"tender Shepherd, tender..."

"Tender shepherd,
tender shepherd,
watching over
all His sheep..."
  ~ C. Leigh

like sheep
we wander
but never far from
sight

we cannot even
find the place where
He is not
aware of our
grazing

back and forth,
back and forth
we we walk our familiar
sameness within the
ruts of outworn
thinking
fearful that the grass is
growing scarce
the earth cloud closer
to choking us in the
dust we stir
by pacing inside the
safety of where we've been

but He loves us,
he tends us,
and with his rod he prods
us from our apathy,
with his staff, he lifts
us up
out of
the entrenched patterns of
our familiar
certainties
and
into
pastures verdant
with
fresh hope and
fertile with
the unexpected 
the promise of a place
we cannot even
imagine from the
resigned posture of our
grazing --
head down,
always searching for the
barely there --
as if we did not
have a Shepherd
who
would
keep
each of
us
from
want

and
lead
us home

to rest
beside
still
waters

"...one 
say your prayers
and two 
close your eyes,
and three 
safe and
happily
fall asleep."
 ~ ibid.

[in case you love the song from Peter Pan...as much as I do...here is a link to "Tender Shepherd."]