The Missionary's Promise

What solace is it to that child,
the one with the belly distended
from starvation,
that God so loves him
He has chosen him to suffer
flies drinking at the corners of his eyes?
What joy in God's love
is the child's mother feeling
as her hungry babe finds no milk
in her desert breasts?
What doxology can be sung
when you have no strength to shoo
the vermin that feed on you
while you yet live?
Ahh, the blessing is to come
for these meek souls
when their hunger has shrunk them
so they can pass through the eye of the needle,
and God with thank them for their patient faith
with eternity.
This, then, is God's promise, His reward
for enduring
and not waving Him away
as He drinks from the well of the soul
in the corners of their eyes.