The poetry of real life

I wrote recently on the loss of important things in our lives, now I must write on the advent of things unexpected and the Providence of God.  The longer I live and the more experience I have, the more I see and understand that life is not a random floundering about between conception and death, but rather a vivid story with an Author who knows the details of his tale down to the number of hairs on each character's head and can track the movements of every subatomic particle in creation.  I cannot imagine reading such a tome, I have a hard enough time with Tolkien's profuse description of scenery, but I am happy to live my part of it day by day and see what new adventure awaits therein.  The universe and our individual lives are not some cosmic accident wending their way towards oblivion, but are a finely wrought, dynamic work of art with plan and purpose, direction and meaning.  Just as we cannot see the end of the story in the third sentence or judge the full concerto in the overture, so we cannot always know what comes next in our lives or even our world, but we can trust Him who takes the pains to make each snowflake unique and apply a name to every star.  Sorrow, fear, and grief are all too common and to be expected in this fallen world of ours, but there is an end to the story, the true Happily Ever After, and sense in the chaos of daily life.  Just because we cannot see it Today does not mean it is not there, we are simply in the middle of a chapter or at the beginning of the song.

I wrote of my own career coming to an abrupt end, but now I find that it means a new beginning, a different adventure for our family.  One chapter closes, another begins.  What feels a grievous loss, an ending without meaning, is simply the next step in whatever plot is unfolding in our lives.  There is a sunrise beyond the nightfall, a spring after winter, meanwhile we have a 'song in the night' until 'joy comes with the morning."

The book of Psalms always puzzled me as a child, why were all these complaints and cries of sorrow and anger written and preserved in scripture?  As an adult who has survived a few 'trials and tribulations' of my own now, I understand and love this book that once bored and confused me as a child.  This book is perhaps the most human of all the books found in scripture.  Angry with God or circumstance?  Happy beyond belief?  Sorrowful and repentant?  Miserable and despairing?  Hopeless and lost?  Thoughtful and quiet?  Grateful?  Have I got a psalm for you!  No other book so perfectly captures the full range of human experience and emotion and our relation to God therein.  Whether you want praise or complaints or comfort, it is there.  Even Christ sought solace from the cross in its words, the very words that foretold His fate.  Man may not understand God, but God certainly understands man, in fact walked in his very shoes and filled an ancient book of poetry with the deepest cries of his soul.