Sorrow

(Author's translation from Russian)

Is God aware of the sorrow
that nests inside my soul?
What have I gone through, what I store -
how can He know it all?

How can He from His saintly place
when seated on His throne,
pass judgments, punish, or give grace
to human flesh and bone?

I wonder if He ever hears
my cry at night, my groan?
How can He know my deepest fears
and how to be alone?

And yet, I sensed, when I've struggled,
His love, His guiding hands,
and every time I was staggered:
He is who understands!

God plunged into the earthly life
like us to suffer all.
He had embraced my pain and strife,
and burdens of my soul.

He tested even all my trials.
My sins, my shame He bore.
He knew betrayal and denial
and infinitely more.

His sorrow was before creation,
before the world began,-
God's fathomless abomination
to sin that's in a man.

What do I know of that sorrow,
how can I understand
that yesterday and tomorrow
I am forgiven stand?

What do I know of His burden -
when - hanging like a thief -
right up to Golgotha He bore it,
His all absorbing grief?

25.03.04