Author: prayerfullife7

The Lord gives and the Lord takes, blessed be the name of the Lord.

A better man than I spoke these words many years ago.

Although I must admit I love the way they roll off the tongue.

 

Blessed be the name of the Lord—

even though He allowed my life to be torn asunder.

 

Though He gave me my life,

He’ll also allow it to be taken,

along with all the others.

 

How strange.

 

The armies of despair have camped round about me,

and are knocking at the door.

I’ve fought them off with prayer and with hope,

with tears and with sincerity,

with everything I’ve known to do,

and yet here they are again.

 

There are five stages of grief, I’ve read about them;

in fact I read Kubler-Ross preemptively,

to get a jump on grief, and get a head start to healing,

so I could defeat despair and be whole.

 

But here they are—

the armies of despair knocking at my door,

threatening to tear me down.

 

The Lord gives and the Lord takes, blessed be the name of the Lord.

Can you imagine saying this and meaning it?

How strange and how beautiful.

 

Speaking of the stages of grief, I did them all;

and then I did them again,

and then I did them backwards,

and then I did the first one, skipped to the fourth,

backtracked to the second and then the third,

and wrapped it up with the fifth.

 

And then I did that in reverse order just to be thorough.

 

But here we are; despair and I looking at each other through the peephole.

 

Somebody has got to blink.

 

Am I just a toy on a string for the heavenly powers to play with?

Is it fun to watch me bleed, and then to bind me up;

and then to bleed me yet again?

 

Job, how can you say it—

can you teach me how to say it too?

And to really mean it?

 

~FS

There is something so simple and so sublime

in the beauty of love expressed, from one to another,

which we are gifted to witness,

which touches our hearts

and causes them to well up with abundant gratitude,

both for the one who has given their love,

and also for the one who has received it.

We love them both all the more for it.

 

There is a love too difficult to bear.

Is there?

I am thinking of a love that pierces our hearts;

that can cause our souls to bleed, if they could.

This is a love that overwhelms our senses,

which can scarcely be contained,

as if the fabric of our being is starting to tear, and to come apart;

for which all the tears ever cried will burst forth in a flood of joy and pain—

as if we are giving birth to life, to an idea, to a new world within us,

and for each other.

 

Is there a love that can reveal the depths and the heights of life to us simultaneously?

Is it possible for us

to plumb down into the heart of the earth while also soaring through the clouds?

We have light, and sound, form and movement

given freely to us from the hand of God,

all of which fill us with this kind of love—

an excruciating magnanimity.

 

This life, so solid and bright;

it fills us with laughter and beauty;

a light reflecting from the shapes of our loves.

In this we move about and have our being.

This life, so paper thin and fragile;

a tear in the paper can take these forms away;

as they fall into the shifting shadows and disappear.

 

How can this life be so wide, so expansive and stretch us so far?

It is an exquisite radiance with a numbing darkness intertwined.

How I wish that it were pure light.

 

~FS

What a beautiful day!

 

It’s sunny, it’s rainy,

it’s cold or it’s hot,

it’s what we had wanted,

or else it is not—

 

It doesn’t get any better than this,

we are having the time of our lives.

 

In all things be joyful,

in all things be thankful,

in all things praise our God—

 

for making us,

and setting us,

in this time and place.

 

This is the time of our lives.

 

We’re sad and we’re happy,

we’ve lost and we’ve gained,

we’re old and we’re young,

in health and in pain—

 

This is the time of our lives.

 

From everlasting to everlasting,

from beginning to end;

Was, and Is, and Is To Come—

and nothing new, here under the sun.

 

They had their fun, and they’ll have it too,

just as we do—

we’ll all have this time of our lives.

 

Don’t wait for tomorrow—

do it today!

The Kingdom at hand—

seize the day!

 

The time in our lives,

when Christ arrives–

Now it will be,

 

The time of our lives!

 

~FS

I watched the news today

and heard the world spinning round.

 

I did my work today

and put my shoulder to the ground.

 

I earned and spent and

kept the world going round.

 

But in my mind,

as work ground me into the ground—

 

my thoughts kept spinning,

round and round:

 

leaving me with little sense

of what’s up and what’s down.

 

Like a botox injection

to the inner man,

our worldly lives

living worldly plans.

 

Hearts paralyzed by fear and debt

with no recourse but to worry and to fret.

 

There is an antidote to

worldliness however,

an inoculation given

by Christ our deliverer.

 

Nursing us back

to wholeness,

with the medicine

of blessedness.

 

By faith and hope

within our hearts

we forge a union

that love imparts.

 

Our thoughts may swirl

like an epic tornado

but a peace will rise up

as a conquering hero.

 

We think we are alone

in this world,

yet in our hearts

we will find that pearl—

 

the one for which we

sell all we possess,

to live in peaceful

holiness.

 

~FS