Living Tree Poetry

“Be confused, its where you begin to learn new things.  Be broken, its where you begin to heal.  Be frustrated, its where you start to make more authentic decisions.  Be sad, because if we are brave enough we can hear our heart’s wisdom through it.  Be whatever you are right now.  No more hiding.  You are worthy, always.”
S.C. Lourie

“God, who foresaw your tribulation, has specially formed you to go through it, not without pain but without stain.”
C. S. Lewis

‘May our sorrow of today, be our momentum of tomorrow’
Unknown

“.. the pain you have been feeling cannot compare the joy that is coming.”
Romans 8:18

MY PRAYER today is for discovery.  God who made us would have us arrive at all the wisdom and knowledge and discovery he has prepared for us to attain, at his pace, and not ours.  Its takes many years to grow a pearl, some of the most precious can take up to 20 years to form inside a shell.   Writing this reminds me of the word I felt God gave me on Sunday morning, about inlaying my heart with precious gems, of emeralds and rubies.  I saw them shining in my mind’s eye, this God box within.  I saw how things were removed to make room for his wisdom, his knowledge, his treasures.  I saw how the gems inlaid the internal walls and floor of my box.  This beautiful box which contained nothing else.  It was empty of everything but God.

We work it out don’t we, slowly and surely?  We work out our salvation with fear and trembling (and more than just a little pain), just as Philippians 2:12-13 tells us, “…work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”  God is at work in us, forming the pearl slowly and surely, bringing us to the discoveries we need to make in his time, to enable us to live for his good pleasure.  My prayer for us today – don’t be impatient for him to act, perhaps he is at work already.

Your love comes to me
in the silence,
ordinary.
Like a child’s treasure
I turn it over
in the nook of my hand,
warming its smooth
heaviness.

A thought of You,
stony,
clearly defined,

drops as though
down a deep
well,

is lost
momentarily,

then turns up
a certainty in the heart.

Cathy Hutcheon

These are drawn from daily reflections and prayers I write for my Chaplaincy colleagues.