Life Like a River

Where do you flow, O river, ever roaming?
What songs you sing while washing down the shore?
What secret tales your moving waves are holding
of meadows bright that bloomed in days of yore?

You’ve seen the castles, caves in shadowed valleys,
the woods and towns, the lands of noise and cheer.
Within your currents endless story rallies,
the whisper of all ages lives in here.

You saw a flower, tender in its glory,
and shades of forests breathing young and deep.
Your distant path, uncertain in its story,
speaks louder than the words that humans keep.

The years will pass, and I will fade from being,
but you will still run on, forever free.
Above you, sunlight rises, gently seeing
your shining surface, bright as stars can be.

Yet God has sworn a promise everlasting:
that life will bloom on Earth and never cease.
Here, on this ground, His plan will stand unpassing—
for humankind He grants eternal peace.

So now I breathe with calm, unbroken knowing,
for nothing here can bring my life to cease.
On Earth my days will be forever flowing,
long as the river’s everlasting peace.

This hope warms heart and soul with quiet power:
my path, like yours, will never lose its way.
No wall, no fault, no dark or troubled hour
can twist the stream of life that God will stay.

So flow, O river, carry forth the story
that death will lose its rule upon the land.
We’ll live forever in eternal glory,
as dawn renews the world by God’s own hand.