A Prayer

The Broken Heart

O Lord,
No day of my life has
passed
that has not proved me guilty in thy sight.
Prayers have been
uttered from a prayerless heart;
Praise has been often praiseless
sound;
My best services are filthy rags.
Blessed Jesus, let me find a
covert in thy appeasing wounds.
Though my sins rise to heaven thy merits
soar above them;
Though unrighteousness weighs me down to hell,
thy
righteousness exalts me to thy throne.
All things in me call for my
rejection,
All things in thee plead my acceptance.
I appeal from the
throne of perfect justice
to thy throne of boundless grace,
Grant me to
hear thy voice assuring me:
that by thy stripes I am healed,
that thou
wast bruised for my iniquities,
that thou hast been
made sin for
me
that I might be righteous in thee,
that my grievous sins, my
manifold sins,
are all forgiven,
buried in the ocean of thy concealing
blood.
I am guilty, but pardoned,
lost but saved,
wandering, but found,
sinning, but cleansed.
Give me perpetual
broken-heartedness,
Keep me
always clinging to thy cross,
Flood me every moment with
descending grace,
Open to me the springs of divine
knowledge, sparkling like
crystal,
flowing clear and
unsullied through my
wilderness of life.

Valley of Vision