Good morning…
On Thursday around noontime, we snapped the final picture of the semester. This week, our classes finished up Parker Palmer’s beloved book Let Your Life Speak.
Out loud, we read these words from page 76 of the last chapter:
“In retrospect, I can see in my own life what I could not see at the time – how the job I lost helped me find the work I needed to do, how the ‘road closed’ sign turned me toward the terrain I needed to travel, how losses that felt irredeemable forced me to discern meaning I needed to know. On the surface it seemed that life was lessening, but silently and lavishly the seeds of new life were always been sown.
…In the visible world of nature, a great truth is concealed in plain sight: diminishment and beauty, darkness and light, death and life are not opposites. They are held together in the paradox of ‘hidden wholeness.'”
All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy (Romans 8:22-25, MSG).
…Sue…
