Lost but found

I am far from perfect, but you still call me holy,
The further I stray, the wider your arms to guide me home again,
Your eyes are ever searching, searching for your lost sheep,
The sheep that signify your children, some lost, others driven,
Ever willing to guide them home again

When I say I am ready but am far from steady,
Shaken, scared and nearly broken,
When am lost, lonely and far from home,
Far from love, comfort and fellowship,
Help me know you are near.

I spent so much time searching for answers I still can’t find, looking for solutions to problems I need not have, I spent so much time looking around I failed to look to the one place I actually should. And in the looking I picked up a lot more than I could handle.
I am writing this, after a night filled with doubts or thoughts about whom and what I am, at a time when it seems like nothing makes sense anymore. When you have tried over and over again and still find yourself not just at the beginning but a few steps further from where you started from. I am writing this because of the light at the end of the tunnel that has seemed close enough to touch only for it to go so far out that it seems impossible to get to. The sharp pangs that announce the loneliness that gnaws your heart, especially when the green in your yard is painted just to make it as beautiful as the rest. Done fed up, tired of it all, a time when like Job, like Elijah, you are so fed up that you just want to lay down and die.
Just when it seems like it can’t get any worse, everything steps up a notch or two. The weariness of it all eats at you draining you totally, completely. Pride keeps you going, the stubborn pride born more out of stubbornness than any other thing, the feeling that one day you will reach out and break through to the light, the same stubborn pride that got you there in the first place. Tonight I see, I see a pattern, I see a design, I see repetitions, I see hope.

• I see sheep, with disaster looming. Are they bothered? No. Be it lack of water or food, be it danger, hunger, worries, tears or fears. One characteristic is always seen, they look to their shepherd.
  
• I see people bitten and dying in the most desolate of places, I see the Israelites asked to do one thing, look up to the snake on the staff.
  
• I see a man, frustrated beyond measure, starved and ready to die; I hear a still small voice saying lift up your eyes…
  
• I see a cross, with one man sent to die for me, to die so that I could write this message today, not by your might, or by your power, not by your plans or notions, but by grace, by grace I am saved. Not so I can accept and live the life I want to, but so I can accept and step into the fold, and there can only be one shepherd.
  

At a time when the cares of the world continuously bombard one, how much time and how often does one spend listening to the shepherd? How many people even know His voice? A voice saying:

• Behold I stand at the door and knock and if any will, he will open his door and I will come in and dine with him and he with Me… A wonderful invitation, take a moment, take a minute and hear that ever sweet sound.
  
• Come to me all you who are burdened and heavy laden, come to me and I will give you rest, He will give us and not we giving ourselves.
  

What can separate us from the love of Christ?

Romans 8:35-39
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
36 As it is written:
"For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[m] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,
39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.