Comfort

Saturday 8/30/2014 5:02 AM

The theme of my devotions this week is prayers and promises. Most of assigned writings are prayers of various saints throughout history. They include prayers for insight, wisdom, and singularity of focus. There are prayers for a heart of service to others, a spirit of self-sacrifice and a mind that is concerned solely with the things of God. The prayers often include the desire that life can be lived with deep passion, that I can experience the depth of sorrow and the height of love that Jesus experienced in his life on earth. While I have uttered all of these prayers on one occasion or another I find that, when push comes to shove, my life is often devoid of any meaningful results. I want to offer my life as a gift to God out of gratitude for his mercy and grace but I bumble and falter in my attempts and end up feeling distraught and defeated.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poem Comfort captures my feeling this morning.

Speak low to me, my Saviour, low and sweet

From out the hallelujahs, sweet and low

Lest I should fear and fall, and miss Thee so

Who art not missed by any that entreat.

Speak to me as to Mary at thy feet –

And if no precious gums my hands bestow,

Let my tears drop like amber while I go

In reach of thy divinest voice complete

In humanest affection – thus, in sooth,

To lose the sense of losing! As a child,

Whose song-bird seeks the wood for evermore,

Is sung to in its stead by mother's mouth;

Till, sinking on her breast, love-reconciled,
He sleeps the faster that he wept before.