529. Prayer During an Illness

Some of this poem echoes a prayer that welled up in my heart during a recent illness, which included a five-day stay in the hospital earlier this month and continues to unsettle my previous conviction of invulnerability as I face specialist consultations and who knows what else in the weeks to come. I suppose this could go on for a lot more stanzas, but on this occasion I feel that brevity is the soul of, um, prayer. So, with no particular tune in mind:

Hear me, Savior, in this hour
When disorders sap my power.
Though my prayer be feeble, frail,
Though my coward spirit quail,
Answer from Your throne of light;
Hold me up with gracious might.

When anxieties abound,
When uncertain is the ground
That with fearful steps I trace,
Show me, Lord, a loving face.
Keep me, sinner that I am,
Like a favored little lamb.

Help me, for I am afraid!
Let my heart on You be stayed.
Strengthen me against all loss,
Pouring courage from Your cross.
Though dark fears my heart appall,
Once more be my All in all.

ART: "King Hezekiah on his sickbed" in the Wellcome Collection, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.