autumn life

it is easy to forget that this is a story, that God has a plan, that something is happening here, that there will be a climax.  there is resolution.

there is reason to hope.  every day.  every moment.  every thought.  we have something to hope in, someone to hope in.  true Hope.

i guess that there has been a lot going on lately.  a lot has changed in these past few weeks.  it seems that my life here is completely different. and with all of these changes i have been greatly encouraged.  i have felt great peace.  i know that God has been sustaining me in these days. He has been strengthening me.  but i also need work.  i need practice.  i do not yet have the foundation of inner solitude and peace.  i do not yet live completely out of faith and hope and love.  

i need rest.  

i need quiet.  

i need space.  

i need solitude.

i need to be able to think, to read, to meditate, to pray.  i need to be still and quiet without interruptions, without distractions.  i need order in my life.  i need discipline.  i want discipline!  i want order.  i want stillness and quiet.  i want to live in the Presence of God.  i want to love people, but i want to Love God!  i want to live for Him alone, to be captivated by Him, to be filled with the fullest delight, to be enamored by His beauty, His radiance, His glory.

it is still hot today, but something feels like autumn.  the color of the sky seems new.  the shade seems cool.  the birds have a new song.  life has a new feel.  i think that it is beautiful and symbolic that autumn, the season of falling, the season of dying things, allows me to experience so much life.  this new feeling has come at the end of a new, tiresome week.  and it has brought with it so much Hope and so much Peace.  

today we are making bread for church tomorrow.  and while we are doing so, i am thinking about the Bread of Life, the Son of the living God, who become nothing, that i might become the smallest something.  

in death we find life.  

in darkness we find illumination.  

in suffering, we find the healing of our souls.   

in the simplest things, we find the fullness of the Beauty of the Gospel.  

may we cling to Life. 

may we resist death.  

may we sing with Joy and cry with Hope.  

may we be broken with Christ and poured out with Love.