When a friend of mine was waiting for life to be less painful after a devastating divorce, one verse she said she reminded herself of every night was from Psalm 27: 'I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.'
Thanks for sharing this Katrina. Incidentally the last few verses of Psalm 27 - which includes this one - have been open on my bedside and repeated almost every night for the past year (since I wrote my essay on God giving me the elusive ‘Psalm 27:15’ to meditate on 😄)
A long time ago, it seems, you commented on one of my Substack posts, and we had a brief friendly exchange. It doesn’t matter if you don’t remember. But, I really appreciated this particular recent post of yours, and wanted to reach out to you with some Christian encouragement, although we're probably miles apart in our at home Christian spaces. As James says to us all, "My brothers and sisters, count it pure joy when you are involved in every sort of trial. Realize that when your faith is tested this makes for endurance. Let endurance come to its perfection so that you may be fully mature and lacking in nothing."
What can be easier to talk about and harder to work through than that "pure joy"? But we all gotta visit that place more than once.
From starting out as a comfortable cradle agnostic, I touched the Christian space at about age 33 and was baptized at 40, and that was 43 years ago. So, I've had to pull through the slough of "pure joy" more than once.
So, sister, keep on slogging. Part of my morning prayer is "Jesus, abide in me and I in you; Jesus, abide for me and I for you; Jesus, abide with me and I with you; as you abide in your Father." When I pray the "with me" line, I've recently been imagining being yoked with Jesus, like two oxen pulling the load of my life and those I love. I think that yoke image comes to me because I learned recently that one of the titles of the Devil in old Hebrew is "the yoke-less one". Don’t want to go around that way, so I imagine instead, Jesus' light yoke of "pure joy".
And FYI, here’s the post you commented on, I've changed "Michelangelo painted" to "Michelangelo painfully painted", since he was yoked to that hard job for a long time.
Thank you thank you THANK YOU. Nothing I could say would truly explain how much this message means to me. God bless you for the reminder and the encouragement. You are a blessing and I’m so grateful. JOY. (PS I did and do remember!)
When a friend of mine was waiting for life to be less painful after a devastating divorce, one verse she said she reminded herself of every night was from Psalm 27: 'I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.'
I liked this.
Thanks for sharing this Katrina. Incidentally the last few verses of Psalm 27 - which includes this one - have been open on my bedside and repeated almost every night for the past year (since I wrote my essay on God giving me the elusive ‘Psalm 27:15’ to meditate on 😄)
https://stillstanding.substack.com/p/god-told-me-to-turn-to-psalm-2715
A long time ago, it seems, you commented on one of my Substack posts, and we had a brief friendly exchange. It doesn’t matter if you don’t remember. But, I really appreciated this particular recent post of yours, and wanted to reach out to you with some Christian encouragement, although we're probably miles apart in our at home Christian spaces. As James says to us all, "My brothers and sisters, count it pure joy when you are involved in every sort of trial. Realize that when your faith is tested this makes for endurance. Let endurance come to its perfection so that you may be fully mature and lacking in nothing."
What can be easier to talk about and harder to work through than that "pure joy"? But we all gotta visit that place more than once.
From starting out as a comfortable cradle agnostic, I touched the Christian space at about age 33 and was baptized at 40, and that was 43 years ago. So, I've had to pull through the slough of "pure joy" more than once.
So, sister, keep on slogging. Part of my morning prayer is "Jesus, abide in me and I in you; Jesus, abide for me and I for you; Jesus, abide with me and I with you; as you abide in your Father." When I pray the "with me" line, I've recently been imagining being yoked with Jesus, like two oxen pulling the load of my life and those I love. I think that yoke image comes to me because I learned recently that one of the titles of the Devil in old Hebrew is "the yoke-less one". Don’t want to go around that way, so I imagine instead, Jesus' light yoke of "pure joy".
And FYI, here’s the post you commented on, I've changed "Michelangelo painted" to "Michelangelo painfully painted", since he was yoked to that hard job for a long time.
*****
OVERHEAD
Don’t imagine bulging muscles
to flesh out God Almighty
like Michelangelo
painfully painted
on his back.
~ ~ ~
Yet, we can’t breath without symbols,
so…
think of the gardener
who loves weeds and worms
as well as wheat and apples.
~ ~ ~
The cultivator of spontaneity
who whistles silently
while he works out the numbers
weights and measures
of all things
in flickering shades of light
and tender, bulging,
shocking love.
*****
God's shocking love includes that "pure joy".
Thank you thank you THANK YOU. Nothing I could say would truly explain how much this message means to me. God bless you for the reminder and the encouragement. You are a blessing and I’m so grateful. JOY. (PS I did and do remember!)
This really made me think. I always love your honesty, even though this time it made me cry a bit. Thank you for writing this, it’s so good. X
Thank you Rachel though I didn’t mean to make you cry! :)