The spirituality of persistence may be slow in coming along - but the persistence of snows, on the other hand, is quite evident. A foot on Monday, and more again this week. No matter how fast it melts off or how we're teased with sunny skies, it just keeps coming. My initial enthusiasm for "real" winter has worn right off.
The story of Hannah and her persistence, however, has not worn off. Hannah comes to mind over and over again as I pray through this topic. I wonder what it must have been like, to be one of many wives? To know that no matter how much her husband loved her, she wasn't as valuable as the other wife. Her anguished prayers haunt me.
Is Hannah an example of the spirituality of persistence? Or an example of faith? She made an outrageous promise and kept it - how it must have hurt to give up the one thing she wanted more than anything else. This morning's lectionary reading from Genesis was about God's covenant with Abraham and Sarah. I told the children at church how God promises to be with us, even when we can't see it - like the flower seeds that will grow, even if they can't see them growing under ground. Perhaps that speaks to this spirituality of persistence that has been in my mind so often - that it is true as the hymn says, in the cold and snow of winter, lies a spring that waits to be, unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.
Which makes my heart ache. How long will the spring I'm praying for remain unrevealed? How long will the snows of suffering keep falling? Like Hannah, I keep pouring out my heart... and waiting.
2 comments:
Spring has to be on its way to you, because we actually had the fire going the other night. Crazy crazy weather.
Happy Birthday for yesterday, I hope you got my email !! XXXX
You say spring, as I watch the fat fluffy snowflakes fall outside my window. :-( lol
Thank you, I did get your email! :-)
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