From the Deeps

April, Ten and Eleven

Might I but scatter interfering things--
Questions and doubts, distrusts and anxious pride,
And in Thy garment, as under gathering wings,
Nestle obedient to Thy loving side,
Easy it were to love Thee. But when Thou
Send'st me me to think and labor from Thee wide,
Love falls to asking many a why and how.

Easier it were, but poorer were the love.
Lord, I would have me love Thee from the deeps--
Of troubled thought, of pain, of weariness.
Through seething wastes below, billows above,
My soul should rise in eager, hungering leaps;
Through thorny thicks, through sands unstable press--
Out of my dream to Him who slumbers not nor sleeps.

~ George MacDonald, Diary of an Old Soul

It's so beautiful, I hardly know what to add.
But it resonates, does it not?

We want so much for our service
to be without doubts, distrusts, anxieties of any kind.
We want it to be there,
close enough to hear His heartbeat,
reclining at His table,
clean and fed.

We don't want to stand,
having lost our outer garment,
at the foot of the cross with the weepers.
But the words of the vows echo in our hearts:
in sickness and in health;
for better or for worse;
richer or poorer...

Loving Him from the deeps
of troubled thoughts and pain and weariness,
of seething wastes and tossing waves,
of thorny thickets and quick sands.

O Lord...
That we would love You as You love us.
You sweat blood
and suffered hunger and sleeplessness.
You intercede for us when You're out of sight,
and touch our wounds to heal when You're near.
From depths we can't even comprehend You have loved us.
From the cup You shuddered to drink,
and the nails You stretched Your hands to,
and the thorns pounded into Your brow.
From nakedness and sorrow You loved us.
From homelessness and rejection.
From thirst and mockery.