Originally Posted by
ropegg
Oh, long and dark the stairs I trod,
With stumbling feet to find my God:
Gaining a foothold bit by bit,
Then slipping back and losing it:
Never progressing, striving still,
With weakening gasp and fainting will,
Bleeding to climb to God: while He
Serenely smiled, unnoting me.
Then came a certain time when I
Loosened my hold and fell thereby.
Down to the lowest step my fall,
As if I had not climbed at all.
And while I lay despairing thereby.
I heard a footfall on the stair,
In the same path where I, dismayed,
Faltered and fell and lay afraid.
And lo! when hope had ceased to be,
My God came down the stairs to me.
Chambers, Oswald, Christian Disciplines, Volume 2, (United Kingdom: Marshall Morgan & Scott) c1968.