Faith In Rhyme

Texas

He drifted into town one day;

he had a laugh which was most infectious.

Said he hailed from down in the Lone Star State,

so most folks just called him Texas.

His skin looked like old leather,

and his face was deeply tanned.

You could tell he was “hard working,”

by the callouses on his hands.

His cowboy boots were knee-high,

he wore his pant legs in.

Said he’d won the boots in a rodeo,

somewhere out West, off Interstate 10.

His boots were made of ostrich hide,

and he’d worn them a good many years.

His Stetson hat, he wore pulled down tight,

right close to the tops of his ears.

He wore those “cowboy” wranglers,

and his jeans were by no means, new.

His western shirt had pearl snaps on the sleeves,

and across the pockets too.

He was looking for a place to lite,

he told the mayor and the police chief.

He bought a little ranch just outside of town,

where he hoped to raise a few head of beef.

He was the kind of man who would go out of his way

to do a good deed for another.

And if you needed anything that he had,

he’d give it to you like you was his brother.

Turns out Texas was married back some years ago,

his wife was named Mary Beth.

But she passed on when their son was born,

his birth had caused her death.

The baby too, had failed to live.

Texas spoke of being awfully sad back then;

and how he would still give anything he had,

to have them both back again.

If both of them had just survived,

Texas would have been a happy man.

But that just wasn’t meant to be,

so he accepted it as part of God’s plan.

He had done some rodeo’n in years past,

and he told of how those cowboys were a rowdy bunch.

It wasn’t unusual that an argument would break out,

and one of them would throw a punch.

But here he was now, settled down

on his little ranch outside of town a mile or so.

He had already passed his middle age,

and he knew sometime he’d go.

So Texas showed up one Sunday morning,

at the little non-denominational church.

He felt his life was missing something,

and he thought it was a good place for him to search.

After listening to what the preacher said, he knew,

that it was Jesus in his heart, he needed.

So when the invitation was given on Sunday morning,

down the church aisle he proceeded.

Not long after that was when Texas knew,

that God was calling on him to speak,

to all the rodeo friends he knew,

about God, and turning the other cheek.

He went on the road to speak to the cowboys he knew,

about God and about the Jesus he’d found.

And for the next several years he traveled the rodeo circuit,

just spreading the word of God around.

Texas answered God’s call for a good many years,

until his health no longer allowed.

But during those years many a cowboy accepted Christ.

Something for which Texas was both thankful and proud.

Then one cold and frosty morning, back on his little ranch,

Texas failed to open his eyes to the sun.

For God had called him peacefully during the night,

and told him his race on earth he had won.

On his ranch, as the preacher spoke by his graveside,

his words hit those gathered like a punch in the solar plexus.

And folks around here will tell you to this very day,

that God lived deep in the heart of Texas.