A Road Less Travelled

This past Sunday was Life Chain Sunday, a day people from all over the country stand in silent protest of abortion. When I was growing up we participated each year. I remember being incredibly bored as a child and not really understanding what was going on. At some point it fell off our radar and we simply stopped going or hearing anything about it. Our church has participated the last several years so now it’s become much more of a focus each year.

This year I was standing at University and Northmoor with my sign, fully expecting to just mind my own business and stand in silence for an hour. But then I kept noticing how the people there were standing right on top of each other. We had a ton of people all packed into one spot when we could have stretched for several blocks. I tried to ignore myself, but it didn’t work. So instead of simply standing there in silence and prayer I found myself dashing back and forth across the street to get random strangers to do what I told them to. And then I went up and down our line and rearranged people so we filled out our space.

I’d done what I could and went back to standing quietly. I’d done my bit, right? But then Anna mentioned that there weren’t many people standing in front of the abortion clinic, did we want to go there? I thought about it and decided yes, yes I did want to go. We grabbed Raquel and headed up the road. We joined the seven or eight people who were there and stood with our signs.

As we stood there three songs and a thought crept into my head and sat until I spoke them.
The songs were all Andrew Peterson songs- “Deliver Us”, “No More Faith”, and “After the Last Tear Falls”. I sang on the street and asked myself “why we do this?” Why do we stand in silence? What are we hoping to accomplish.

I don’t remember if I asked the question or if it was someone else, but we talked about it as we stood there. Anna said she thought the point was the solid hour of prayer by all the people assembled. It was a good thought, but I appreciated Raquel’s more. She said she thought the point was to stand and be counted, to stand up and declare that we are against the ending of unborn lives. To stand so that when we stand in judgment we can say that we were against abortion and had done what we could. Which was when the thought entered into my mind and sat. “It won’t always be like this,” I said to the sky, “You promised.”

We won’t always have to stand in mourning; we won’t always have to stand in protest. Someday the old order of things will pass away and all will be new. There will be no more need for faith enough to trust that Jesus will make it all right, no more need for hope enough to keep standing. We will shed our last tear over suffering, ours and others. Jesus will come and save us. And then we will see Him and we will know that all of our mourning, protests, and pain have not been in vain.

“Deliver Us”
Our enemy, our captor is no pharaoh on the Nile
Our toil is neither mud nor brick nor sand
Our ankles bear no calluses from chains, yet Lord, we’re bound
Imprisoned here, we dwell in our own land

Deliver us, deliver us
Oh Yahweh, hear our cry
And gather us beneath your wings tonight

Our sins they are more numerous than all the lambs we slay
These shackles they were made with our own hands
Our toil is our atonement and our freedom yours to give
So Yahweh, break your silence if you can

Chorus

‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem
How often I have longed
To gather you beneath my gentle wings’

“No More Faith”
This is not another song about the mountains
Except about how hard they are to move
Have you ever stood before them
Like a mustard seed who’s waiting for some proof?

I say faith is a burden
It’s a weight to bear
It’s brave and bittersweet
And hope is hard to hold to
Lord, I believe
Only help my unbelief

Till there’s no more faith
No more hope
I’ll see your face and Lord, I’ll know
That only love remains
Have you heard it said that Jesus is the answer
And thought about the many doubts you hide
Have you wondered how he loves you
If He really knows how dark you are inside

I say faith is a burden
It’s a weight to bear
It’s brave and bittersweet
And hope is hard to hold to
Lord, I believe
Only help my unbelief

Till there’s no more faith
No more hope
I’ll see your face and Lord, I’ll know
When there’s no more faith
And no more hope
I’ll sing your praise and let them go
’cause only love
Only love remains

So I will drive these roads in thunder and in rain
And I will sing your song at the top of my lungs
And I will praise you, Lord, in glory and in pain
And I will follow you till this race is won
And I will drive these roads till this motor won’t run
And I will sing your song from sea to shining sea
And I will praise you Lord, till your kingdom comes
And I will follow where you lead

Till there’s no more faith
No more hope
I’ll see your face and Lord, I’ll know
When there’s no more faith
And no more hope
I’ll sing your praise and let them go
’cause only love
Only love remains

“After the Last Tear Falls”
After the last tear falls
After the last secret’s told
After the last bullet tears through flesh and bone
After the last child starves
And the last girl walks the boulevard
After the last year that’s just too hard

There is love
Love, love, love
There is love
Love, love, love
There is love

After the last disgrace
After the last lie to save some face
After the last brutal jab from a poison tongue
After the last dirty politician
After the last meal down at the mission
After the last lonely night in prison

There is love
Love, love, love
There is love
Love, love, love
There is love

And in the end, the end is
Oceans and oceans
Of love and love again
We’ll see how the tears that have fallen
Were caught in the palms
Of the Giver of love and the Lover of all
And we’ll look back on these tears as old tales

‘Cause after the last plan fails
After the last siren wails
After the last young husband sails off to join the war
After the last ‘this marriage is over’
After the last young girl’s innocence is stolen
After the last years of silence that won’t let a heart open

There is love
Love, love, love
There is love

And in the end, the end is
Oceans and oceans
Of love and love again
We’ll see how the tears that have fallen
Were caught in the palms
Of the Giver of love and the Lover of all
And we’ll look back on these tears as old tales

‘Cause after the last tear falls
There is love