Hope in the Face of Evil

There are moments in time when one suddenly looks around and realizes that God has given one beautiful gifts, not the least of which is the gift of life itself. Then, one realizes that all this goodness is extraordinarily fragile.  This realization is the highlight of the contrast between good and evil.  The lovely life God has given me in this peaceful place, little St. Leo, Kansas, with a husband who is an excellent man, and two sweet little girls...it's so fragile.  How unfortunately easy it would be for an over-zealous, too powerful government to strip our rights away: rights to faith, rights to farm, rights to live as we wish and as we ought.  How easy it would be for God to call one of us home, shaking the foundations of our family, perhaps to the dust.  And how easy it would be for me to despair as I immerse myself in such worries.

It's too easy to fall into the trap of despair in a world that has been despairing for so long already. What an amazing thing that God has fully revealed Himself to us in His Son, and yet the world shuns Him and still despairs! But I am at least guilty of the anxiety that easily leads to despair if not checked, and I must look out of myself to the Grace God has given us to overcome it...indeed, I do not overcome it, but He does it for me!

Learning to trust God has been perhaps the most difficult task of life. It requires an imitation of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane: "My Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me. Nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt." We must trust that, if the Lord acts in a way contrary to the known desires of our hearts (I say "the desires that we know" because there are many that we do not know, that have not yet come to the surface of our heart knowledge), that His Will is still our ultimate happiness, and that He will bring about a greater good, whether through grace or refining fire or something that we do not yet understand. We who are finite beings cannot grasp the infinite. "Eye has not seen, ear has not heard what God has ready for those who Love Him." So I will love Him and make every effort to trust Him, to not let myself sink into the despair of worry and fear, no matter how awful the world gets. And I will hope: I will hope that one day I and all who I love will be truly happy, truly free, truly at peace...even if I have to wait until Heaven until we get to that day. God's Will be done. Fiat.m

The world is an uncertain place; the only certainty is God's love, and that we can only know by grace.  In these moments in the internal war against fear, I sometimes find my faith flagging, dropping to the ground as though it has run one race too many; and I am left with only Hope.  It is the Hope that sustains me and drives me onward. It picks my faith up out of the dust and drags it forward a few steps further. It lifts my head to look around at what God has given me again, and be thankful for it, despite...or maybe because of it's fragility.  The words of the sufferer Job come to mind: "The Lord hast given and the Lord hast taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord!"

"Night Prayer"

I was inspired by a gorgeous sunset we had the other day, followed by a crystal clear starlit night, to write this poem.  I thought I'd share it with you.

"Night Prayer"

I sit and watch the wheat fields roam
Up to the opal sky,
While clouds drift ever, ever on;
Their souls the sun ignite.

The day draws to a fiery close,
And night gathers gently in,
As one by one, the stars appear
And in the vastness spin.

The prairie wind dies slowly down
With a whisper and a sigh.
The silence of th'unbroken sound
Of stillness gath'ring nigh.

It is then the Lord speaks to my heart;
I feel His Presence there.
He banishes all the daytime woes
And leaves me without a care.

Oh, God of sunset, cloud, and flame,
Of peace and silence, too,
Abide here in this heart of mine;
This weary soul renew!

The Gift of Children: A Gift of Time

Today, I read a blog post by a young man who just lost his baby daughter a few months ago. He and his wife and an older daughter have been left to grieve...and rejoice in the life of baby Abigail Hellmer. Abigail's father reflects regularly on how much this little baby inspires him; she inspires him to appreciate life in ways he never imagined before she came along, however briefly (she had a rare disease that left her with an uncertain amount of time to live; she lived 118 days).  As I thought about this little family, their beautiful faith in God, their amazingly grateful hearts, and how they continue to embrace life in the face of their grief, as I've read the stories of others that have faced similar losses of their children, I have found myself changed.

When I was almost two years old, my baby brother died of a complication with whooping cough, and I grew up witnessing my parents' intense grief, an intensity that lessened only very gradually with time. I've realized, looking back, how much that grief impressed an anxiety about death on me, especially the death of someone I love. When I started having children, I suddenly realized how precious they are to me, and how horribly it would tear me apart to lose them. I can certainly appreciate my parents' grief better now. Over the past three and a half years since my first daughter, Rose, was born, I've had many instances of anxiety and fear of losing my children, fear of them ever suffering, fear of the pain of watching them suffer.

 After watching the journey of the Hellmer family (the family mentioned above) and the journey of another family, the Schmidts, that lost their little baby girl only an hour or two after she was born (this was something they knew was likely coming and had prepared for it as much as they could), I have found my anxieties lessened considerably.  The Hellmers and the Schmidts have strove to look at what they can take from the brief time allotted to them with their little girls: the gift of time.  They have learned that these little ones are a gift to us from God.  We are called to care for them as long as the good Lord allows us, to treasure that time, and to remember that they belong first and foremost to Him, our Creator.  The longer I've read about these families' experiences from their own perspectives, the more this knowledge that all our lives are GIFTS, including the time we have with our loved ones, the more it has sunk from my head to my heart.  It has immersed itself into the entirety of my life, and I find myself valuing my children much more deeply than I ever thought possible.  Middle of the night puking (a recent occurance) and middle of the night bottle needs have become insignificant in the demands they make on me and significant in the realization of how precious the moments are that I have been given to shower my children with love.

It is in this gift of time, in this gift of NOW, that I have with Rose and Ana that I can give them what I ought: unceasing, unconditional Love.  That is my calling.  It is my duty.  It is my joy.  And I will treasure every moment I have been given.

PS Please check out my list of favorite websites/blogs to see the stories of the Hellmer and Schmidt families.