Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” And the LORD said, “Do you do well to be angry?” – Jonah 4:3,4

Wound in God’s mercy
I sat beneath the shade
Of His surprising blessing
At peace with all He made.
But worm and wind unwound
In sickness unto death
Stripping self to the ground
Begging for my last breath.
God queries my quarrel
With compassionate questions—
Rhetorically leading me to the moral
Defeated in Grace’s suggestions.
And now on a hill, hung up in alienation
I see how God’s mercy makes for reconciliation.

(c) Randy Edwards
artwork: from The Story of the Bible by Charles Foster (Illustrations by F.B. Schell and others)