MERCY BELONGS TO ETERNITY

MERCY BELONGS TO ETERNITY

There are those
who measure history
by the thunder of armies,

by borders redrawn,
by crowns won,
by fortunes gathered,
by towers that dared
to scrape the heavens.

They count victories
as though power
could outlive time.

Yet the earth remembers differently.

The stones remember.
The rivers remember.
The forgotten remember.
And God remembers.

There are nations
whose names were written
across continents,

whose banners
once darkened the horizon,
whose voices
commanded the seas.

Now the wind
passes through their ruins
without asking permission.

Power,
for all its brilliance,
is only a traveler.

It arrives.
It lingers.
It departs.

But mercy...

Mercy plants trees
whose shade
will comfort children
it will never meet.

Mercy washes feet
that cannot repay.

Mercy opens doors
fear has closed.

Mercy kneels
where pride refuses to bend.

Mercy carries another's cross
without asking
whose burden it is.

Perhaps that is why
the Cross still stands
when so many empires
have fallen.

Its victory
was never measured
by the sword,

but by open hands,
broken bread,
forgiven enemies,

and an empty tomb
where death
could no longer speak
the final word.

If history
must remember us,

let it remember
not the greatness
we proclaimed,

but the wounds
we helped to heal.

Not the monuments
we erected,

but the neighbors
we embraced.

Not the wealth
we accumulated,

but the hope
we shared.

For kingdoms
rise like the morning mist
and vanish beneath
the noonday sun.

But mercy—

born beneath the shadow
of the Cross—

belongs
to eternity.

Immanuel.

Steven G. Lee
July 3, 2026