Deeper Still

Tonight my heart is full to bursting,

Tonight my thoughts are toward my God,

Precious souls are all around me

Whose paths are difficult to trod.

 

Forgive me if there’s one who suffers,

Whose heart I have not lifted up,

Forgive me God, if I’ve not sweetened

The taste of someone’s bitter cup.

 

Who knows what burdens people carry?

Who knows what thorns pierce in their side?

The least of us may be the greatest,

Who knows what agony they hide?

 

One is lonely, one is suffering,

Another mourns without relief.

One is crying in the darkness,

Another wrestles unbelief.

 

But I remember One who suffered

The pains and sorrows of us all,

He thirsted for a drink of water,

But on the cross they gave Him gall.

 

He came to earth, a lowly stranger,

Born into obscurity,

His pillow straw, His crib a manger,

His heart the source of purity.

 

And when He grew He was rejected,

Mocked, afflicted, spit upon

To our sins He was subjected

Into Gethsemane withdrawn.

 

There He knelt in meek submission

To all the Father’s holy will,

There, the Son in true contrition

Descended deep, and deeper still.

 

After rising in the garden,

Soldiers came to bear Him hence,

Betrayed, denied, and then neglected

To pay the awful recompense.

 

A cross and nails, a crown of thorns,

Were added to the heavy load,

No good Samaritan could find Him

On that dark and dreary road.

 

There is no care, there is no sorrow

That Jesus does not understand,

Yesterday, today, tomorrow,

He stretches forth His mighty hand.

 

O Savior! give us strength to grasp it,

And fashion us to do the same,

To reach and lift each struggling stranger,

And so bring glory to Thy name.