the sky is falling

Several years ago, Daniel Gottlieb was hit by semi-truck tire that flew off, over the meridian, and into his windshield. He’s paraplegic now and says that the last thing he saw was a big black thing that came out of the sky. He says he isn’t the exception, that sooner or later a big black thing flying out of the sky hits us all. That’s some of what it means to be human.

A big black thing flew out of the sky and hit a friend of mine this week. She is a beautiful wife and mother of four; the maker of a warm and welcoming home. Now she needs to know how to choose an oncologist and surgeon. She is figuring out what questions to ask and how to advocate for herself in the medical insurance industry that is notoriously self-serving.

She may have been broadsided by a foreign black object but, she insists, none of that changes the fact that God is good. God is very, very good. That's what makes her so beautiful.

i like this

“Let me talk very intimately and very earnestly with you about Him who is dearer than life. Do you really want to live your lives, every moment of your lives, in His Presence? Do you long for Him, crave Him? Do you love His Presence? Does every drop of blood in your body love him? Does every breath you draw breathe a prayer, a praise to Him? Do you sing and dance within yourselves, as you glory in His love? Have you set yourselves to be His and only His, walking every moment in holy obedience? I know I'm talking like an old-time evangelist. But I can't help that, nor dare I restrain myself and get prim and conventional. We have too long been prim and restrained. The fires of the love of God, of our love toward God, and of His love toward us, are very hot. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul and mind and strength.” Do we really do it? Is love steadfastly directed toward God, in our minds, all day long? Do we intersperse our work with gentle prayers and praises to Him? Do we live in the steady peace of God, a peace down at the very depths of our souls, where all strain is gone and God is already victor over the world, already victor over our weaknesses? This life, this abiding, enduring peace that never fails, this serene power and unhurried conquest, inward conquest of ourselves, outward conquest over the world, is meant to be ours. It is a life that is freed from strain and anxiety and hurry, for something of the Cosmic Patience of God becomes ours. Are our lives unshakable, because we are clear down on bedrock, rooted and grounded in the love of God? This is the first and greatest commandment.

Do you want to live in such an amazing divine Presence that life is transformed and transfigured and transmited into peace and power and glory and miracle?

Thomas R. Kelly, A Testament of Devotion