I decided to add an extra blog this week, because there are particular people I know personally who’ve subscribed to Translating a World on the Edge, and receive it in their emails. And these precious people are hurting, especially now during the Christmas season, because of great loss. So, here is my love, and hopefully, encouragement to you.
Dropping to her knees in the black, black muck, she longs for the white images of gentler times; the white linen cloth of her Baptism, the white mother-of-pearl missal of her First Communion. If only to be a child again, to unwrap every first thought and see it spiral and dance like the striped metal top her father once gave her. She was certain those thoughts came from angels, stone angels in a garden, but other angels, too–everywhere, and not one looked the same.
She laughed a lot then, pointed at nothing, and played with children no one else could see. Colors amazed her. She drank them in, tasting red and orange leaves, purple dawns, and dark velvet skies that sparkled with diamonds. Into her skin, she drew the softness of a breeze. Into her ears, the symphonic twitter of birds, the lazy sloshing of the Mississippi, and the sweet sound of silence.
In time, she responded to conversations not yet had, and answered questions not yet asked. Her mother called her my mystical princess. Her father put his arms around his inventive pet. And she played out her childhood in a shadow-less world where nothing was hidden, where she saw beyond seeing, and heard beyond hearing. And then, with the death of her parents, the gift withdrew from her, as if the fresh bloom of a rose had somehow tucked itself back into the bud. —Kaye Park Hinckley, Copyright 2016
In our life journey, the innocence we were born with will leave us. We will be broken in some way. There may have already been a time in your life when everything changed and life seemed in ruins, like it did for the girl in the paragraphs above. What did you–or are you–doing about it?
Of course, none of us wish for brokenness, but all of us will suffer in some way. What sort of action will we take when that happens? We might moan and groan about the trouble that has befallen us. We might strike out at others. We might wound ourselves up, like a tight ball of yarn, and wish the world would go away and leave us alone, leave us wadded in our misery.
The girl in the story above was betrayed by someone she trusted. It breaks her for awhile, but then….well, when it is published, you’ll find out.
The point is there comes a time when we must trust God. If we allow God’s grace to unwind inside us, our inner sight will change. We will make an attempt to understand how much God loves us, and when we understand that, we will see things differently. We will no longer be broken. We will be ‘put together’ and able to surrender our lives to Him. And follow Him.
Our earthly lives are like jars of clay. They can be beautiful but they are fragile and easily shattered, many times by our own sins. And of course, our lives do not last forever. The genuine treasure of this life is that it continues beyond the container of our bodies. It is not temporary, but eternal.
For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.–Corinthians 4:17-18
Translating a World on the Edge 