Lean, Pray, Trust, Love, Just A Little Bit More

by Kevin Burton

   I needed this today and I thought some of you might need it too.

   This message is written on a 4-by-7 sheet of paper, not attached to anything else. I have it because I have helped my mother move three times in the last seven or eight years. Mom downsized for every move and I have gotten more and more of her belongings, papers, etc., including this little page.

   This is a poem in four stanzas, titled “A Little Bit More.” The attribution, if that’s what it is, is only “Sel.” written at the bottom right of the page. It could be someone’s initials, but maybe not, since it was not written as “S.E.L.”

   If you know where this poem came from and who wrote it, please let me know so I can give proper credit, and maybe look into other writings by this author.

   The scripture quoted in the first stanza is II Corinthians 12:9, which is the KJV reads: “And He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

   The “armor” referenced in the second stanza  is from the Apostle Paul’s “full armor of God” passage in  Ephesians 6:10-18.

   Here’s the poem:

A Little Bit More

Are you discouraged and weary

Of the endless toil and care?

Do you feel that your burden is greater

Than you have the strength to bear?

“My strength is made perfect in weakness”

This thought comes to you o’er and o’er

Now believe in the Word of God’s promise

And lean just a little bit more

Have you temptations and trials

Surrounding you day by day?

Your feet, do they sometimes stumble,

As you travel the rough, narrow way?

Be careful, oh, yes! and courageous

For often the lions will roar

But gird on your armor more tightly

And pray just a little bit more

Has sorrow encompassed your pathway

With all of its various darts?

And often your cross as you travel

The valley of broken hearts

Your eyes with tears oft are blinded

You scarcely can see on before

Place your hand in the hand of the Master

And trust just a little bit more

Perhaps some grave error in judgment

Has shaken your faith in the good

Or you have been criticized harshly–

Your motives been misunderstood

And you feel for a time so discouraged

Your heart is wounded and sore

But keep right on praying and trusting

And love just a little bit more

   I have italicized, “lean, pray, trust and love” above because my mother, or somebody, has underlined them.

      My mother is 91 now, and ev-er-y-thing is difficult. The difficult parts are the good parts. The rest is very difficult.

   So this ”A Little Bit More” poem is exactly the kind of thing I am likely to bring to her on our Thursday visits.  I want to offer her some island of encouragement in her sea of struggles.

   But if I’m being honest, if someone were to turn the tables on me and give me this poem, some days, most days, I wouldn’t want to hear it.  My attitude, “get that stuff out of my face…I QUIT!”

   When I was a high school wrestler I hated pushups more than any of the other calisthenics that we did.  Why? Because that was the one I needed the most.

   Similarly this poem, or another like it, is probably what I need most just now, with an emphasis on the “pray” part. I can’t be the only one in need of these words.

   Incidentally, my mother often quotes my grandmother as having repeatedly said, “I won’t quit” in times of the bigger challenges. So for me to quit would dishonor my grandmother and mother and my God.

   “I quit,” coming from me in the future, I hope will be like the character from Billy Joel’s “Allentown” who says “It’s hard to keep a good man down, but I won’t be getting up today.”

   Just not today.

   A little Honesty there, to quote another Billy Joel song title.

   I have stumbled across this poem many times and just shuffled it from one pile to the next. It fell out of a folder today and into my life.  I pray someone else stumbles upon it through idle scrolling, that perhaps was not so idle.