I'm slowed down for awhile. I could feel it coming on for about a month and finally decided last weekend that I should go to the ER for the pain in my leg. Confirmed blood clot. The good news is that with a newer medication, I'm not as immobilized as I was ten years ago when I had a clot. The bad news is that we can't meet up and get our grands for a 10-day stay that we were all looking forward to next week. Bummer. :-(
None of us are exempt from trials and tribulations. My mother is having radiation treatment for a cancer on her ankle. Three appointments per week for six weeks. And a friend just had cancer surgery on her hand. If I took a few moments to think about it, I could go through the pews of our church and name many more friends who have toil and trouble in one form or another. Adam's Fall has brought suffering to us all.
As I was writing a card this morning to my friend who just had surgery, I tucked a little tract written by Elisabeth Elliot into the card. A long-time friend back home had sent it to me many moons ago, and God used it to speak encouragement into my heart. So much so that I had ordered a hundred copies to tuck into cards over the years.
I'd like to share its thought with you in hopes that God may use it to encourage you today as well. Elisabeth quotes the painter John Ruskin:
There is no music in a rest, but there is making of music in it. In our whole life-melody, the music is broken off here and there by 'rests,' and we foolishly think we have come to the end of time. God sends a time of forced leisure—sickness, disappointed plans, frustrated efforts—and makes a sudden pause in the choral hymn of our lives and we lament that our voices must be silent, and our part missing in the music which ever goes up to the ear of the Creator. How does the musician read the rest? See him beat time with unvarying count and catch up the next note true and steady, as if no breaking place had come between. Not without design does God write the music of our lives. But be it ours to learn the time and not be dismayed at the 'rests.' They are not to be slurred over, nor to be omitted, nor to destroy the melody, nor to change the keynote. If we look up, God Himself will beat time for us. With the eye on Him we shall strike the next note full and clear.Disappointed, yes. Dismayed, no.
My music measure for now is a 'rest,' and the Master Musician will catch up the next note true and steady.
Image ~ Mrs. Meigs at the Piano Organ
Chase William Merritt, 1849-1916
public domain via WikiMedia Commons
