Let us reach beyond the winter – a hymn for our time

 
  1 Let us reach beyond the winter
 through this dark, depressive gloom,
 may the light of Christ come shining
 into every shuttered room.
 
 2 May the sunshine of the spring time
 warm each frozen heart and mind,
 melting prejudice and anger
 by love faithful, strong and kind.
 
 3 Now profound anticipation
 wakens hope and offers grace,
 as we press, with God beside us,
 to the future we must face.
 
 4 God who shares our darkest moments,
 God of harmony and praise,
 lead us on until you greet us,
 God the goal of all our days.
 
 Andrew Pratt (born 1948)
 © 2004 Stainer & Bell Ltd
 8 7 8 7
 Tune: LOVE DIVINE (Stainer)
 
 Andrew Pratt
 Words © 2004 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England, http://www.stainer.co.uk.
 Please include any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. All wider and any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd. 

Where is the care for the silent care-giver?

Where is the care for the silent care-giver,
drowning in tragedy, lost or alone?
Where is our God in such life and such living?
Here in our pain, or remote on some throne?

God, are you deaf to our crying, our pleading?
Why are you absent when we feel so lost?
Come to the centre of need and exhaustion,
help us feel valued, while sharing the cost.

Here in frustration, in folly, when kindness
seems to be hollow, not grasping the fact:
inside our hearts may be broken or dying.
God bring your mending to lives that have cracked.

Then for tomorrow may hope that is buried
push through our anger, our darkness and night,
opening our hearts to divine love and healing,
leading from hopelessness out into light.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Tune: STEWARDSHIP
Metre: 11 10 11 10
Words © 2014 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England, http://www.stainer.co.uk.
Please include any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. All wider and any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd.