joy in finding the golden threads of His love

Yesterday these words jumped out for me from the daily reading in Streams in the Desert:

"God's promises and God's providences do not lift us out of the plane of common sense and commonplace trial, but it is through these very things that faith is perfected, and that God loves to interweave the golden threads of His love along the warp and woof of our everyday experience."

There was no author of those words, but the name of a book given, Hard Places in the Way of Faith.

As well as loving the words and the expression of a truth that I feel so deeply, I felt such an affirmation of what I am doing in this blog. What is happening in my life, and what I am sharing, in a daily way, is just that - that I find God's golden threads in the midst of pain, struggle, and wonder. I describe it as finding joy, but that is really what I mean. I think from tomorrow on I will use that quote in my blog description, and keep it as a clear reminder to me each day of what I am trying to say to myself, and to others.

And it reminds me of how I view the book it was quoted in. I used to read Streams in the Desert a lot as a daily devotional. It was a great comfort, and then there came a time when I abandoned it, finding it depressing, or perhaps too dark. I guess I gave away my copies, for I had two volumes of it. Then a copy came my way this summer, by accident, actually, at the thrift store, where, despite what I said yesterday, there were many blessings and I learned so much about myself. (as we always do even when we have made choices that were not the best). Now of course it is not hard for you to see that I embrace it as a comfort once again. Even more so I find it an essential voice of truths that I have lived and am living very deeply within my being. That in itself is another golden thread of God's love in my everyday experience. The bittersweet threads are golden, I think.