The Right Time
I made a new acquaintance the other day and felt a genuine connection. She has walked some lonely days of late and is a widow with an empty nest, wondering what might be ahead for her. I thought of simply writing up the poem I’ve included below and mailing it to her. Shortly after our encounter, I was corresponding with another friend. He too is anticipating what life will be like when all his children have left home. Being a father has been his greatest joy.
So I thought why not go ahead and post the poem on our blog. Maybe there are others in need of encouragement. I was able to find it in an old journal from 2010, written as I looked ahead to the high school graduation of our youngest child. Motherhood seemed my highest calling in life. What else out there could bring purpose and fulfillment?
Barren Land?
Bleak and gray is this terrain; hard and dry the sod.
This earth beneath my feet feels dead. Where are you, O God?
The way ahead uncertain, the cliff there in my view.
It seems the end. There’s nothing more. Eye’s vision, heart please renew.
A still small whisper, maybe hope. Can this yet be a choice?
So faint, like calling out in a dream seeks to find a voice.
But I am mute. No words are here. Doubt muffles all heart’s tries
To grasp some truth from time ago, when hope did out-speak lies.
Rise up, o voice of hope! Speak clear! Tell me though I don’t see
That up ahead beyond that cliff, fertile green is awaiting me….
Unknown until these eyes do spy- can this land, barren, lead
To a land full with life, there now for death of seed?
Seed prayed and sown from years long past did find some ready earth?
Time knows much wiser than do I when chimes the hour for birth.
Forward through the ages reach my prayers, this mother’s yearning.
Not lost and no, not wasted… waiting for their season’s turning.
So glimpse the fertile field, heart’s eyes. Far off it seems but never late.
This earth beneath my feet WILL “green” again. I’ll rest in God and wait.
Be encouraged. I heard a most poignant insight into the book of Ecclesiastes about God making all things beautiful in its time. This passage was presented alongside the passage about a crippled man who was placed by his parents at the Gate Beautiful of the temple. They brought him there every day to beg for alms from those who would pass by. Interestingly, the word “beautiful” in the passage can be translated as “right time”. It’s the same word for beautiful that is used in Ecclesiastes. The Beautiful Gate is the Right Time Gate.
Consider for a moment the idea that Jesus himself had probably seen the man there many times as he went to the temple. He had healed others. He could have healed this man as well, but he didn’t. Yet there came a day after Jesus’s death and resurrection when Peter and John were going to the temple. The same crippled man was there as usual, begging for a handout. The scripture says they had “no silver or gold” to give him, but what they did have was the power of God to heal. The lame man was made whole that day and began dancing and praising God. (See Acts 3)
Why at that time? Why not sooner and by Jesus? In the grand sovereign plan of God, this healing miracle was to have a greater and more widespread impact for God’s kingdom on earth. It was precisely the right time.
God is not holding out on us. His timing knows only perfection. He WILL make all things beautiful in our lives. May He give us the grace to rest in His most capable arms as we wait.
