From Jim McGuiggan... MARSH HENS & GLORIOUS PEOPLE

MARSH HENS & GLORIOUS PEOPLE

Sidney Lanier, the poet, tells us he used to be afraid of and depressed by the marshes of Glynn that lay right on the edge of the sea. At one stage in his life their length was fatigue and their breadth was bitterness to him. But as he grew older and wiser he came to see them differently—they were no longer places of doom and gloom. They were still marshes mind you, but there was a new way to look at them now that his eyes were opened; there were wonders and mysteries that could be entered into without terror and unnamable pain.

There were creatures of mystery and joy swimming beneath the surface, there were walks for lovers and places for those who hunger for silence.

When the sun was in the right place the marshes were sheets of burnished copper or thirty million moving and laughing lights.

There were old oaks that knew more than they were telling and then there was the marsh hen who loved the place, raised her family there and would have clucked to the burdened boy. "Now that’s just silly. This place? Frightening and depressing? Never." And Lanier, now assured and at peace in believing, became firm friends with the marsh hen and tells us this:

As the marsh hen secretly builds on the watery sod,
Behold I will build me a nest on the greatness of God:
I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh hens flies
In the freedom that fills all the space ‘twixt the marsh and the skies

Ask those who’ve come through times of doubt or trouble and they’ll tell you it’s true. Once the eyes are opened in faith, the places that before were only darkness become the "darkness where God is" (see Exodus 20:21) and they take on them an added assurance of peace. Before the fires or the marshes or the endless dark corridors of limitless space test your faith you may worry and fret about its reliability—will it hold? But once you’ve been there, in that place, under that pressure, once you’ve had it out in a face to face confrontation you recognize these experiences as friends. Or if not friends, at least places of safety where no threat can harm. "I thought if I lost her it would be the end." "I just knew my life would shatter into a million useless fragments if he went away." "I was convinced that...but then..." And here you are, watching the marsh hen going about her business.

In Romans 8:31-39 someone who had seen the marshes of life up close and personal said that nothing—not pain, hunger, loneliness, beatings, past, present, future, life or death—nothing! could persuade him that God doesn’t love us.

Build your nest on the greatness and faithfulness of God who came to us in and as Jesus Christ, who lived in the marshes of life along with us. He didn't pretend "the marsh" was a manicured park but he lived in it with the full assurance of faith that LIFE was possible there and he demonstrated it by a life of glory and beauty and gallantry, beginning in Bethlehem's manger. And for this cause he has a special place in his heart for those realists who trust in God and live gallant lives in the marshes. 

There IS a great day coming!

©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.

Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.