Tag: Streams in the Desert

Count Thy Sunbeams Now!

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This morning I drove my son to work early. I got a good night’s sleep…thank you, Lord…and was listening to this new song I discovered from one of those corny Hallmark Christmas movies. It’s a sad Christmas song, and I think if the songwriter added an emotional bridge, it would be a classic.

Anyway, this song reminded me of a very painful Christmas sixteen years ago. There was a fight, and me and the nine kids (I was pregnant with the caboose) left and went to my parents for the holiday. It was the beginning of many low points. It was the beginning of the end.

The song reminded me of the days of many children. The days of many regrets…not regretting the kids, but many of my decisions during those years. Normally this line of thinking would land me in the “depths of despair” to quote Ms. Shirley, but not this morning, I just left it for what it was. Mistakes were made, but there were some good memories.

After I got home, I read today’s devotional in Mrs. Cowman’s Streams in the Desert, Vol. II. She quotes Psalm 92:1, It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord. She starts the devotional with these lines:

The remorse of memory is the pain of having failed to enjoy yourself. Have you ever felt that kind of remorse? Have you ever come to a time in which you looked back upon the past, and learned how little you valued it? To find that days were happy when the days are gone, to learn that one is passing through Elysium and not know it, to see the light on the hill only when it is setting – that is one of the saddest of all experiences. It is the climax of pain when I say with the poetess: “Oh, while my brother with me played, Would I had loved him more!”

I had read that quote before and didn’t understand it, until this morning. When we add gratitude to our lives, gratitude for the good and the bad, we create appreciation, value if you will, to those times. As I look back at that painful Christmas, I realize how good my kids were, for enduring what they did with resiliency and grace. They were and continue to be good sports.

Below is the rest of the devotional, which I must add because it is written by George Matheson, one of my favorite brothers in the Lord. I am looking forward to meeting him when I go….

My soul, wouldst thou be free from that pain — that remorse of memory? Thou mayest be so; live in present thanksgiving! Count thy sunbeams now! Treasure today the gems that are strewn upon thy path! The love that is merely retrospective is a very painful thing. I would not have thee wake to the glory of a past only when it is past —  desire one of the days of the Son of Man after He ascended. If thy days of sorrow at any time should cloud thy days of joy, I should like thee to be able to say, ‘Well, while they lasted, I did appreciate them.’ There are some who want to feel at death that their life has been a vain show. I would not have it so with thee, O my soul. I should like when death comes, to feel that I had thoroughly enjoyed life —  taken the honey from the flower as God meant me to take it. I should like to know that I had not defrauded myself of my birthright, that I made room for others because I had had my share. The cup of gladness which my Father has given me shall I not drink it, even unto the dregs!

I shall thank Him for every bird that sings. I shall praise Him for every flower that blows. I shall bless Him for every stream that warbles. I shall love Him for every heart that loves. I shall see the sparkling of the cup ere it passes to the hand of my brother. There shall be no remorse of memory when I have thanked God for today.                                              — George Matheseon

Hallelujah, and thank you, Lord for this chilly, wonderful Day.

 

 

Be Still, and Know…

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Today’s devotion from Mrs. Cowman’s Streams in the Desert was wonderful. I mean, I was nearly weeping in the bath from its extraordinary beauty. She shares a quote from my Scottish brother in the Lord, George Matheson, who I happen to share a birthday with. I wish I could write like he did. Such beauty, cadence and meaning are captured in these words. As I read, I glanced up at the only wall hanging I have in the bathroom…a cheap wall decor from Ross, yet with these priceless words: Be Still, and Know.

One of my items on my bucket list would be to write a devotional. However, when Mrs. Cowman has already collected these kinds of entries, I doubt whether I have anything to add to her collections. So, here is January 15th’s devotion from Streams in the Desert. Enjoy!

“And the Lord appeared unto Isaac the same night.” (Gen. 26:24)

“Appeared the same night,” the night on which he went to Beer-sheba. Do you think this revelation was an accident? Do you think the time of it was an accident? Do you think it could have happened on any other night as well as this? If so, you are grievously mistaken. Why did it come to Isaac in the night on which he reached Beer-sheba? Because that was the night he reached rest. In his old locality, he had been tormented. There had been a whole series of petty quarrels about the possession of paltry wells. There are no worries like little worries, particularly if there is an accumulation of them. Isaac felt this. Even after the strife was past, the place retained a disagreeable association. He determined to leave. He sought a change of scene. He pitched his tent away from the place of former strife. That very night the revelation came. God spoke when there was no inward storm. He could not speak when the mind was fretted; His voice demands the silence of the soul. Only in the hush of the spirit could Isaac hear the garments of his God sweep by. His still night was his starry night.

My soul, hast thou pondered these words, “Be still, and know”? In the hour of perturbation, thou canst not hear the answer to thy prayers. How often has the answer seemed to come long after! The heart got no response in the moment of its crying – in its thunder, its earthquake, and its fire. But when the crying ceased, when the stillness fell, when thy hand desisted from knocking on the iron gate, when the interest of other lives broke the tragedy of thine own, then appeared the long-delayed reply. Thou must rest, O soul, if thou wouldst have thy heart’s desire. Still the beating of thy pulse of personal care. Hide thy tempest of individual trouble behind the altar of a common tribulation and, that same night, the Lord shall appear to thee. The rainbow shall span the place of the subsiding flood, and in thy stillness thou shalt hear the everlasting music.  — George Matheson

Tread in solitude thy pathway,
Quiet heart and undismayed.
Thou shalt know things strange, mysterious,
Which to thee no voice has said.

While the crowd of petty hustlers
Grasps at vain and paltry things,
Thou wilt see a great world rising
Where soft mystic music rings.

Leave the dusty road to others,
Spotless keep thy soul and bright,
As the radiant ocean’s surface
When the sun is taking flight.

(from the German of V. Schoffel)

 

 

Waiting For Hope

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Probably my favorite passage from Mrs. Charles Cowman’s Streams in the Desert – July 26

For we through the Spirit by faith wait for the hope of righteousness  – Galatians 5:5

There are times when things look very dark to me–so dark that I have to wait even for hope. It is bad enough to wait in hope. A long-deferred fulfillment carries its own pain, but to wait for hope, to see no glimmer of a prospect and yet refuse to despair; to have nothing but night before the casement and yet to keep the casement open for possible stars; to have a vacant place in my heart and yet to allow that place to be filled by no inferior presence–that is the grandest patience in the universe. It is Job in the tempest; it is Abraham on the road to Moriah; it is Moses in the desert of Midian; it is the Son of man in the Garden of Gethsemane. There is no patience so hard as that which endures, “as seeing him who is invisible”; it is the waiting for hope.

Thou hast made waiting beautiful; Thou has made patience divine. Thou hast taught us that the Father’s will may be received just because it is His will. Thou hast revealed to us that a soul may see nothing but sorrow in the cup and yet may refuse to let it go, convinced that the eye of the Father sees further than its own.

Give me this Divine power of Thine, the power of Gethsemane. Give me the power to wait for hope itself, to look out from the casement where there are no stars. Give me the power, when the very joy that was set before me is gone, to stand unconquered amid the night, and say, “To the eye of my Father it is perhaps shining still.” I shall reach the climax of strength when I have learned to wait for hope.  –George Matheson

Strive to be one of those–so few–who walk the earth with ever-present consciousness–all mornings, middays, star-times–that the unknown which men call Heaven is “close behind the visible scene of things.”