*Image created using AI, August 2024

O Christ, having experienced the world’s sorrow,
in Your wounds, I touch the edges of grace.
Show me how pain, a gift unwrapped in darkness,
can lead me closer to You,
where shadows frame a deeper hue.

In the furnace of my trials, You refine,
each tear a flicker of holy purpose,
burning away what binds me to this world.
May I rise from the ashes of my own disgrace,
cast aside by the blaze of Your embrace.

O that my suffering place me on
a path of wounds mirroring Yours,
where each groan becomes a prayer,
where love shows the scars You bare.

Lead me through the thorny thicket,
where even pain becomes a sanctifying grace,
and in the languished strain of my toil,
faith finds me rooted in fertile soil.

O Christ, who has trod this road,
give me strength to follow you,
until the day I see Your face,
knowing every tear has found its place. Amen