mary
03-01-2006, 04:42 AM
A dear friend and former boss of mine, a man in his late fifties who is now - and rather suddenly - completely disabled by rampaging Parkinson's Disease, gave me this poem yesterday when I took him out to lunch. (He does know about my "church situation.")
Don't Quit
When things go wrong as they often will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest if you must, but don't you quit!
Life is odd with its twists and turns,
As every one of us learns,
And many a failure turns about
When he might have won, had he stuck it out.
Don't give up, though the pace seems slow,
You may succeed with just another blow!
Success is failure turned inside out,
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are.
It may be near when it seems so far.
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit.
It's when things seem worst
That you must not quit.
This man is a rabbinic Jew and for years, I've been witnessing to him re: the real Jewish Messiah. I felt like saying to him yesterday, "Yes, David, it was when things seemed worst for Messiah that He didn't quit - He went the distance for us... Right to the cursed tree..." I didn't say exactly that yesterday, but he knows anyway...
When I got home from this lunch out, I found that a member of our old church, one who knows some of my "real story" with that church, had sent me an e-mail "slide show" of his son's recent wedding - complete with horrid, disgusting pictures of "pastor," smiling his slimy smile. I thought, why would someone be that cruel? Then I remembered, this is how "the world" treats the Lord's own. They laugh at them, mock them, attempt to physically and emotionally injure them - but they can't touch the Holy Spirit living inside us. "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" No one, nothing!
"The world" and its abusive churches just get meaner and meaner - but those who are the Lord's can never be mortally wounded...
Love, grace in abundance and His peace to all,
mary
Don't Quit
When things go wrong as they often will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest if you must, but don't you quit!
Life is odd with its twists and turns,
As every one of us learns,
And many a failure turns about
When he might have won, had he stuck it out.
Don't give up, though the pace seems slow,
You may succeed with just another blow!
Success is failure turned inside out,
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are.
It may be near when it seems so far.
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit.
It's when things seem worst
That you must not quit.
This man is a rabbinic Jew and for years, I've been witnessing to him re: the real Jewish Messiah. I felt like saying to him yesterday, "Yes, David, it was when things seemed worst for Messiah that He didn't quit - He went the distance for us... Right to the cursed tree..." I didn't say exactly that yesterday, but he knows anyway...
When I got home from this lunch out, I found that a member of our old church, one who knows some of my "real story" with that church, had sent me an e-mail "slide show" of his son's recent wedding - complete with horrid, disgusting pictures of "pastor," smiling his slimy smile. I thought, why would someone be that cruel? Then I remembered, this is how "the world" treats the Lord's own. They laugh at them, mock them, attempt to physically and emotionally injure them - but they can't touch the Holy Spirit living inside us. "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?" No one, nothing!
"The world" and its abusive churches just get meaner and meaner - but those who are the Lord's can never be mortally wounded...
Love, grace in abundance and His peace to all,
mary