Did I Harden My Heart? Poem by David Daykin

Have you hardened my heart?
Is my faith supposed to be this fragile, that a breath of wind could shred it apart.
Or should it be as strong as the rock of Horeb, and life giving also.
Do you want me assailed with doubts as I lie in the last watch of night,
with just my tears....tears of Israel, oppressed and bitter tasting.

Did I harden my heart?
With my life full of yeast, can you remove it from my house?
I feel suffocated and drown, the surging walls of your sea crashing over me no longer firm.
I sink like a stone fighting upwards my lungs burning, reeds around me.
Yet I still praise you
Waiting for strength, salvation, your song

I have no one to hold my arms up anymore, my shoulders ache.
I crumble to the floor, hands grasping the coarse sand.
Then a strong east wind pulls at me, whipping the grains against me.
Scouring away doubt, fear and lonliness.
And silent tears fall again, but this time not of grief.