Failure, fear and the moment we see ourselves clearly

I said I would stay.

When others fled,
I would remain.

When courage failed them,
mine would hold.

I believed it
when I said it.

Then came the fire,
the questions,
the watching faces.

And suddenly
faithfulness had a price.

Once.

Twice.

Then once more.

I denied the Man
I had promised
I would never leave.

And then the rooster cried.

But that was not
what broke me.

You turned
and looked at me.

No accusation.
No raised voice.

Only Your eyes
meeting mine,

and in that moment
I saw the distance
between the man
I believed myself to be

and the man
fear had revealed.

I went away weeping.

Yet my failure
was not the end
of my story.

For the eyes
that saw me fall

were the eyes
of the One
who already knew

and still
had called my name.

Inspired Version Scripture

Luke 22:60–62

And Peter said, Man, I know not what thou sayest. And immediately, while he yet spake, the cock crew.

And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.

And Peter went out, and wept bitterly.

Behind the Poem

Peter’s failure was not simply that he denied Christ. It was that the denial exposed something about himself he had not previously understood. He had believed his courage stronger than it was. Yet Christ knew Peter’s weakness before Peter discovered it. The look between them therefore becomes more than a moment of shame. It reminds us that Christ can know the truth about us completely and still call us His own.

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