No Waste at the Altar

I brought You the smoke that still lived in my lungs, the names of the dead and the things I'd become. I brought You the silence I carried for years, the prayers with no language, the salt of my tears. I brought You the nights when my body still fought, the battles I buried, the peace I had sought. I brought You the guilt that would not let me sleep, the faces that followed me out of the deep. I thought You would turn from the wreckage in me, from the man I became just trying to breathe. But You did not flinch at the blood or the scars, You met me beneath all the ruin and stars. I brought You the broken. I brought You the pain. I brought You the pieces I could not explain. There's no waste at the altar. No wound You cannot name. No ashes You won't gather. No grief beyond Your flame. What I thought would destroy me, You held through the years. There's mercy in the mourning. No waste in these tears. I laid down the questions that never felt clean, the things I had witnessed, the things I had seen. The weight of surviving when others were gone, the ache of still breathing and trying to move on. I laid down the anger, the fear, and the shame, the war in my body that answered my name. The shattered lens, the sleepless room, the sound of July becoming a tomb. And somewhere inside all the sorrow I feared, Your voice became gentle, Your presence drew near. Not saying the pain was holy or right, but promising redemption can walk through the night. You did not waste the valley. You did not waste the flame. You did not waste the breaking That taught me my own name. You did not bless the horror. You did not call it good. But You entered every shadow Where no one else could. So I'll bring You what is bleeding. I'll bring You what is true. The war, the wound, the grieving, Until I look like You. There's no waste at the altar. No wound You cannot name. No ashes You won't gather. No grief beyond Your flame. What I thought would destroy me, You held through the years. There's mercy in the mourning. No waste in these tears. Now I kneel with the man I thought I had lost, counting the mercy, still counting the cost. I'm not the same, but I'm not only pain, there's life in the places I thought were the grave. The dead are not forgotten, the years are not erased, but grace has a way of touching the waste. Every tear I thought had disappeared was held in Your hands through all of these years. There's no waste at the altar. No wound You cannot name. No ashes You won't gather. No grief beyond Your flame.