When At Last She Understood

It took her years, a time very long,

To realise they'd been so wrong

To say that if we're sad and grave,

You'll choose us and specially save,

Send us to a heaven, in the sky above,

Meant for people You specially love,

Folks like them who said we must shun

Every joy till this prize we’d won.

Millions they deceived, folks most gullible,

Telling them You want that we be miserable.

So sure they seemed that even she, too,

Was certain all they said was indeed true.

To be happy, she thought, was most perverse,

All joy she shunned as Satan’s trap and curse.

This, she believed, would please You much,

Taking happiness to be a major sinful as such.

Long years she thus spent in this way,

Foolishly believing all that they'd say,

But somehow at last she came to know

That the things they said just weren’t so,

That it wasn’t, unlike what they'd said,

That You want us miserable till we fall dead.

When the lies they taught she at last understood,

She fled from their presence as fast as she could,

And vowed to herself never again to fall prey

To tricksters in Your name and all that they say.