Swallowed, Jonah the whale man.

Swallowed is about Jonah.  He was chosen by God to go to the city
Ninaveth which was the most sinfull city of its time.  God wanted Jonah
to give them a message from him that if they did not get straightened out
and begin to clean up their act, he, God would destroy the city and
everyone that was in it.

Well Jonah did not like those people, they had been at war throughout
centuries of time with his tribes and when God told him to go there
he decided to go somewhere else.  Rather than take the ship to Ninaveth
he decided to take a ship to a different destination.

Once on the ship he went below and fell asleep. Once they were away
from land and out to sea some distance a great storm came up.  The
captain of the ship did not know what was going on and had his crew
bring Jonah up on deck and questioned him to see if he had anything
to do with this terrible storm.

He told them what had happened, and they said they were going to
throw him overboard, but he decided to throw himself in.  Once in
the water he was swallowed by a huge whale.  The rest is history.
I wrote this poem primarily for children so they could understand
the story of Jonah.

Swallowed

Jumping in the water in the open sea
Often gets you into trouble just you wait and see
Now this fellow was angry because God kept calling him
And he jumped into the water and he didn't know how to swim

He thought he was a goner till a whale came along
And swallowed him up whole and he sang an awful song
He must have made that whale sick cause he couldn't keep him down
He spat him out upon the beach not too far from town.

Now God wasn't finished , no not just quite yet
He told him to go into town and find a place to sit
So he climbed upon a hill so he could see below
And he listened for his Lord to speak to tell him where to go.

He sat there in that noonday sun a cooking on his head
He prayed Dear Lord I need some shade or I will soon be dead
The Lord answered up his prayer a vine he grew for him
He continued sitting there with hand upon his chin.

Then the vine began to die it withered from the root
He asked the Lord what are you doing you took away my roof
The Lord said son you just don't know the vine was mine to give
It is my choice for it to die, or for it to live.

Now the folks below were awful as he watched them from above
But the Lord told him to go down there and tell them of his Love.
He wasn't happy with that choice because he knew full well
That if they just believed a bit he’d would forgive them he could tell.

Now he was really fuming and it made him really mad
At the Lord above for treating him so really really bad
So he decided he would do what was asked of him
To go down town and let them know that they should cease to sin.

As he walked the streets that day the people gathered round
Putting sack cloth on their bodies and ashes on the ground
When he departed from that town he knew he'd done his job
He helped to bring those people back to their Father God.

Russell R Cranmer Jr.

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