There are aching hearts
waiting,
hoping
for brand new starts—
broken lives
hurting,
stinging
under the weight of it all.
They call
with a voice that travels
far beyond
the seas:
in vain.
They echo,
bouncing off the walls
of stony hearts.

Small babies cry
for food they
cannot have.
Their parents face
sickness,
starvation,
and ruin.
Old men
sit against the curb
with nothing,
nothing but a piece
of cardboard,
scrawled over with
black ink and
words,
a plea that's heard
from the corners
of the earth:
"Please
help!"
Children are pulled
in two,
hurt by the course
of a life
now normal:
divorce.
Brokenness
penetrates
everything.

Are we blind?
Don't we see,
can't we find
hurting families
to help?
Are we deaf
to the words
of Jesus
when he told us
to 'go'?
There's pain,
suffering,
a world stained
in guilt,
awaiting grace
that we do not give.
We have forsaken
our cause,
our purpose,
our calling
to help those in need,
those taken
by darkness,
those hopeless,
despairing,
and lost.

Do you know
what it is
to hurt?
Have you felt
the shame
of being
homeless?
What do you know
of life beyond
the comforts you
now have?
Perhaps you know.
Or maybe
not.
The pain is
out there;
it's real!
People feel
what cannot be described
because of it's
awfulness.

So I ask you,
now,
not
what have you done,
nor
what do you do,
for I
ponder not the past.
I ask you
what will you do,
for the cause,
forsaken,
now to be
taken
up again?
What will you
do?