Day #12 - "For Thorns . . . "

"Thanks for roses by the wayside.
Thanks for thorns their stems contain."

Some years ago, I came across a wonderful hymn that is just FULL of "comparative text".  It seems like it is full of dichotomies.  The format consists of pairs of opposites and the phrase, "Thanks to God for . . . "

The caption under the photo above is one such pair . . . it has occupied my attention in a powerful way for several days in early November . . . I am using my "Day 12" thankfulness post to affirm:

"Thanks for thorns . . . "  

However weird that seems, I am, indeed, truly thankful for the "thorns" in my life.  There have been plenty of them along the way, and I have spent my "time in hell on earth" many times over, but the end of the story is that I am thankful, not only for roses, but for their thorns . . . for the negatives in life as well as the positives.  I AM who I am by the grace of God and because of every experience I've had thus far.  

Is it easy to remain "thankful" for everything that comes?  No, it's not easy, but it's not written anywhere that life is supposed to be "easy".  Is it always comfortable? Does it always tickle? Does everything have a clear purpose?  No . . . it's very painful at times and not at all comfortable to wander through the brambles and thorns.  It certainly doesn't tickle and make me laugh, and sometimes I cannot see the purpose in a given event no matter HOW hard I try!!!   I CAN say, however, that from a distance - such as is afforded by looking back (hindsight) - things come into perspective and that which felt like the end of the world is actually another part of the "big picture".  

I could give you examples all afternoon, and if you want some, just talk to me  :)   I'm dealing right now in "bottom lines", and MY bottom line is that I can see the good in everything if I look long enough.  One of my favorite scripture verses is found in Romans 8:28 - "All things work together for good to those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose." 

It does not in ANY way mean that "All things are good" . . . they aren't.  It DOES mean that the greatest imaginable "bad" can eventually bring about the greatest imaginable "GOOD".  It may take a while, and the journey may be painful, but it IS possible to learn to smell the roses without getting pierced by their thorns.  

The only example I'm going to give right now in this particular writing is, again, related to my having been surrendered at birth for adoption, and my subsequent TWO adoptions - the early death of my first adoptive parents and my "difficult" childhood and teenage years in my Aunt and Uncle's care and keeping and eventual adoption.  I felt "weird" and "damaged" and "unworthy" most of my life.  I felt responsible for all of the bad things that happened to me throughout my life.  

My second adoptive parents often told me, "We don't know what's wrong with you. We love you as if you were our real child."   One day it HIT me - - - I felt "as if" and "not real" for all of my early years.  I had to attain the ripe old age of 47 years old before I understood that I am "not" an "as if" person, and I was not a mistake, and I do have some value and worth in this world as I journey through it.  Do I slip back into that "other" mode?  Sure I do.  I can go to the dark place much more easily than I wish were the case.  Do I continue to try to "prove" to somebody that I AM worth something?  Sure I do - I try to prove it to myself all the time.  The difference is I am no longer WILLING to stay in the dark place or to allow the dark to overcome the Light that is in my life.  

The Apostle Paul is said to have endured a "thorn in the flesh" that he prayed to depart from him on an almost constant basis.  It was painful, and it hurt him.  It stopped him in his tracks at time. It made it difficult to accomplish what he wanted to accomplish, and yet he was able to proclaim, "I have learned whatsoever state I am in, therein to be content."  That's one powerful testimony, and it gives me courage.  I would come to the end of my journey on earth with those words on my lips and in my heart.  

I am "me" because I have faced, endured, and won the battle with those things that would bring me down, and I am thankful . . . for all of it. 

___________________________________________________ 

Thanks to God for my Redeemer,
Thanks for all Thou dost provide!
Thanks for times now but a memory,
Thanks for Jesus by my side!
Thanks for pleasant, balmy springtime,
Thanks for dark and stormy fall!
Thanks for tears by now forgotten,
Thanks for peace within my soul.

Thanks for prayers that Thou hast answered,
Thanks for what Thou dost deny!
Thanks for storms that I have weathered,
Thanks for all Thou dost supply!
Thanks for pain and thanks for pleasure,
Thanks for comfort in despair!
Thanks for grace that none can measure,
Thanks for love beyond compare!

Thanks for roses by the wayside,
Thanks for thorns their stems contain!
Thanks for home and thanks for fireside,
Thanks for hope, that sweet refrain!
Thanks for joy and thanks for sorrow,
Thanks for heavenly peace with Thee!
Thanks for hope in the tomorrow,
Thanks through all eternity!

