This Is My Body

All you have is just the Lord's
Who gives it all to you.
The only thing you do not have
Is what you hold onto.

Give up your life and get it back:
You did not have it first,
For he who will his body save
Will find it in a hearse.

What is that in your pocket held,
A minted coin of gold?
Where were you when the Lord did weld
The metals of this world?

Who put the life into your breath?
Who pumps your living blood?
Who put that roof above your head?
Who grew your house of wood?

Make cotton grow out from the ground.
Make water feed your flax.
Make oil spring from Puget Sound.
Make honeybees make wax.

Give all you have unto the Lord,
For he gives all to you.
You have nothing to give nor take,
For all just passes through.

The food you take into your mouth
Soon passes back to dust.
For all that follows life obeys
The Lord, as all things must.

Give back unto the Lord all things
That he has give to you.
For what you have is old, but now
The Lord makes all things new.

For never did a child say
At mother's nursing breast:
"I'll keep your milk a hundred years
Stored in my treasure chest."

But mother gives unto the babe,
And through him passes through,
The milk that makes his heart to grow,
Legs, arms, and fingers, too.

She gives her milk, a daily gift,
And does not ask it back.
For pleasure to the mother is:
Her infant nothing lacks.

But each new day the babe calls out
And asks his mom for more,
So daily does the mother feed
Her child from her store.

So, too, a man who grown to full
Must cry out to the Lord,
Who feeds all of his children from
The storehouse of his world.

But do not hold onto the gifts
The Lord does give to you,
For each new day the Lord intends
To give his gifts anew.

There is no thing that you now have
That you can keep till death:
But only this: your beating heart,
And this: your very breath.

Still these things, too, must cease before
You more from him receive.
So learn to give your blood and breath
To him, and then believe

That all you have he gives to you;
His gifts will never end,
So let go of the gifts he gives
And trust him to begin

New works each day, new works each hour,
New works each passing year.
The God of Life, the God of Love
Has conquered death and fear.

For God above is just the Lord
Of life and knows not death.
He needs no heart to pump your blood,
Nor lung to breathe your breath.

For life lives not in blood and breath
But in the will of God
Who wills that all his children live
And never sleep in sod.

There is no thing that you can keep
The Lord has given you,
But only this: Himself he gives
In daily bread, anew.