Ministry of the Water

[Verse 1] You were a smile in the doorway Passing through my younger years Then four letters on a paper Brought you closer through the tears You sat beside me at the table Showed me how to slow my mind How to read the lines with patience How to leave the doubt behind [Pre-Chorus] You never raised your voice You raised the bar You showed me I could rise to it And stand on what I’d learned [Verse 2] From chalk dust to starting blocks You called cadence, I learned pace Every lap you ran beside me Counted more than wins or place You laugh easy and live outdoors You love the stillness between the casts You clean the fish, you dress the deer Never counting what it cost [Bridge 1] You handed me a keyboard Asked if a future could be there That small door you opened early Bent the arc of my career Later when the floor fell out Jobs gone, pride undone We built tables from the fragments Shaping a future side-by-side [Verse 3] You walked with Christ, yet kept your distance Where religion asked too much But the faith I learned to carry Drew your heart back where faith felt safe Now your hands lift songs on Sundays "Jesus loves you", on your lips And the hours freely given Happen where the shoreline dips [Hymn Refrain] This is the ministry of the water No stage and no display Just time enough for truth to surface And hearts are free to play This is the ministry of the water Where listening is the art Guests board with heavy souls And return with lighter hearts [Verse 4] There are men from distant highways Different names and different scars But your boat has always carried More than tackle, lines, and rods Every laugh and every silence Every prayer without shame Built a refuge out of presence Left no man the way he came [Bridge 2] Now the ground feels much less certain Like the waves beneath Peter’s feet But fear does not get the final say When feet and water meet The water never owned you You were never just a boat You were called to men and moments And that calling keeps its course [Final Refrain] This is the ministry of the water Still faithful, still at work Even when the path feels unfamiliar Grace does not reverse This is the ministry of the water And I stand as living proof I am one of many stories Formed by patience, time, and truth [Outro] If the boat stays near the shoreline And the camps grow still some days What you poured into the lives of men Keeps moving other ways [Tag] I still hear you say it, Plain and simple, loud and true Jesus loves you [Pre-Chorus] You