Reliable Light
It’s a curious thing, a purely human situation, to propose to accomplish something and to saturate the attempt with prayer and focus and keen energy….and then to have the door slammed in one’s face and the word “NO!” shouted into one’s ear with the terrible power of God’s own acoustics.
My wife and I are sitting in our little farmhouse as the dark covers the grassy acres outside. We are stunned with the rapidity with which all the things we had hoped for in this past week fell apart and melted into nothingness. I don’t think we have given into despair, but it feels like despair. Disappointment and disillusionment and dashed hopes…they all knot together and slam into the stomach like something fired from a siege gun. It didn’t kill us, but it surely knocked us down, and we are surely gasping and blinking and trying to gather our wind back. But I do not think we have succumbed to despair.
The cool air is whispering out of the registers in the hardwood floors, and the birds are whispering to each other in the limbs of the trees surrounding our home, and tomorrow will be here before I am ready for it. But I have my beloved wife at my side, the best and noblest human being I have ever known. I have real friends I’ve never even met — friends like Annie and Carol — and I have the breath of life still within me. Sleep will come, and prayers may come, and the sun will flood its reliable light into the eastern sky in a few hours.
I will keep walking and trying. To those of you who have thought of us and prayed for us, you have my strongest and most sincere gratitude. I cherish the connection we have, unusual and technological as it may be.
~ S.K. Orr
2 Comments
Carol
My dear S.K. and Mrs. S.K.,
Having dealt with considerable degrees of “Disappointment”, “disillusionment”, “dashed hopes”, and even outright despair –
– my heart truly goes out to you…
And I would just like to say (from 20yrs learning, pondering, & praying) that in my experience, it is never God who is to blame for ‘slammed doors’ or resounding “NO!”s…
…Nothing which causes such pain is God’s doing.
It is those ‘powers’ in this world ‘opposed’ to God who (I have come to believe) have access to our prayers and an agenda for obstructing them –
– the ‘adversaries’ are working very hard now to eradicate as much Faith as possible from the world.
Maybe that sounds crazy…it’s taken me years of reasoning things out to consider it a valid conclusion..
And I’m really sorry I haven’t anything in the way of real comfort to offer, heart-sore you and your wife are feeling just now…
But what I’ve found is that sometimes (some times), knowing that it’s not a matter of ungranted prayer causing you’re suffering –
– rather, it’s a battle wound, perpetrated by the enemies of God and those who love Him..
…well, sometimes I can use that knowledge to pick myself up and fill myself with determination to stand firm against those who would use my very prayers against me in order to try and induce despair and to rip my Faith away..
I’m sorry – probably none of the above is any use to you, but since it took me almost 2 hours to get it composed and typed – I will leave it…just in case.
My heart is with you both, and I know that God’s heart is with you too.
Carol
admin
Carol, you wrote, “And I’m really sorry I haven’t anything in the way of real comfort to offer…”
Ah, but you do, and you have, my friend. Your words are the very soul of comfort. Thank you for taking the time to so thoughtfully express such empathy and spiritual compassion, and for sharing your wisdom and perspective. Mrs. Orr joins me in thanking you for reminding us of certain realities and certain eternal truths. May God bless and keep you.