Even Now

With each round of chelation pills, Elsa and I feel more and more like calling it our "chemo." Strength sapped, sleep disrupted, pain increasing, food turning against us...

This journey stretches on -- four years and counting. How encouraging, then, to remember that many long periods of wilderness, pain, and exile in the lives of God's children recorded in the history of the Bible each came to an end.

- Joseph's years in slavery and prison

- The Israelites' 400 years as slaves in Egypt 

- King David a fugitive in caves

- And more...

Sometimes it helps to look ahead and remember, "this too shall pass." 

And yet, the present should not be discounted. When I do, the discouraging lie that I am "losing all these years of my life" takes hold.

Rather, I am being impressed with the fact that even now I am living my life. This is my path. The path God can use to make me more like His Son.

How fitting that in the midst of these thoughts, I encounter Amy Carmichael's poem on the subject:

Before the winds that blow do cease,

     Teach me to dwell within Thy calm:

Before the pain has passed in peace,

     Give me, my God, to sing a psalm.

Let me not lose the chance to prove

The fullness of enabling love.

     O Love of God, do this for me:

     Maintain a constant victory.

Before I leave the desert land

     For meadows of immortal flowers,

Lead me where streams at Thy command

     Flow by the borders of the hours,

That when the thirsty come, I may

Show them the fountains in the way.

     O Love of God, do this for me:

     Maintain a constant victory.

Amy Carmichael, Rose from Brier