You Sweetly Break Us

*Please listen to Jeremy Riddle’s Sweetly Broken (or the spontaneous worship version) before, after, or while you read this*

You sweetly break us, God.

You tap our shoulders,

Whisper in our ears

Trying to get our attention. 

We turn away

Not willing to seek Your face.

But Your holiness shines behind us,

Beckoning

Beckoning.

“Turn around my child. 

See what I’ve done for you.

Do you know what I endured

For you?

Because of my

LOVE

For you.

You.

I love you.

My skin was broken

In a thousand places

Letting blood pour out

For you.

I was broken harshly

By hate, and sin,

And all things evil.

The Devil laughed in triumph

And as I breathed my last

They thought I was broken.

But I rose from my grave

ALIVE

Alive for you,

So that you need only be

Sweetly broken.

There is no blood you need to shed,

My child.

I did that for you.

You need only to break

Only your chains of sin

Are broken my child,

Sweetly broken, by

LOVE.

So turn around, my child,

Run into my arms.

I will forever embrace you

At the foot of my cross

That I carried for

YOU. 

And that I died on for

YOU.

So that you need only be

Sweetly broken.

Those walls you built?

You don’t need those anymore.

Stop following the path

That leads to a prison

And chains of sin.

Did you not hear?

I broke those chains

I broke those walls

For you.

So you wouldn’t have

To try and do it on your own.

Because you can’t.

Only my Father can do that,

And He did, when I died.

For you.

So you need only be

Sweetly broken.

So why do you hesitate?

Why do you continue

In your ways that lead

To death, and not life?

Turn back to me, my child.

I am here, waiting.”

You put Your hand on my shoulder

And I turned

And ran

Straight into Your arms

And all the chains fell off

The walls were broken,

Pieces falling all around me

I broke, and tears poured out.

In the presence of Your love

I was sweetly broken.

I was given the inspiration for this poem during a late night worship (10 pm to 2 am) with our youth group, while listening to the spontaneous worship version of Sweetly Broken. There is nothing quite like having to write so fast, words just flowing out of your pen page by page, because the words are there so strongly and you have to get them down in order to keep up.  God is so good!