Does life never frighten you with its bleakness, Anne Shirley?

This line from Kevin Sullivan's movie masterpiece often comes to mind when Life crowds in with things heart-rendingly woeful.  Such events so often come in groups swiftly causing our focus to slip from the True.

Of late, there have been several of immense proportions touching the life of our family.  Among them  are those much loved who have chosen to leave the Excellent Way and make shipwreck of their lives leaving incalculable devastation in their wake.  While others find a valiant and productive life of one much beloved slipping from their grasp in a way beyond human control while they can only sit by in bewilderment.

Add to these the daily disappointments and other small-potato losses of the Ordinary and I find myself falling to my knees and pushing my little boat into the stream of scripture.  

Gone are the days when I spin in the why cycle.  "Why" doesn't enter in to the equation.  Whys were settled before the Throne in other such times. But the patchwork cloak of bafflement and the heaviness it brings envelop. Emotion broadsides bringing tears and grief brings on a slowness of pace and thought.

  

There is also a return to the well remembered pain of yet another great family loss but a few short years ago.

Then, as is always the way of Mercy,  glory visits.  For us this season, it is the bringing yet another new little lad into our clan circle.  Babies are always the perfect reminder that there is a Time for all things under Heaven and a continuum and purpose to the days we are given.

Too, there is the reminder that bleakness may seem our lot here in the Shadowland.  Yet the reminder comes that we walk through the Valley of the Shadow.  We are not pitching our tent there. Praise Him.

The eternal God is  [our] refuge and dwelling place,

and underneath are the everlasting arms....

No matter how low the spirits, how deep the despair, underneath even those are the strong arms of the Eternal God, unseen and perhaps even unfelt, yet there.  Always there.  Count on it.  

Again and again, praise Him!

Selah.

________

Anne of Green Gables, the Continuing Story

Deuteronomy 33.27, Amp.

Image of a Jewish cemetery in Prague by Lynnette Austin McMinn