Thinking on the banks of the Neuse

---Caught in the cluttered current
Of a river called Everyday Life,
I drift, hopeless to fly, too tired to fight,
So I swim frantically, hoping
To master myself and control the drift
And either way a failure I feel,
For the lazy lying and the strenuous strokes
Can neither one change my place--
I am yet in the same river, living.

The living a fact, and forgotten
The truth of the source who Makes
The river and all in it, yet is not the river,
And until I see the life I live is not mine
To drift away and hide, or to control and spend,
By origin this life, my living, is gifted,
No right to be or do was ever less deserved,
For only Bought with a Price aptly describes
My river tour; and my tag reads "sold."

reading

"To see through to God.

  That that which tears open our souls, those holes that splatter our sight, 

may actually become the thin, open places to see through the mess of this place

to the heart-aching beauty beyond.  To Him.  To the God whom we endlessly crave.  

  Maybe so.

  But how? How do we choose to allow the holes to become seeing-through-to-God places?  To more-God places?

  How do I give up resentment for gratitude, gnawing anger for spilling joy?  Self-focus for God-communion."

These have been my questions for a while, now.  Finding another soul who wrestles and writes a story to illustrate is promising, in a quest to discover that which can transform the bitter waters to a living wellspring, full of grace and truth and joy.  Her challenge:  "A dare to an emptier, fuller life."   

One Thousand Gifts, Ann Voskamp, pp 22-23