~Amen~

Day #5 - For Inner Peace . . .

"Thanks for Tears by now Forgotten . . . Thanks for Peace Within my Soul" 

We had a gorgeous sunset tonight in Cornelia, GA.   It reminded me so much of the one in this picture that we experienced some time ago up on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  Sunset is my favorite time of day, especially in the winter time.  Cold weather, for whatever reasons, brings the most glorious of sunsets!!  

The mountains are always calling to me, sometimes more loudly and more insistently than others,  and I just have to go up - - - higher and higher until there's no higher to go.  I find the greatest peace of mind and soul in the mountains.  In the quiet peace of gathering night, with all of the colors - so vivid for such a short time as the sun sets - and the first stars of the evening, I find my strength and a deep sense of calm and kinship with all of creation.  For however long I am able to be there,  it seems that the world and all of the cares it contains are both very far away and completely insignificant.  I am so thankful for such a place to go and be. I'm thankful for the sense of kinship, and the calm, and the peace of mind.  It makes me feel very blessed. 

I don't know when it was that the mountains became so important in my life.  I was always a beach person.  I suppose it's Terry's roots in the mountains of North Carolina, and the love of being there that he shared with me some years back.  As we served appointments in north Georgia and were close enough to get onto the Parkway easily,  I fell more and more and more in love with their majesty and beauty.  I'm now a convert.   *smile*

I experience much the same feeling when I'm fortunate enough to be on the Georgia coast on Jekyll Island . . .  sunrise on the beach when no one is around but the birds and the ocean and me . . ..  it's that sense of knowing there is something that stays the same even as it's a different place every day.  In addition, it's a feeling of being where something is so much bigger than I am - the ocean, a mountain peak . . . it feels solid and that's comforting to me in a world that is changing too fast and leaving me behind.  The top of Mt. Mitchell, some 6800 or 6900 feet above sea level, is the highest point in the eastern United States.  Standing up there gives me a feeling of safety that I get nowhere else . . . as if only God, Himself, can find me unless I want to be found, and a feeling of safety like nowhere else. 

I'm thankful . . . for so many things . . . today, in particular, for inner peace and for peace of mind when it comes, for however long it stays.  

Later . . . and, thanks for reading.  

Wage Peace!

The Light Shines in the Darkness

Hymn of the Day

"Prayer"

Saint Francis of Assisi
(Based on Romans 6:5-14)

"For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin.
Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.
And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace." (NKJ)

The Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi

"Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace. Where there is hatred, let me so love, where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console; to be understood, as to understand, to be loved, to love. For it is in giving that we receive. It is in pardoning, that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. "Amen ~

When he was about twenty years old, Francis got into a fight with neighboring Perugia and was imprisoned for almost a year. A couple of illnesses during his confinement and shortly thereafter caused him to question the value of his way of life. One night after a sumptuous banquet he had prepared for some of his friends, the boys rushed out in the street for merry-making and revelry. They soon realized that Francis was missing from their midst. They finally located him staring at the ground in rather profound contemplation.


When asked by his friends what was "wrong", Francis replied, "I am thinking of taking a wife more beautiful, more rich, more pure than you have ever imagined." That was his way of telling his friends that he was renouncing wealth, position and worldly fame to wed "Lady Poverty".


Sometime later while praying in the ruined hermitage of St. Damian just outside Assisi, he felt something wonderful take place. Jesus spoke to him from the Crucifix, accepted him – his heart and his life. From that day forth Jesus became the very soul of his soul.


His father was angry at the change in Francis, and publicly disinherited him. Francis handed over to his father all the money he had on him, together with all of his clothes, saying, "From henceforth I desire to say nothing else than, ‘Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name . . .’ ".


Francis left town immediately and went wandering on the slopes of neighboring Mt. Subasio singing his new-found joy to the hills and visiting the lepers there to serve them. He set such an example for others that he gained quite a following over a period of time. When the number of his followers reached exactly twelve, he went with them to Rome to secure from Pope Innocent III permission to "live a life of absolute conformity to the precepts of the gospel." It took a dream to convince the Pope, but he finally blessed and established the movement in the year 1210.


