lifetimes lived in moments.

moments bridging lifetimes.

eternity in moments.

i’ve been thinking about  Jesus; the crucifixion; the  resurrection. its current relevance.

how do you begin to quantify what was offered. what given. what surrendered. what discovered. the sheer depths and poignancy of it. the love given, the love being given. a fierce love. a constant love. a relentless love. a love that brings us to ourselves.

Mary Baker Eddy in her book Science and Health discusses Jesus’ time in the garden of Gethsemane as: “patient woe; the human yielding to the divine; love meeting no response, but still remaining love.”

there’s a hymn by Sarah Adams written back in 1841 that captures the power and promise of resurrection–the kind of dawning and awakening that breaks forth in the blackest of times; that prompts the kind of purity, fervency, honesty of heart and thought that launches us into the lives we were meant to live. struggle not for the sake of struggle, but struggle that sheds the dead briars and branches for new growth in our lives. struggle that surrenders to the winds of God, singing out the life within us, resurrecting, awakening, coming into our own, even as we rise higher, higher from the depths of infinity.

Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee:
E’en though it be a cross
That raiseth me;
Still all my song shall be,

Refrain
Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee.

Though like the wanderer,
The sun gone down,
Darkness be over me,
My rest a stone;
Yet in my dreams I’d be

Refrain

There let the way appear,
Steps unto heaven;
All that Thou sendest me
In mercy given;
Angels to beckon me
Refrain

Then, with my waking thoughts
Bright with Thy praise,
Out of my stony griefs
Bethel I’ll raise;
So by my woes to be
Refrain

Or if on joyful wing
Cleaving the sky,
Sun, moon, and stars forgot,
Upward I fly,
Still all my song shall be,

Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee.

nearer, nearer, even as the arms of divine Love enfold us, nearer. today. wherever we are, whoever we are, Christ’s light dawning within us. the promise of peace. the promise of life. the promise of resurrection.