As I Lay Wounded – Graphic Print

COMMENTARY

This is the classic story of the Good Samaritan.  How many millions have given up on life until they discover the Stranger has not given up on them?  The Stranger is not called Jesus, but we recognize Him as the one who weeps over the world in its lost condition.  Again, the term Stranger depicts Him as one who is divinely mysterious.  He loves others so deeply that He would stop, weep over us, then lift us up from despair to the mountaintop of joy and peace.  Yes, we’ve definitely identified the Stranger as Jesus, our compassionate and loving Lord.

This poem took about two weeks to write.  I had completed verses 1-4 and 7-8 on about the first day. However, I knew that an amazing and heartwarming description of the Good Shepherd lay in the empty verses 5-6.  Finally, in the back yard of my house on Fairfield Drive, while painting my swing, the words began to pour forth like a river of water:

And then a stranger passed my way,

With a love gleam in His eye;

He stooped to wipe away my blood,

And then began to cry.

His tears flowed down and washed my wounds,

His breath my life did spark;

With loving hands He raised me up,

His light transformed my dark.

Note that the love gleam is singular.  It wasn’t until years later that I found one of Fanny J Crosby’s hymns that spoke of the gleam in Jesus’ eye.  A gleam is a reflection of light which acts as a mirror from the eye of an individual to the eye of another.  The Lord Jesus’ eye focuses all the love, mercy, goodness, and kindness, of God and beams them to the eye and into the heart of the broken person.  At some time or another we all have been wounded on the way.

NOTE: This poem is one of many found in the collection Jewels from His Crown