Tag: despair

As shorter days prevail  – a hymn inspired by Luke 18:9-14

As shorter days prevail  – a hymn inspired by Luke 18:9-14

1               As shorter days prevail
                  We know as we are known:
                  We face the truth of our deceit
                  Within God’s judgement zone.

2               We see as we are seen, 
                  As God and truth conspire,
                  A panorama of our lives
                  Confronts each wild desire.

3               Then at the darkest hour
                  A laser sears the night,
                  As sharp as any spirit’s sword
                  That cleaves our wrong and right.

4               As we discern ourselves,
                  Deride, despair, regret,
                  Compassion moves God’s love to us:
                  Love will forgive, forget.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)   

Words © Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@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
Metre: SM

Tune: CAPEL

When sense is damaged, limiting perception – hymn – inspired by Mark 9: 30-37

When sense is damaged, limiting perception – inspired by Mark 9: 30-37


1 When sense is damaged, limiting perception,
God’s love will not diminish or betray,
for we are held in grace and loving kindness,
in pain, through grief and hardship, come what may.


2 The love of God defies our understanding,
God reaches to the depths of our despair
absorbing hate, discerning fear and anguish,
enabling, healing, wholeness and repair.


3 Our God is patient with our human frailty,
a strength in weakness when we slip or fall,
and so just as we are we come to worship
to offer back to God our all in all.


Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2012 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@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.

Metre: 11.10.11.10

Tune: HIGHWOOD

Covid-19 hymn of Lament – Through every fighting moment and each breath

Through every fighting moment and each breath,
another burdened person nearer death;
and now we sing our prayer that life might last,
this time might be consigned, be something past.

Great God, we cling to hope when all seems lost,
we never thought that love would hold such cost;
and now our loving feels more like a shroud
to wrap the one we we love: we cry out loud!

How long, O God, must suffering prolong
this tension, is lament so very wrong?
Or is our understanding of your care
corrupt, or incomplete, bereft or bare?

Amid our swirling agony and doubt,
God hold us till the sands of time run out;
when light has gone, and darkness hovers round,
we wait the dawning of Love’s solid ground.

Written on 26th May after watching Clive Myrie (BBC reporter) in a ward with people dying of COVID-19.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/health-52809201/coronavirus-one-week-in-one-hospital

Words © 2020 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.
Tunes: PEEL CASTLE (Manx Fisherman’s Hymn); EVENTIDE (Abide with me)