A Voice to Come Home To...

When Mama called each child would come.
Every daughter; every son.
But when she passed to the other side of the veil
A mist of darkness around us fell.
Somewhere in that grief stricken cloud
We heard Dad speak; but he wasn't loud.
"We are a family; we'll stick together
And with the Lord's help, this storm we will weather.

One brother slipped from the gospel sod
And his grip was ripped from the iron rod;
We saw him in the Spacious Building
But to our calls he was unyielding.
With anxiety, guilt and reason we called;
But none of these voices seemed to help at all.
So finally we asked the Lord above,
And He whispered, "Have you tried the voice of love?"

Now this is where the challenge begins,
For that is what we thought our voices had been.
But we have found love isn't heard in guilt, reason, or pride.
It only rings true when our hearts open wide
And welcome the sinner, not the sin inside.

And so we prayed, practiced, worked, and called.
We looked for the good...no matter how small.
Then the miracle began to unfold;
And he began to call and tell us of his dreams untold.
 We listened and laughed and saw his heart,
And the amount of goodness there sort of gave us a start.

When our brother came home he was battered and bruised
Because of health and the choices he'd misused.
Before he died there was something he was sure of;
Each of his siblings had learned to call with the voice of love.
When he died he wasn't alone
Because the voice of love had called him home.