Thankful for the coming of warm weather and these dear women in my backyard today.

Meditating Mercy

Some thoughts upon reading Madeline L'Engle's book, A Live Coal in the Sea:

“But all the wickedness in the world which man may do or think is no more to the mercy of God than a live coal dropped in the sea.” William Langland (167)

When I first read that quote I squirmed. For, it seems like the atrocities of Hitler and those who persecute Christians can’t be so quickly quenched by God’s mercy. Maybe my hesitancy came because too often I think mercy equals permissiveness. As L’Engle says, “Mercy and permissiveness are not the same thing.”

“Mercy. It didn’t mean that everything was okay, could or should be condoned. But we can’t move out of ourselves and our own self-justifications until we look in the mirror and know, yes, I, too, could have done this. Or worse.” (170)

“Papa had lived a long, full life, and he had come to terms with more than most people can begin to imagine. He was able to be merciful to himself, and to teach us to be merciful, too. He believed that God’s redeeming love can come into the most terrible things, and while I do not have the kind of radiant faith that Papa had, I believed him.”(285)

Because of my atrocious sins Christ died on the cross. How can I say it must take more mercy to forgive another person (i.e. Hitler) than it takes to forgive me? Lord, have mercy on me! The song “There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy” speaks profoundly to this: “But we make his love to narrow by false limits of our own.”

Fanny Crosby says it well: “Could we with ink the ocean fill and were the skies with parchment made, were every stalk on earth a quill and every man a scribe by trade, to write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry, nor could the scroll contain the whole though stretched from sky to sky.” I believe this to be true!

Hooray for Spring!

Sing hey! for the bath at close of day
that washes the weary mud away!
A loon is he that will not sing:
O! Water Hot is a noble thing!
Sung by Pippen in The Fellowship of the Ring

Busy Boy

Busy playing with my aunts

Busy delivering pizza

Busy cleaning out Mama's cupboards. Notice the abandoned celery in the corner. He loves to chew on celery.

Night lament

She lifted up her voice and the sorrow spilled from her, pouring uncontrolled into the early morning darkness. Awakened, I crept to the window and peered through the blind's plastic slats. Nothing.

Back in bed I lifted up the voice of my heart, wet with her sorrow. "How many women cry tonight? Mothers by their dying babes. Teenagers robbed of their virginity. Wives wondering when their husbands will come home. In loneliness and desperation, they weep. Who cares? How long, O Lord, till you come make things right?"

The woman hidden in the darkness of Randolph Street did not cry alone. For the God who heard my prayers was near to her. He woke me in the darkness so I could hear her lament and intercede for her.

Morning dawns. Christ has not returned to earth. All of creation continues to groan, longing for redemption. Christ gives me breath for another day, and though I don't fully understand why, this I do know.

"The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." Hab. 2:4.

"Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear with out someone preaching to them?" Rom. 10:13-14.

"For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ." 2 Cor. 4:6.

"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good deds and praise your Father in heaven." Matt. 5:16.

"Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord." Psalm 150:6