Category: trials

Dull weather

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

Is it “one of those days”?  Here is a little encouragement from Amy Carmichael:

Ps. 76.4 LXX Thou dost wonderfully shine forth from the everlasting mountains.

Sometimes it is dull weather in our soul.  Here is a word for such days.  Often when it is misty on the plains it is bright on the mountains.  ‘Thou art more glorious and excellent than the mountains’ is a lovely word, I think, but this beautiful LXX rendering, which our Lord must often have read, carries us even further.  The mist may lie low on the plains, but there is a shining forth from the mountains.

There is nothing in me.  I may be as dull as the plains are when the mist is heavy upon them, but what does that matter?  ‘Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens; and Thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds.  Thy righteousness is like the great mountains’ [Ps 36.5-6], and from those everlasting mountains ‘Thou dost wonderfully shine forth’.

In dull weather learn to look up to the mountains.  Refuse to look down to the plains.

May you have the grace today to look up to the mountains.

How many are my foes!

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How many of you are saying (shouting) that phrase right now in your lives? “How many are my foes!”  Well, you are in good company.  David began Psalm 3 with those very words.  Three times he uses the word “many” in reference to those who were attacking him . . .

I think I mentioned in an earlier post that Pope Benedict has begun a new series on prayer in his weekly Wednesday audiences.  I thought I would share with you part of his meditation on the beginning of Psalm 3.  I hope you find it as encouraging as I did.

Ps 3.1-2 O Lord, how many are my foes!  Many are rising against me; many are saying of me, there is no help for him in God.

“The prayer’s description of his situation is marked by strongly dramatic tones. Three times he repeats the idea of the multitude — ‘numerous,’ ‘many,’ ‘how many’ — which in the original text is said with the same Hebrew root, in order to underline even more the immensity of the danger in a repeated, almost relentless way. This insistence on the number and greatness of the foe serves to express the psalmist’s perception of the absolute disproportion there is between himself and his persecutors — a disproportion that justifies and forms the basis of the urgency of his request for help; the aggressors are many; they have the upper hand, while the man praying is alone and defenseless, at the mercy of his assailants.
“And yet, the first word the psalmist pronounces is ‘Lord’; his cry begins with an invocation to God. A multitude looms over and arises against him a fear that magnifies the threat, making it appear even greater and more terrifying; but the man praying does not allow himself to be conquered by this vision of death; he remains steadfast in his relationship with the God of life, and the first thing he does is turn to Him for help.
“However, his enemies also attempt to break this bond with God and to destroy their victim’s faith. They insinuate that the Lord cannot intervene; they maintain that not even God can save him. The assault, then, is not only physical but also touches the spiritual dimension: ‘The Lord cannot save him’ — they say — even the core of the psalmist’s soul is attacked.
“This is the great temptation to which the believer is subjected — the temptation to lose faith, to lose trust in the nearness of God. The just man overcomes this ultimate test; he remains steadfast in the faith, in the certainty of the truth and in full confidence in God, and it is precisely in this way that he finds life and truth. It seems to me that here the psalm touches us very personally; in so many problems we are tempted to think that perhaps not even God can save me, that He doesn’t know me, that perhaps it is not possible for Him; the temptation against faith is the enemy’s final assault, and this we must resist — in so doing, we find God and we find life.”

Tomorrow I will post his comments on the next couple of verses of Psalm 3.  Or you can read his whole meditation here.

He knows

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

Ps 103.14 For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust.
Job 23.10 He knows the way that I take: when he has tried me, I shall come forth as gold.

“Perhaps those words, He knows, are meant for you today because God has allowed you some special trial of faith.  The love of God is very brave.  He does not hold trial off lest we should be overwhelmed.  He lets it come and then gloriously strengthens us to meet it.  And at the end, I shall come forth as gold.”  (Amy Carmichael, Whispers of His Power)

Gathered storm

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Sometimes a thunderbolt will shoot from a clear sky; and sometimes, into the midst of a peaceful family–without warning of gathered storm above or slightest tremble of earthquake beneath–will fall a terrible fact, and from that moment everything is changed.  The air is thick with cloud, and cannot weep itself clear.  There may come a gorgeous sunset, though.   (George MacDonald)

When our emotions seem to outrun our surrender

Sr. Dorcee, beloved1 Comment

I’m fairly sleep deprived with a lot “on my plate” at the moment, and actually have had a lot on my plate for over a year–not just a lot to do, but am dealing with a lot of major things that I can’t really go into here.  That can easily kick up anxiety in me.  My tendency then is to get anxious about being anxious.  I mean, I do my best to surrender it all to God, but inevitably the feelings of anxiety are still there, and then I get anxious: am I not surrendering enough, etc.  Soooo that brought to my mind two things: 1) my spiritual director’s “mantra” to me: “Don’t be afraid of being afraid,” which I could now rephrase: “Don’t be anxious about being anxious,” and 2) what Caryll Houselander wrote about dealing with her fear and anxiety during WWII which I’ve posted here.

