The poem is a single, sustained prayer that our entire lives might become a living act of worship: rising like sweet incense (Psalm 141:2) to the majestic God who has triumphed over sin, sorrow, and death through the cross and resurrection of Jesus.

It celebrates the transformative power of the gospel:

• Darkness is outrun by mercy.
• Brokenness and scars are turned into songs of glory.
• Ordinary days, tears, work, and weakness are all redeemed and filled with resurrection light.
• Every moment (from Monday labor to the return of spring) pulses with hallelujah because the war is already won.

The poem offers back to God the small, honest gifts of real human lives (the worker’s hands, the child’s trust, the widow’s mite, the prodigal’s return) and asks that He receive them as fragrant worship. It ends with a triumphant amen: because we serve the Slain and Risen Lamb, even our little lives are swept up into one endless, hope-filled song of praise and thanksgiving.

In short:
Because of who Christ is and what He has done, every breath we take can be worship, every day can be victory, and every heart can keep singing forever.

May our lives rise like incense, sweet and slow,
a steady hymn through night’s unyielding deep,
each breath a note, each heartbeat set aglow
by mercy that outruns the dark and keeps
its promise in the breaking of the bread,
its victory in the place where sorrow bled.

Oh Lord, majestic, clothed in living light,
Thy name a banner over every fear;
the grave is hollow now, the stone is bright
with morning no shadow can draw near.
We carry resurrection in our veins,
and every scar sings glory through its pains.

Let laughter spill like wine at harvest feast,
let weeping turn to dancing in Thy sight;
our fragile days, once borrowed from the beast
of death, now blaze with heaven’s borrowed might.
Because of who we serve—the Slain, the Risen—
our little lives become a wide horizon.

So take these trembling offerings, small and true:
the work-worn hand, the child’s unbroken trust,
the widow’s mite, the prodigal’s “I’m through
with running”—all laid bare before the Just
and Gentle One who calls the broken blest
and sets a table in the wilderness.

May every ordinary moment ring
with hallelujahs only grace can start;
may Monday’s labor and December’s spring
both thrum beneath Thy mercy like a heart
that knows its ransom paid, its war already won—
and sings, forever sings, because of Thee, the Son.

Amen. And amen again.
Our lives: one endless song of praise and thanksgiving.