wild and happy wonderful

as a child
i often looked
for wonderful

i remember pondering the sky
i also searched the ground
while the clover was nice
and the clouds were mildly interesting
i saw no wonderful

so i went looking through the house
but i found no wonderful

i looked in the car
but came up empty-handed

i looked in other people's cars
and in other houses
but i found no wonderful

as i got older
i no longer expected to find wonderful
so i went looking for fun
and sometimes fun was found

yet always
in the back of my mind
i thought about wonderful
and wondered if it was anywhere

it was not in the things i saw or handled
it was not in the people i knew
it was not in conversation
or in tv or movies or books

i did not find wonderful
in sex or drugs or music
nor did i find it
in clothes or money or power

was there really any wonderful
in the whole wide universe
i wondered

and so i wandered
i went far to the north
and way out west
i went east and south
and back home again

finally i gave up
i stopped searching for wonderful
i decided there was no wonderful
no real wonderful in all the world

and i prepared to die
i was not old
but i was finished
tired and empty and weak

that's when wonderful found me
not after i died but before
when i was too weary to look
too empty to care
when i had given up
wonderful came to me

He gave me life
and joy
and peace
and light

i discovered real laughter
i discovered wild and happy wonderful
when wonderful found me

oddly enough
wonderful had never been far away at all
i had been told many times
exactly where wonderful could be found
but i had not believed

without believing
i was already dead inside
without believing
i had always been empty within

when wonderful came to find me
He lifted me up and carried me back
to a safe place
and He has kept me there
to this very day

in the whole world
His name is Jesus
in the whole world
He is wonderful



©2007 jim sutton