SONG OF THE APOSTLE

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith for the Years of Winter… ©

“Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle…” [Romans 1:1]

“And to keep me from being too elated by the abundance of revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me, to keep me from being too elated.” [II Corinthians 12:7]

SONG OF THE APOSTLE

I thank, Thee, most gracious God,

for this terrible affliction,

in my flesh, in my eyes,

in my bones, in my brain,

this sand-paper for the scraggly soul,

this severe mercy that gives

me no jot or tittle of time

to think or feel or wonder,

but makes me plumb the line

between far heaven and close hell

This charity so spare and lean

that it is so plumbly full

of torment and harassment

and love and grace

in unequal measure

I have asked you so often, so often,

to remove this thorn from me,

pull it as from a lion’s paw

that I might follow Thee better,

closer, straighter, fuller,

white and pure as a fuller makes

a heavenly robe to shine

For do not all of Thine children have robes?

Am I the only one, called to be Thine apostle,

even, who is denied the robe of purity?

But sufficient for the day is the evil

and the grace thereof, Thou hast said,

and sufficient, thus, even for an apostle,

that in the pain of my affliction

is my salvation

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I tweet as yooper1721.

My youthful ambition was to be a journalist, and write a column for a newspaper. So I think of this blog as an online column. I started it several years ago, when we followed the grandchildren to the “place of winter,” Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula [The UP]. I put that in the sub-title, ”Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter, where life is defined by winter even in the summer!” [This phrase is explained in the post for March 20, 2014.] We no longer live in “the place of winter.” The grandchildren grew up, so in May, 2015 we moved “home,” to Bloomington, IN, where we met and married. It’s not a “place of winter,” but we are still in winter years of the life cycle, so I continue to work at understanding what it means to be a follower of Christ in winter…