When sorrows like sea billows roll.

Wake us to Your presence LORD, that we might not waste our times of trials.

It is in the quiet crucible of your personal private sufferings that your noblest dreams are born and God’s greatest gifts are given.

You have dealt well with Your servant,
O Lord, according to Your promise. Psalm 119:65

But Martha was distracted with much serving. But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary; Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” Luke 10

To sit at His feet.

And Lord haste the day when my faith shall be sight,

The clouds rolled away like a scroll.

What would You teach us today in our trials, Lord? Make us receptive. Help us see Your victory and compassion rather than look for easy answers to our troubles. So make us expectant, Lord, and patient. Amen.

Presence.

As I typed out the next round of 1000 Gifts this morning, I thanked God for each of the trials and sorrows. In each long pause He whispered back to me His victory and His compassion.

Thank You for not giving us easy answers.

But in the crashing waves, may I lift up my eyes unto You, may my soul rise up to meet You, and place my hand into Your nail-pierced hand.

And to the Father, who spared not even His Son that I might truly know Him and be in Him. And He in me.

For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror.  For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. James 1:23-25

Ah, and for me, the doing is sitting at His feet. All day long. Not forgetting. Not popping up and wiping the counter and stacking away the clean dishes. Anxious and troubled about many things in the past, many things in future.

Presence.

And the wind ceased. 

Following the yellow arrows of His Presence.

Let my mouth be full of Your praise and Your glory all the day long. Psalm 71:8

“Now therefore, I pray You, if I have found favor in Your sight, let me know Your ways that I may know You, so that I may find favor in Your sight.” And He said, “My presence shall go with you, and I will give you rest.” Then he said to Him, “If Your presence does not go with us, do not lead us up from here.” Exodus 33: 14-15

Grant, O Lord, that the course of this world may be peaceably governed by Your providence; and that Your Church may joyfully serve you in confidence and serenity; through Jesus Christ our Lord who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. 

I woke up with the fret list spinning full bore.

School’s out.  School’s out for summer.

And my life is full of curves in the road that I cannot see beyond at all. Not even pretend.

But I can pedal for the next five minutes.

• Call the travel insurance company and straighten out the coverage dates.
• Download the GPS for the easy Camino del Norte by bicycle. Others have gone before me.
• Empty the dishwasher.
• Put away the outside cushions from last night’s ribs, bread and coffee and pecan pie under the stars.
• Take Jincheng to the airport. Two and a half years like that. He was wearing the Arizona Diamondbqcks hat that Wali gave him.
• Put his sheets and towels and dirty socks in the washer.

But most of all, His word is a light unto my path. Let me choose Your praise and Your glory all day long.

And this prayer is in my heart: May I joyfully serve You in confidence and serenity.

And there is nothing about the world being announced by early morning NPR that seems peaceably governed by His providence.

But the thing about google.maps is perspective. And as I finger in closer and closer it is easy to see the bumps and roundabouts and one way only signs…but tapping backwards into the big view, the vista turns green and calm and governed.

All things considered. That’s what the announcer said.

All things. Not just what I can see with my very small vision.

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.

It is well with my soul,
It is well, it is well with my soul.

Let my mouth be full of Your praise and Your glory all the day long.

One arrow at a time.

Old age is no place for sissies

For the Lord takes pleasure in His people;

He will beautify the humble with salvation. Psalm 149:4

I have lots of time to consider the humble these days. I am spending lots of time with Mr. Humble “Is there anything I can to help you” Coverdale.  And really is there anything more humbling that having your wife and daughter wrestling for over an hour through changing the bedding at two in the morning?  Especially if you are drifting back and forth between awareness and making some small attempts to help out a bit and mostly being rather anxious and stiffly grasping arms and mattresses and side rails with your still-very-firm-grip.

And I have lots of time to consider this stage of life, and the absolute humility it imposes on the aged and those who care for them.  And to reread yet another time the eHow article on “How to roll an elderly person in bed.” And now the stories and sympathetically knowing looks are piling in pell mell.  This is the song of the circle of life, from the day we arrive on the planet, and, blinking, step into the sun; the counterbalance to the birthing center with Everette Tess just five weeks ago.  And all the bits of Sophocles and Shakespeare resonate with new understanding.  And the wisdom of Solomon as he contemplates a time to be born, and a time to die: I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God's gift to man.

There is nothing better than to be joyful and to do good as long as we live. And to eat and drink and take pleasure in all of our toil.  And I saw people going about this business yesterday, Billy from Hotel Congress creating delicious concoctions in the lower levels of Roskruge Bilingual School to serve to the staff celebrating a year well done, and the principal José whose mission is to give his students hope, and Dexter whose church has organized sixty tutors and fixed a crucial bureaucratic glitch at 1010 E 10th, imagine, and after a short afternoon nap there were fish tacos in a downtown brewery with soaring tin roofs and mason jars full of mysteries with stories of fixing water pipes and grateful clients and maybe stories of organic coffee plantations and joining Him in His work of making everything beautiful in its time.

And most of all, as I struggle between fist and head shaking and getting affirming glimpses of Him who has done it, this whole grand finale underscores God’s love for the humble.  Somehow it is a good thing.  Stepping onto the stage of eternity with clarity and purpose: There is nothing better than to be joyful and to do good as long as we live.  

I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him. That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been.

It is finished.  The curtain has been rent, and we are invited to share His glory. Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.

And Pandora continues its merry way: It is well, with my soul, it is well, it is well, it is well with my soul.

Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul

“When I get an opportunity I will summon you.” 
When two years had elapsed, Felix was succeeded by Porcius Festus. And desiring to do the Jews a favor, Felix left Paul in prison.  Acts 24:26-27

Perhaps I leap into things too quickly.  But it sure seems like most of the world sits around twiddling their thumbs while the world is crashing around them.  People are hungry today; why do we have to sit around and discuss it and think of maybe assigning committees and then pray about it and then draw up a tentative plan and then let it rest a while and then meet and finalize and then have everyone think about what their role will be and when should we start and the beginning of the school year or the fall break or the holiday season is upon us so let’s put if off until after that.  And does anyone want to go out for ice cream afterwards?

I bet wiggle worm Paul was trying to figure out the big chunks of pause in his life.

And so he hung out with friends, and waited.  Maybe he wrote a little, who knows.  According to the charts, he wasn’t writing letters.  And he waited.   And waited.

How do I use my wait time?  Churning and grinding?  Or do I use it to my advantage, strengthening my weakness, burnishing my strengths. Do I fall asleep?   Am I alert and of a circumspect mind?  Looking all around and ready to move, should the signal come?

So last night I read through Christianity Today’s cover story, “50 Women to Watch.”  Very cool stuff for the kingdom inspiring youngsters in the classrooms of Detroit, tooling around the African savannas, peering through massive telescopes trained on the skies, or tromping through the mud of the family farm and then counting up to a thousand.   And I wash up the few dishes cluttering the counter, sweep the popcorn off the floor and head off to another day of answering the phones and placing coordinators in activity subgroups.

Such are chunks.  And it is a good thing to be circumspect.  And to listen to the farmwife counting thousands of things, like the sun glinting off of the clouds if I sit up very straight in my desk as I look out the window.  And actually, I am grateful for the tick of the clock, dink, dink, dink, marking the moments, the gifts of life.

It is well with my soul.