Agony and joy.

How can life be both agony and joy? Why so beautiful and so awful? In one day, in one life, real, biting, dark agony and then rejoicing and laughter.

A mother had two daughters, one fair, one dark. Both walked in the light, in fact, both loved the light, through all kinds of difficulty, in all the dark corners. But a stranger came and said he was what he was not. He wasn't true. He stole the little daughter's heart and then her mind and soul. There are more ways to ravage a girl than physically. He assaulted her and all her gentle tenderness turned to unbearable pain, which she bore, on the floor, weeping like a wounded animal. For a year or more she lay there as we tended her. Now, a heart mended, a mind working. But a lostness rages in her soul still.  

The older daughter went on a journey and gathered herself with strangers, one who came to stay and loved her. He tried to do everything right and in many ways it was right, but it just couldn't work. She descended to shadowy places where she fought to regain herself. Oh, how she learned to know herself in the hard, rough places. And then, one of these strangers became a friend and welcomed her to her wedding, where she met the one she had been waiting for. And he had been waiting too. So now, such happiness and rejoicing. So many flowers and fairy lights and all the phantom candles. In her favourite place on earth he asked her, and she said yes.

See? Agony and joy. 

All I know is that there are tambourines to be played as my girls go out to dance with the joyful. There are promises that cannot be broken, not one iota of them. His voice is true and he rules in this. In every happy, joyful moment of this and in every broken, darkened, tear-stained moment. He is faithful. My times are in his hands. He is Jesus. 

 

Milly, who chose us 14 years ago at the animal rescue centre. An elegant lady.

Lost things are found

This is me making my speech at the closing performance of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, December 2010.

This comedy is filled with loss: Olivia is grieving the death of her father and brother; siblings Viola and Sebastian both fear each other to be dead; Orsino is mourning over Olivia's rejection, Andrew was lov'd once, too; Toby has forgotten how to feel at all while Maria seems to adore him, "to bed?"; Malvolio loses his self-respect in his absolute compromise with a lie and Feste sings sad songs of empty lives and rainy days. 

And yet...

Olivia's heart is awakened by a surprising young visitor; the siblings are gloriously re-united; Orsino gets his 'man', Olivia hers and Andrew escapes his false friend's clutches. The others, I don't know how they fare, but I do know this: that lost things are found and dead things come alive!

So, do not fear. Hold fast to the truth. And live...

Todah raba

I've come to say thank you.

Thank you that you reached down
And lifted me out of darkness.

Thank you that you turned on a light
That had always existed.

Thank you that when the world fell down
You gathered me under your wing.

Thank you that when the light flickered
You showed me that the darkness is nothing to fear.

Thank you that when the valley narrowed
You sang to me to guide me home.
Thank you. תודה
Amen.

A poem by me.

I asked God to show me
How to trust him. To teach me
To trust him. Not just in my head;
In my every single thing.

Nothing withheld.

And now I know that God, untamed, 

But full of order, roars
Like thunder in the universe,
Up-ending every single thing

And can be trusted to the uttermost.

Hello 2015

Well. That's embarrassing! Absolutely no blog posts for days, weeks and months, nay, even years. I am clearly not good at this. But I am about to start again. Hello.

Am I being called to silence? To simple wait quietly and watch the Master at work. To actually heed his word and be still. And know. 

I wonder.

For now and for here, I will simply remind you of Betsie and Corrie and Ravensbruck and the fleas. And the glory, glory, glory of the LORD.

Bow down and be still. And watch...

No matter what.