A broken tulip

It is funny how they come. We string together abstract symbols and call them “sentences”. Pencil marks form communication yet are lifeless. We know it and yet…. words can hunt you. Have you ever noticed? What you’ve heard in your dream-wanderings you find on a billboard, in advertising, in someone’s conversation on a bus.

The words that found me this weekend were taped to a blue wall, in a small blue room. The room adjoined a farmhouse. There were five or six wooden steps leading up to “the throne”. It was a compostable, no-flush toilet. The stairs and the walls were all painted, and light from the high window illuminated the few magazine pictures, the pen graffitti, and the sheets of paper in blue air.

I have seen those words before. No. I have not. It was scrawled in bold handwriting,

“I’ll never forget the trouble, the utter lostness,
    the taste of ashes, the poison I’ve swallowed.
I remember it all—oh, how well I remember—
    the feeling of hitting the bottom.
But there’s one other thing I remember,
    and remembering, I keep a grip on hope:

God’s loyal love couldn’t have run out,
    his merciful love couldn’t have dried up.
They’re created new every morning.
    How great your faithfulness!
I’m sticking with God (I say it over and over).
    He’s all I’ve got left.

God proves to be good to the man who passionately waits,
    to the woman who diligently seeks.
It’s a good thing to quietly hope,
    quietly hope for help from God.
It’s a good thing when you’re young
    to stick it out through the hard times.

When life is heavy and hard to take,
    go off by yourself. Enter the silence.
Bow in prayer. Don’t ask questions:
    Wait for hope to appear.
Don’t run from trouble. Take it full-face.
    The “worst” is never the worst.

Why? Because the Master won’t ever
    walk out and fail to return.
If he works severely, he also works tenderly.
    His stockpiles of loyal love are immense.”

The paper says this is Lamentations chapter three. I read it again and again, struck. There is beauty here and there is truth. Courage wakes up, like an eager spring flower pushing her face above a snow bank.

It’s a good thing to quietly hope, quietly hope for help from God.

How strange that words can find us. How good that in one moment they stop us, grip us, settle deep, stay.

I’m sticking with God (I say it over and over). I’m sticking with God.