Process
I have to admit that process is easier to describe than to participate in. I face that daunting fact every time I teach writing. The largest process we as believers participate in is that life-long undertaking [requires death] known as sanctification. Comforts? Psalm 138:8 and Philippians 1:6.
Life, it seems to me
Life, it seems to me,
To be a work in progress,
The progress of finding out
What today will contain,
The process of preparing for
What comes tomorrow,
The coming to grips with
The totally unexpected,
The finding of comfort in
The Unchanging One.
Life, it seems to me, is
One gift of breath,
One gift of hope,
One gift: the Cross.
And that and there is
Life.

A Prayer and three poems

The three poems first:
Relentless Time
Relentless time schools the child, disciplines the adolescent,
Relentless, time harries the twenty+year old, huffs against the thirty-er,
Relentless time hurries the forty+, hassles the fifty+, nags the 60ish,
Relentless times schools the seventier, sasses the 80+, hushes the 90er,
Relentless, time, relents for the centenarian, or the cemetatian,
But not until, true eternity intercepts does relentless time relent before
Eternity, hushed for all
Time relents at last.
Time a Reflection On
Time.
You think you'll always see
In focused memory,
So clearly,
Yet that same Time
Has a way
Of making memory
Go away.
Perhaps Time
Pulls a broom behind
Which obliterates the footprints of
Otherwise sharp Memory.
Yet if that is so,
Who could know?
Time, after all, has a way
Of making so much go away.
Like a weary pilgrim
Like a weary pilgrim,
With flesh and spirit contenting,
I yearn for Jordan and
This life's ending.
Like a weary pilgrim,
Tent grown tattered,
Sand and wind storm rimd,
Heart and eyes increasingly dimmed.
Like a weary pilgrim,
Travel stained and sore
How I yearn to serve
Until I reach Heaven's door.
The prayer
Background: Again from a Bible study for which we were challenged to write a prayer. I lifted many of my thoughts in this from the Psalms and 2 Corinthians.
Prayer
Father God, I thank You for comfort which You have given me in my past because I know that You will also give me comfort in the future.
You are indeed the God of all comfort and Father of all mercies.
When, like the psalmists, I do not sense Your presence Your comfort, I too look to when I knew Your comfort Your presence and rely on it once again even if my feelings are not in line with the facts, the facts prevail and the feelings follow.
How grateful I am to You who are the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, Who comforts me in all my affliction, so that I may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which I myself am comforted.
You comfort me through Your word and through Your body, the church.
You comfort me in the night when I cannot sleep as You remind me of Your word and of Your words, and the history we have, You and me, of times past when You comforted me.
You comfort me in the day when I think of others who need Your comfort, bringing scriptures to mind to share with others as You have with me.
You comfort me in crowds and in solitude, in hurricane-like circumstances and those earthquaking moments others feel, which I have felt.
As you are and have been my refuge and strength, grant that through me You become refuge and strength for others, both in and out of Your extended family.
In no way can I sufficiently express either my thanksgiving or my desire to minister as I have been ministered to. I can but offer to You all You have graciously provided me, and willingly offer to all who need it the comfort You have graciously given me.
In Christ's name, for Your glory, in awed amazement, amen.

No hidden thing
Sobering to think, to be aware, that nothing is hidden from Him with whom we each have to do. Sometimes in the middle of the night--the darkest part--I take comfort in knowing that nothing going on in my neighborhood is hidden from Him. Then the times I wish I could hide--sins which are "only" thoughts--I realize those are also wide open to Him. As the Psalm says, Even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you. [ESV; 139:12; see also Hebrews 4.]
No hidden thing
No hidden thing in earth or heaven or the deeps of hell,
Can be hidden from You, dwell,
For You are God, Creator, All-knowing One,
And all is transparent, needing no sun,
Nothing is hid, nothing unremarked by You,
All open before Your holy eyes,
Even that which would think, disguise.
Nothing in all creation escapes notice or care,
For wherever any is, You are there.
Before, behind, beneath, and yet to be,
All are one, are known by Thee.
Holy, holy, holy God
Who lives in eternity
Let us live knowing
We live unhidden
To do as we are bidden
For Thee and before Thee,
In time and eternity,
Amen for Thee.

Grace

Merriam-Webster's 11th Collegiate Dictionary dates this word from the 12th century and the etymology as Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin, and akin to the Sanskrit word translated he praises.

Functioning as a noun, grace has more than eight definitions, including the following:

1 a: unmerited divine assistance given humans for their regeneration or sanctification b: a virtue coming from God c: a state of sanctification enjoyed through divine grace

2 a: APPROVAL, FAVOR ... b: archaic: MERCY, PARDON c: a special favor: PRIVILEGE ... d: disposition to or an act or instance of kindness, courtesy, or clemency e: a temporary exemption: REPRIEVE



Since my last post, my uncle passed away, which was an act of grace on God's part, and not the first in my uncle's life. He experienced all the definitions of grace above.



Since my last post, a bridge in Minneapolis, which I knew well, collapsed for no obvious reason, and we saw the kinds of grace defined in 2 d above, and perhaps 2 e as well. It may be that through this some will have the experiences in 1 a 1 b and 1 c, if they have not already.



One year, our women's Bible study chose to focus on walking in grace. This brought me to write many pieces, including the following.



Grace upon Grace upon Grace

Grace of God

God, as Father, as Lord Jesus Christ, as Spirit only Holy,

Thoughts of You and of Your favor, full, eternal, unmerited,

Leave me breathless, astonished, humbled,

And a writer at a loss for words.



Oh grace of God

God, as Father, as Lord Jesus Christ, as Spirit only Holy,

Thoughts of You and of Your favor, full, eternal, unmerited,

Leave me breathless, astonished, humbled,

And as a writer at a loss for words....



Where can even a writer go

To speak of the Word, The Word--

In Flesh, in human form--

The Word enfleshing the Father*

The Word in Whom the Father is well pleased



No, only the Word in print can rightly speak of the Word in Flesh,

And before both I bow--in silence



[*"He who has seen Me has seen the Father"]



O Grace of God

God as Father, as Lord Jesus Christ, as Spirit only Holy,

Thoughts of You and of Your favor, full, eternal, unmerited,

Leave me breathless, astonished, humbled,

And a writer at a loss for words....



Where can even a writer go

To speak of the Word, The Word--

In Flesh, in a nondescript human form--

The Word in Whom the Father is well pleased



No, only the Word in print can rightly speak of the Word in Flesh,

And before both I bow--in silence



For a current discussion of how God shows love and grace to the world, go to http://www.teampyro.blogspot.com/