For our friend

For over a year we have had a young man staying with us who we have grown to love like family. He is funny, talented and kind. He has filled our home with music, tidied up after me and made us cofffee in the morning. He is also an addict and he has stayed sober - most of the time. He has now left and we are undone with grief as he went in the grip of drink once more and determined to bring his life to a rapid end. I wrote this to express the pain.

 My pain echoes

My pain is echoing with the pain of those under my roof. It is pressed in, exposing my heart to the pain that they bear. Like a sound bouncing backwards and forwards it finds out the dark places and says in unison: "This world is broken, cracked, filled with shard flinging agony".

I don't want to feel this cruel reverberation. Lord take this pain and envelope it into your wounds, your agony that cries loudest and longest to the furthest reaches of space. Wash it away with the red tide of your blood and knit me once more into the fresh air of the pounding beat of your chest filled with love.

My prayer is that our friend will be surrounded by angels hemming him in and saving him from himself.