I write this in a time of trouble, but even in the pit I must praise the God who made me, raised me and sustains me.
In December, I wrote: “…try harder I must, but differently, in love and in the spirit.” It has been more than half a year since then, and in that time, grace has enabled me. I also wrote: “No longer can I say that the fount of living water is the source with which my life is nourished.” But where I was dead, I received new life. I’ve been a channel of that fount; I’ve seen the growth from that nourishment; I’ve known joy I could not contain, and it spilled over: and so the water flowed anew.
But now I am drained dry.
*
In the wake of an unresolved dispute, I often can’t help but consider the yet-to-be-made laws that would have prevented the failure of communication. An easy one is: ‘Be honest.’ A more elaborate one on the same theme might be: ‘An honest accusation is preferable to dissembling dishonesty.’ But this is a vain striving.
It is futile to hope on any humanly basis, whether it is the love within a family or the exchanges of friendship, that any of these would-be commandments will be accepted, much less followed: God’s first command was broken, and we still think Adam and Eve should have known better; His nation did not keep the Ten He gave them, and they (and others) have since been subject to the powers that arose in the wake of their scattering; we who are aware of His will rebel against it, and I am convicted by the knowledge of my guilt. So we are lost, and on earth we are doomed to estrangement.
I was lost but for the fact that our Lord left us the vastly simpler command to love. This I could neither deny nor reject, because as I cried out in the knowledge of the futility of my hopes, I realized at the same time that I could not contemplate a future without love. I’d known His love, and I would have no other: to have any love without His love would be poverty. I felt like I would be nothing and have nothing without it, and even as I rebelled against that unworldly notion, I remembered the words that had been written in Corinthians: If I have not love, I am nothing. If I have not love, I gain nothing.
Even as I meditated on the futility of hope, these words saved me from despair: “Love never ends.” I began to pray.
*
I am drained dry. I am out of love from the struggle of my weak heart. That struggle will avail me nothing without love, and I pray for grace. Lord, have mercy on me in my hour of trial and in the hours of the trials to come. Christ, come among us once again.
