BY SHARLA MOODY

This piece is part of syndicated series in collaboration with Yale Logos for Lent 2021. You can read the original piece at https://yalelogos.com/home/a-great-confusion.

Lord, ask me not to walk atop the seas, 

and give me not knowledge of all languages.

Do not speak to me with dew or marvelous wines, 

and I plead that you not invite me to a banquet 

where many wonders will be done––

for Lord, I can scarce understand my own wickedness

and how much greater Your love must be

to beckon even a criminal like me. 

For Lord, if You ask a great act of faith from me, 

surely I will be unable to deliver; surely I cannot

enter the wilderness for forty days, or forty years. 

For surely in snares and temptations will I be caught, 

surely I am too fickle to return the faith You have given.

For Lord, if it were me who had to walk on waters,

me who healed the sick and me who raised the dead,

me who was tempted and offered wealth o’er slaughter—

if all the world were at risk, I would choose myself instead.

Yet You have allow’d me to live so far unnumbered days,

God of the universe, giving me miracles numerous. 

Sharla Moody is a junior at Yale, studying English.