March 19, 2014
I usually travel back and forth between St. Louis and Kansas City in the Ford Explorer that you have so graciously made available to me for the purpose. Occasionally, however, I ride the train. With Amtrak as my chauffeur, I get to enjoy the landscape, catch up on my reading, and if I’m so inclined, use my computer and the internet to get my work done.
I traveled by train this Tuesday, as it so happens, and Delilah Canning was nice enough to get me to the Kirkwood train station. In the course of our conversation she gave me the copy of a poem that seems particularly apt in light of our shared study of my book, Blackbird Singing in the Dead of Night. It highlights our faith conviction that though God has a way of transforming the meaning of our struggles. He knows how to take the hard stuff of life and use it to develop us. The poem uses gender specific language; but the truth and encouragement it shares is for all of us.
When God wants to drill a man,
And thrill a man,
And skill a man
When God wants to mold a man
To play the noblest part;
When He yearns with all His heart
To create so great and bold a man
That all the world shall be amazed,
Watch His methods, watch His ways!
How He ruthlessly perfects
Whom He royally elects!
How He hammers him and hurts him,
And with mighty blows converts him
Into trial shapes of clay which
Only God understands;
While his tortured heart is crying
And he lifts beseeching hands!
How He bends but never breaks
When his good He undertakes;
How He uses whom He chooses,
And which every purpose fuses him;
By every act induces him
To try His splendor out-
God knows what He’s about. - Anonymous
I usually travel back and forth between St. Louis and Kansas City in the Ford Explorer that you have so graciously made available to me for the purpose. Occasionally, however, I ride the train. With Amtrak as my chauffeur, I get to enjoy the landscape, catch up on my reading, and if I’m so inclined, use my computer and the internet to get my work done.
I traveled by train this Tuesday, as it so happens, and Delilah Canning was nice enough to get me to the Kirkwood train station. In the course of our conversation she gave me the copy of a poem that seems particularly apt in light of our shared study of my book, Blackbird Singing in the Dead of Night. It highlights our faith conviction that though God has a way of transforming the meaning of our struggles. He knows how to take the hard stuff of life and use it to develop us. The poem uses gender specific language; but the truth and encouragement it shares is for all of us.
When God wants to drill a man,
And thrill a man,
And skill a man
When God wants to mold a man
To play the noblest part;
When He yearns with all His heart
To create so great and bold a man
That all the world shall be amazed,
Watch His methods, watch His ways!
How He ruthlessly perfects
Whom He royally elects!
How He hammers him and hurts him,
And with mighty blows converts him
Into trial shapes of clay which
Only God understands;
While his tortured heart is crying
And he lifts beseeching hands!
How He bends but never breaks
When his good He undertakes;
How He uses whom He chooses,
And which every purpose fuses him;
By every act induces him
To try His splendor out-
God knows what He’s about. - Anonymous