Weavings

"So we're not giving up. How could we? Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without {God's} unfolding grace."

2 Corinthians 4:16, The Message

I read this spiritual journal, Weavings. I enjoy it tremendously. Over the years, there have been volumes which have arrived, one in particular, that I could not let go of. God met me in the pages and spoke directly to the concern of my heart at the moment.

So, last Friday night, my beautiful friend, Beth and I had an experience of God we'll not forget. A few weeks ago we thought we'd invited each other for coffee and chai and instead, He'd called us to the table. The stirrings of our hearts spoke to each other and we sat in Starbuck's writing out the outline for a Bible Study for our girls. We need to, want to, desire deeply to help them to understand how to hear God and to seek His choices for them.

I went home and meandered around the interwebs and found our outline in a study. Published. Ready. Line for line. Right there.

And Friday night when we met and started the course, we learned more about what He's doing as we spoke and lead together, unpracticed, with great ease. When the girls went off to buy groceries, my friend shared about how she'd lost heart for a while. How she'd felt like she was walking without hope. Discouraged. And God put speaking about Him in front of her. He walked into her house and said, "Come on my dearest one, I have a surprise for you." We both felt and heard so clearly that we're to be engaged in His world, His creation, His business.

I like this about God. He doesn't really want to teach me all of this life application business. He wants me to see where He's working and become engaged.

Then Sunday, as I rested on the couch I picked up Weavings and read a couple of poems referenced in the first article. This one struck me deeply:

THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS
by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars 
waiting with the light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.


Is it not the perfect reminder that we need not lose hope. The grass grows. The sun breaks through and our faithful Father God is working. Around. Within. Always.

The invitation comes when we are truly hungry.

And the cover of Weavings for volume 27, number 4? Simply this:

Do not lose heart