Rest
and roses;
time to think.
Dark chocolate
and daffodils;
time to pray.
Birds that sing to soothe
my heart,
a cocoon to
fall into
after a weary
day.
Coffee
and carnations;
time to read.
Laughter and tears
of being understood,
comforted.
A phone call
to spread joy.
Spring days
and sunflowers;
time to encourage.
Good news
and red geraniums;
time to write.
Pockets of grace
like seeds
scattered throughout
my life.
He made a promise,
a holy vow
to stay with me always,
His faithfulness past, future and now.
There is no one like God
to trust so fully,
His covenant of grace
over me securely.
Even when I stray
in unbelief and weariness,
Jehovah’s strong arm guides me
back to Him with tenderness.
I am nothing
without this King, Father and Friend;
my Savior until eternity’s
End.
Remind me this day
of Your present goodness
past faithfulness and
future graces.
God of the Promise
over Time
and Space,
govern my earthly life
until I see
Your precious Face.
In the spring we grow
because the rain falls
heavily on us.
By summer we flourish
in the fields
bearing fruit.
In autumn we reap
what has been sown
for the harvest feast.
By winter we rest
from a life well lived
in faith, toil and blessing.
And this is God’s
good design
To show us our purpose
and mortality.
Strength and weakness
mingled together to co-labor
with our Faithful Creator.
What an outrageous plan!
And yet this is His inscrutable
Way.
Man is a flash in the pan
used for God’s divine
plan.
We are here today
and gone tomorrow
because the Curse
is strong but not impenetrable.
His Servant crushed
the Serpent of lies
with a promise to end
all sin and sadness.
It has come true and
will be truer in time.
God’s mercy and grace receives
a faithless people.
Redemption is sure,
peace made for the dust eaters
to live again.
It is His will
that no mortal can overcome.
Power and compassion.
Willing and able
to make the dead rise.
Winter has come
but there is an eternal spring
for the redeemed of the Lord.
Surely the people are like grass.
The Lord Jesus is my Shepherd
He takes me to rest
in the pastures of His Promise,
leading my weary soul
to Living Water.
I am revived, restored, redeemed.
He has made it so
because of His righteousness.
Christ my Guide
on the mountaintops
and in the valleys.
I am not shaken
because my Savior and Friend
walks with me always.
He vindicates His beloved
before my enemies with
justice,
honoring His precious sheep
with a feast
of grace and mercy
over and over.
Each day God’s goodness
is displayed on earthen soil
to all who have eyes to see.
And when my Father takes me
Home,
the place I was made to be,
His love will continue to
delight over me.
I’ve heard this poem before and recently read it in the Epilogue to ‘The Hiding Place’ by Corrie ten Boom. The poem is called, “My Life Is Like a Weaving” by Grant Colfax Tullar. I hope it blesses you too.
My life is like a weaving
between my God and me.
I do not choose the colors
He works steadily.
Sometimes He weaves sorrow
and I in foolish pride
forget He sees the upper,
and I the underside.
Not till the loom is silent
and the shuttles cease to fly
will God unroll the canvas
and explain the reason why
the dark threads are as needful
in the skillful weaver’s hand
as the threads of gold and silver
in the pattern He has planned.
Our understanding is finite, His is infinite. We were never in control, God is Sovereign over all. He is perfect in love, we love imperfectly. Given the comparison in character traits, we are better off trusting the Lord with His plans for us rather responding in fear, anger or bitterness.
When WWII began in Corrie ten Boom’s city of Haarlem, the dogfighting in the sky kept her and her sister Betsie awake. They decided to go downstairs in the middle of the night for a cup of tea to calm their nerves until it was over. Finally, Corrie made her way back upstairs to her bedroom where she felt in the dark something sharp on her pillow. It was a 10 inch piece of shrapnel from the night bombings. She ran back to her sister and showed her in terror, what had been laying on her pillow. “What if I had still been in bed?!” Corrie exclaims. Betsie assured her there are no “what ifs” in God’s plan. Whatever He purposes for us, good or bad, we are safest when we are in the center of His will.
As the war progressed the ten Booms would later be arrested for hiding Jews in their home. The horrors of their experience in concentration camps are told in Corrie’s book ‘The Hiding Place’. From these events, she learns to forgive the humanly speaking, unforgivable acts of the Nazis. She even learns to love her enemies, setting up several homes after the war, as a rehabilitation center for those not ready to face the world yet. Corrie went on to travel the world telling others the love of God through the gospel of Jesus Christ.
She likely would not have chosen the tapestry of sorrow and loss weaved into her life, but God sees the overall picture. He took what was meant for evil and used it for good. Everything the Lord does, throughout all of history, has always been for His glory. Elisabeth Elliot once noted, “It is not what the Lord is doing TO you, but rather, what the Lord is doing FOR you.” Whatever He purposes for us in this life serves as an opportunity to refine our character into Christlikeness, and untether us from this temporary world. Author Sam Wellman who wrote the Epilogue to ‘The Hiding Place’ says, “Love triumphs over all afflictions. Our earthly sufferings only serve to make that which awaits us an even greater glory.”
Grace upon grace,
April
When my son was not even a year old I was trying to wrap my brain around words like “developmental delay”, “autism”, and “hypotonia”. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” I remember thinking. But you know what? In a lot of ways I’m the privileged one with an incredible gift. I read a sweet poem then that summed up a lot of the emotions swirling inside my heart. God has used my special needs son to teach me a thing or two. He is my Holland. Although hard, I’m enjoying this journey, learning about this space I never thought I’d be in. There is beauty here, and grace upon grace when you take time to see and understand someone else’s world. Here is the poem, ‘Welcome to Holland’ that I read a few years ago. Whenever I read it, my perspective shifts a little, allowing gratitude to grow as I take a deep breath, and persevere.
Welcome to Holland
by Emily Perl Kingsley (1987)
I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability – to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It’s like this……
When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip – to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It’s all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, “Welcome to Holland.”
“Holland?!?” you say. “What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I’m supposed to be in Italy. All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.”
But there’s been a change in the flight plan. They’ve landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven’t taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It’s just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It’s just a different place. It’s slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around…. and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills….and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy… and they’re all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say “Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go. That’s what I had planned.”
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away… because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But… if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things … about Holland.
Grace upon grace,
April
“It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for Him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved His own who were in the world, He now showed them the full extent of His love.” –John 13:1
They wanted You dead
and You let them
take You away.
Questioned, accused, lies,
mocked, betrayed, beaten,
Crucified.
I helped.
The world was not worthy of such
a King.
You made this place Your home
for a little while
to reveal Yourself as the
Son of God.
You taught, You healed, You served,
You loved, You wept;
You obeyed God the Father.
“Hosanna!” they cried, “Save us!”
they pleaded.
Just as the Israelites selected an unblemished
lamb to cover their sins,
so God sent You, the Perfect Lamb
to cleanse our hearts.
Sin requires blood so You gave
Your lifeblood.
It is written, “The life is in the blood.”
Murdered. Resurrected. Redeemed.
Now we are made holy
because You were born to die –
To Save.
“Hosanna” was their shout,
Salvation is Your gift to me.
Hope lives
because Jesus has won.
redeemed in grace 