feels as if darkness folds all over me,
not if Michael is conquering at all.

The onslaught shows that I am straight on target,
that my poems make the enemy vulnerable,
I have to know from the sheer fierceness
that you do win, I am touching crisis points
but teach me to trust childlike upon you,
without my poor faith in you abating.


IV

Without my poor faith in you abating
when I take the road leading to salvation,
let me then hold onto your mighty hand,
even if great evil is around me,
even if I am picking a thorny cane,
even if time passes far too quickly,
it feels I am taking an endless road
but I will get true salvation from you

where all my life is braided together,
trapped in a nest of quite painful thorns,
it is you that decide over my lot,
each day I learn a new kind of lesson,
things get right very slowly, bit by bit
when you free me, when you show me the way.

V

When you free me, when you show me the way
when the night is dark, radiates nothing,
it looks as if I am deteriorating,
when the small golden moon wanders away
your pure light will still fall upon me
where my life is like a bright small flower,
with destiny thundering in destruction,
I become somewhat dead and even dumb,

do not know how to get out of it all,
will you then still be leading me further
to where the sun rises, is bright again,
past my own fear and all of my conceit,
do you still stay with me, when I am down,
in the wet road with lamps in a dim row?


VI

In the wet road with lamps in a dim row
the faint light reflects from the falling rain,
tonight it is where I get purity,
stand washed somewhat clean and pure
against the pattering, falling water
in which there is a great kind of healing,
you understand me and are washing me,
are bringing sincerity, forgiveness

while my deceit washes away from me,
with neon lights surrounded by great fog
I am freed by dropp for dropp that falls down
as if in the storm I find purification,
you again bring me back to conversion,
in no exposure, hero veneration.

VII

In no exposure, hero veneration
praise that the angel of darkness brings,
can I sing his lustre or of his works.
Only to you, God, I am giving glory.
To you I aim my gifts, so insignificant
as a kind of love, as appreciation
as you are protecting this wanderer,
make deep words sprout from me that circle out.

Almighty Lord, I want to sing a psalm
about your love that is self-sacrificing
where you are still ruling everywhere,
about you as a living parable
that reaches with truth through all the darkness,
Lord, you have got my country in your hand.