Something else I’ve tried to do (when I remember!) is to offer up my “suffering” of fear or anxiety or whatever.  It is a suffering for sure, not to be wasted.

How to manage

Sr. Dorcee, beloved2 Comments

Some more excerpts from Deb Herbeck’s book, Safely Through the Storm:

I will not mistrust [God], thought I feel myself weakening and on the verge of being overcome by fear . . . .I trust he shall place his holy hand on me and in the stormy seas hold me up from drowning.  (St. Thomas More)

Go and find him when your patience and strength give out and you feel alone and helpless.  Jesus is waiting for you in the chapel.  Say to him, “Jesus, you know exactly what is going on.  You are all that I have, and you know all.  Come to my help.”  And then go, and don’t worry about how you are going to manage.  That you have told God about it is enough.  He has a good memory.  (St. Jeanne Jugan)

All things fail, but You, O Lord of them all, never fail. . . . You seem, O Lord, to give extreme tests to those who love You, but only that, in the extremity of their trials, they may learn the greater extremity of Your love.  (St. Teresa of Avila)

“God never wastes His children’s pain.”

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For those of you who seem to be suffering fruitless pain, a word from Amy Carmichael:

But to what end is pain?  I do not clearly know.  But I have noticed that when one who has not suffered draws near to one in pain there is rarely much power to help; there is not the understanding that leaves the suffering thing comforted, though perhaps not a word was spoken; and I have wondered if it can be the same in the sphere of prayer.  Does pain accepted and endured give some quality that would otherwise be lacking in prayer?  Does it create that sympathy which can lay itself alongside the need, feeling it as though it were personal, so that it is possible to do just what the writer of Hebrews meant when he said, “Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body“?

. . . What if every stroke of pain, or hour of weariness, or ay other trial of flesh or spirit, could carry us a pulse-beat nearer some other life, some life for which the ministry of prayer is needed, would it not be worth while to suffer?  Ten thousand times yes.  And surely it must be so, for the further we are drawn into the fellowship of Calvary with our dear Lord, the tenderer are we toward others, the closer alongside do our spirits lie with them that are in bonds; as being ourselves also in the body.  God never wastes His children’s pain.  (Rose from Brier, p. 124)

Even there

Sr. Dorcee, beloved2 Comments

Written by a missionary in Communist China in the early 1950’s, with only 15 cents left in his pocket, a terrible toothache, no fuel and a tiny daughter with scarlet fever.  The beginning reference is to Acts 27:27-32.

In Adria’s tempest-tossed wastes,
My barque through the dark deeps is driv’n;
The canvas all torn from my masts,
My timbers by stormy waves riv’n.
Yet there faith’s assurance rings clear,
E’en there will I trust, EVEN THERE.

All hope for deliverance had gone,
Despair’s chilly gloom shrouded all;
No sun’s ray through threat’ning cloud shone
To brighten the future’s dark pall.
Yet there should my heart quake with fear,
E’en there will I trust, EVEN THERE.

My brook’s daily waters had dried,
All replenishing springs scorched bare;
Resourceless in sore need I cried
To a God who seemed not to care.
Though trembling, triumphant I bow
E’en now will I trust, EVEN NOW.

The barrel of meal empties fast,
The tempter crowds close with his lies;
“Can God?” Ah! He’s failed you at last,
“In wilderness find fresh supplies.”
Perish doubts!  Though I know not how,
E’en now will I trust, EVEN NOW.

~Arthur Mathews

“I found myself . . .”

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When you find yourself in a trial or difficult situation, do you see it as the hand of God.  Here’s another excerpt from the book I was talking about last time, Green Leaf in Drought, by Isobel Kuhn.  It’s  from one of Arthur Mathews’ letters home:

John says, I FOUND myself in the isle which is called Patmos–not one jot of credit does he give to the might of Rome.  A not one mention escapes him of what he must have endured before eventually “finding” himself there.

He was “found” there just as Philip was “found” at Azotus, and the Mathews’ family is “found” here.  The means, circumstances, decisions that led to his finding himself there are unimportant.  Faith discerns even behind the Beast the hand of God–for second causes make good disguises and baffle any eyes but the eyes of faith.  So to enlarge on the why and the wherefore; to blame himself or his charges; to weigh past decisions for or against . . . is not on John’s mind; nor does he allow any wishful sightings to occupy his thoughts.  A more ideal field for just such thoughts could hardly be found.  So there is a great deal of comfort for us in John’s early verses of the Revelation.   (Green Leaf in Drought, p. 55)