How are we taught by childhood’s simple plea
Our greatest need and poor deformity
When such a child each vesper hour could pray,
“Lord, make me well and take my cross away!
“That I may share in joy and love return,
That I may live to labor and to learn
And that to-morrow may redeem to-day,
Lord, make me well and take my cross away!”
The help came down not as the cry went up,
Not as the thirst the giving of the cup;
Poor little one, if only we could say
God made him well and took his cross away!
’Tis thus we bring our own distorting grief
To our beloved Physician for relief;
And as our burden at thy feet we lay,
Lord, say ’tis well and take our cross away!
Thus too we bring our sin-misshapen soul
To our great Healer, who can make us whole,
And there beside His cross, not ours, we pray,
“Lord, make me well and take my sins away!”
Ah, time may hold surcease from pain and care;
Who knows what is the answering of prayer
Or why the Potter breaks the faulty clay?
Lord, make us beautiful in Thine own way!