Love

“To love at all is to be vulnerable.  Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken.  If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal.  Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.  But in that casket-safe, dark, motionless, airless-it will change.  It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.  The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation.  The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe fromm all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.”

C.S. Lewis

In the past week I have read Till We Have Faces and The Four Loves and it has shown me how much I don’t know and understand about love, and taught me equally as much.

2

Encouragement from 1867

If you know me, more than likely you are aware of my love for old books.  With this love comes an even deeper fervor for letters/poems written in those books.  The past two weeks for me have been two of the busiest I’ve ever had with the amount of school work to complete.  However, I found that God gives us encouragement from all over, and from all times.  In my possession I have a book called The History of the Supernatural published in 1863.  On the back page of that book was penned this poem.

I work while I’m watching and waiting

For that which may speedily come

The call to go up and behold him

My fire in this beautiful home

I listen and long while i’m waiting

To catch the first note of that call

For my day is so lonely and dreary

I long for the enemy to fall;

The cool and the fading evening

The silent and sorrowless night

When I shall lie down in the slumber

Which breaks not at dawning of light

I sigh for the house of my father,

I weep for its mansions so fair

I yearn for its peace and its pleasure

For all who best love me are there

This world seems  a  wilderness dreary

My strength and my courage are spent

Yet only by work can I stifle

My desolate spirits lament

I am weary of sinning and weaping

I’m weary of dwelling alone,

With one sturdy duty to live for

I would that my duty were done!

But still let me work while i’m waiting

I will hasten that how that must come

When I shall go up to behold Him

My fire in his beautiful home

August 17th 1867 SOS

It encourages me to know that around 150 years ago someone penned this poem in the back of their book unknowing that it would encourage a college student in this day and age.

8

Psalm 111:10

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding.  His praise endures forever!

1

Freedom.

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

-Galatians 5:1

While thinking about this and the idea of struggling with physical things, yet being spiritual free….I don’t know if there is a separation.  A little further in chapter 5 it talks about if we walk by the Spirit, we will not gratify the desires of the flesh….and that I believe is the answer.  To be truly set free, is not only spiritual, but physical as well.  Though it may be a struggle, I encourage anyone caught in bondage to continue to declare that freedom in your life, not only in the spiritual, but the physical.

2