Francis and his band began their preaching tours. Their love for the humble, their message of repentance and hope, took hold of the consciences of men and opened new vistas in their dull lives. In his hometown of Assisi it is said "the entire population was thrilled, conquered, desiring in the future to live only in accordance with Francis’ counsels." His open-air sermons at street corners and public squares and in fields had the same effect. His gospel was practical: men must prove their conversion by giving up their ill-gotten gains, renouncing their enmities and being reconciled with their adversaries.


Francis took the life of Jesus as his ideal and the teachings of the Gospel as his creed. Love was his driving force. It led him from the complexes of the churches of his day to one simple loyalty – to Jesus. He moved away from the world of dogma where he felt his intellect regimented and his will chained, to the world of the heart where love blossoms and where man finds in his fellow men his opportunity for companionship and service.


In such a personality as Francis had there inevitably arises also a love of nature, for the heart that goes out in love to God’s highest creatures cannot fail to embrace as well His humbler ones, even an inanimate wind and sky, trees and fields, beach and ocean. There are many stories that chronicle this type of beautiful "oneness" all things. Some of the stories about Francis tell how he pleaded with the people of Gubbio to feed the wolf who had ravaged their flocks because, as Francis put it, "through hunger has Brother Wolf done this wrong."


Next to love in Francis’ mind and heart came joy! He called himself and his disciples "God’s jugglers" whose function it was to make people laugh. "Is it not in fact true," Francis would say, "that the servants of God are really like jugglers, intended to revive the hearts of men and lead them into spiritual joy?"

Francis was canonized a Saint only two years after his death – extraordinary speed – and the great Church that stands over his tomb as his memorial was begun that selfsame day. Unfortunately, the church was ravaged by a recent earthquake and several strong aftershocks about a year ago, and it is in danger of falling despite efforts of cultural and religious organizations to restore it.


The lovely Prayer of St. Francis, which is not actually a "Christmas" hymn, but one that is appropriate to the Christmas season because of its gorgeous message, emphasizes peace and reconciliation through self-discipline and self-sacrifice. There is a keyword found in the very first sentence of the prayer, which is "instrument". Francis prays to be made an instrument of God’s peace. This is a word that indicates "action". It suggests a very pro-active stance in peacemaking. Some years ago a "buzz" phrase sprang up in our culture, something about "waging peace not war". This is what the use of the word "instrument" seems to suggest about St. Francis, I think. It is a word that can have multiple meanings. In Romans 6:13 Paul uses it to refer to a "weapon" – an instrument of war, so to speak.


The prayer is a study in paradox. It shows us clearly how things in God’s world are often "upside down". Jesus set the example for us and Francis followed in his footsteps. In our lives in this world we strive for "rights", while in the Kingdom of God we relinquish what we believe we deserve to seek a more lowly place. In the world in which we live we strive for power, while in the Kingdom, we embrace a life of service to others, a life of subordination of power. In the world we strive for self-fulfillment, while in the Kingdom we die to ourselves and strive for the fulfillment of others’ needs, wants and wishes.


These are NOT negative things, and part of the task of Christians is to learn this absolutely. Francis himself is known for his joy and most of all as one who overflowed with love – for God, for people, and for every part of God’s creation. These are the things that make for peace.


Reflect for a time today how contrary this teaching is to the mood of "our" day. Think of paradoxes and the role they play in our lives. This may includes those times in life when you found it true that giving led to receiving; that pardoning brought you freedom, or that dying to self brought you "new life".


Prayer - Oh, God, our prayer this day is the prayer of St. Francis. We pray that you will make us instruments of your peace, sowing love in place of hatred; granting, as You do, pardon for the injuries of life; replacing faith for doubting; bringing hope to all who despair. We would flood light into darkness and add joy to the sadness of our world. Help us to learn to understand others even more than we strive to be understood and to love even more than we seek to be loved, and to know that it is in these things, including dying, that we are born into your Kingdom to our eternal homes. Lord, we would be like Jesus . . . show us the way, for we pray in His blessed name, Amen~


Activity – Know when to quit. Learn and honor your limitations. As the season deepens and brings more and more obligations, parties, church programs, family get-togethers, and so many other things that demand our attention, it is vitally necessary for us to learn when to say, "No!" The old adage that says, "Winners never quit and quitters never win," is not so true as some would have us believe.  In a very excellent movie of some years back - called "War Games",  which is about global thermonuclear war, which would destroy the world in the process,  the conclusion comes "The only way to win is not to play at all".  So,  just as we see truth in other paradoxes of life, there is truth in the one that says, "Sometimes quitting is winning!"