Oh, Abba,
Can I just stay here in your arms? Here with you in the shelter of your wings?
Can I just hold on to you with my face buried against you to hide my tears?
Can I just stay up here and hide away with you in the Word and prayer and song?
There I feel so safe, so healed, so loved…then I step out and must face it all again.
Your arms are the haven I need to hold me still, to grip me in your grace when all else seems to fade.
I just want to stay here curled up at your feet, drinking in your presence and feeling your heartbeat
Let out a sigh and release it all to you, let your peace wash over me in that overwhelming way
I don’t ever want to leave this place, your love is so deep, so boundless and so free
It leaves me here in tears of joy and awe and love and peace
Can I just stay here? Can I just lay back against you and breathe?
Can I just spend all my hours like the four today with only you and me?
In those hours in that place you held me close and near
You bound my wandering heart and moved my soul to tears
I came crushed and broken and in desperate need of you
My heart had wandered, God it had, ashamed I say it’s true
But All my hurts and pains I placed into your healing hands
And confessed my sin in heartfelt prayer so before you I can stand
So can I just stay? Can I stay where my heart finds its way back to you?
Can I just stay and soak up your light? Can I just hide away in this refuge?
Can I just hold onto you forever and not move?
Can I just be a little child helplessly clinging to the Father’s arms?
Oh, but I am hard pressed on every side, but not crushed
I am perplexed but not in despair; I am persecuted but not abandoned
I am struck down, but not destroyed
I am not burned or overcome by the waves, for you called me by name and I’m yours
Your joy will be my strength; your mercies are new every morning
Therefore I will not lose heart, though the army besieges me
You are with me; I am not alone
I will step out, holding your hand and press on, press on toward what You’ve called me
Face the world and the people and the pain and the things I don’t understand
For you are with me, your right hand will guide me; hold me fast
Therefore I will hope in you, you who never lets go, you who loves me with an everlasting love.
I lift my eyes up to the mountains, where does my help come from?
Oh, how I need you Lord, my only hope.
Can I just stay?
“I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.”” (Lamentations 3:19-24)