A Ruth Bell Graham Poem.
Had I been Joseph’s mother
I’d have prayed/ protection from his brothers
“God keep him safe./ He is so young,
so different from / the others.”
Mercifully, / she never knew
there would be slavery/ and prison, too.
Had I been Moses’ mother
I’d have wept/ To keep my little son;
praying she might forget/the babe drawn
from the water /of the Nile.
Had I not kept/ him for her/ nursing him the while,
was he not mine – and she/ but Pharoah’s daughter?
Had I been Daniel’s mother
I should have pled / “Give victory!
-this Babylonian horde / godless and cruel –
Don’t let him be a captive – better dead,
Almighty Lord!”
Had I been Mary,/Oh had I been she,
I would have cried/ As never mother cried,
Anything, O God, / Anything…- but / crucified.”
With such prayer importunate
My finite wisdom would assail
Infinite Wisdom. God, how fortunate
Infinite Wisdom / should prevail.
Ruth Graham Bell, Prodigals and Those Who Love Them (Colo Springs, FOF, 1991), 69
