When the Hedges Come Down

 They Will Be Put Up Again

I remember when I was a toddler learning to walk

I would take a few tentative steps

Away from Momma or daddy and then

Make a U-turn and go back to the safety

Of their arms again.

They were my learned safety net

According to my toddler mentality

And years later, my Momma introduced me to Jesus

And He became my lifelong reality.

I went to places that people didn't

Think I should have been able to go

And did things that some of the best

Could not figure out and wanted to know

How this little snippet of a nobody from nowhere

Could sail through some things without a seeming care.

It was something that I had always

Been able to do

Because I had been taught by life and by my Momma

That GOD would always bring me through.

I did not fully realize that I had

Hedges around me while I learned to trust in GOD

You see, I didn't know that one day

I would get into a skirmish and run back to the hedges

Only to find that they had been taken away.

It was then that I got to know and feel

Things, to me, that here to fore

Were, not even known to be real.

I remember that I looked toward Heaven

From down on my knees

And through streaming eyes, asked my GOD

To "Have mercy on me

Because a broken, dispirited child I be."

During the times that the hedges were gone

I became acquainted with my new "reality"

And it was not like anything I had ever known

And I did not like it, no siree

Because the problems were there when I lay down to sleep

And were there when I awakened ere I heard the birds cheep.

I know, now, that my times on my knees in the valleys

Were allowed to toughen me and to teach me

To trust in GOD, no matter the lay of the land

And to have the message emblazoned in my heart

That it is down on my knees that

My FATHER teaches me to stand.

And so, America, and all of the world's lands

I say to you, "Hold on to HIS hand

Because, since we are down on our knees

HE is teaching us to stand.

And when the hedges begin to be put back in place...

Aw-w glory, how sweet it is and how sweet 'twill be

To be hedged in again by the GOD

WHO made, knows, and loves you and me.

This will happen after we become acclimatized

To a teaching reality

And remember, the lessons taught for each man

Are not necessarily taught to be learned the same

As that of another man, for some are taught trust

And perseverance, while others are taught in humility's name.©