joy in a hidden life with God

Tuesday morning...my younger daughter shares her anxieties about school with my older daughter and me before she goes to catch the bus. She heads off, still struggling inwardly. She runs back, saying she can't face it, but we tell her she has to, with loving words, and send her back to catch the bus. My other daughter and I drink green tea and eat grapefruit and ponder the choices she is contemplating - university, or something else for a while. It's all about the meaning of life. I myself woke up to news of the financial crises in the world and silently thanked God I at least had a supply teaching job for half a day for each of the next three days. But I know myself and life well enough to know that my only rock is God. I said something like that to my struggling daughter - that her life is in herself, with Christ. It's not in her peer group, or her classes, or her friendships or lack of them. It's all about her own hidden life with herself and with God. A pretty tall order for a 17 year old to absorb. Did I really fulfill that myself at that age? Yes and no. I was wavering too, and I didn't have a mother who told me that. I just knew that she faced stuff, with her own resources, and I tried to face stuff too. But today, along with my prayers for my daughters, and whatever help I can give them, I rejoice that, no matter what, I know Jesus Christ as my Saviour, that He lives within me, that His truth is rich and ever available to me, and that I can know Him deep within my spirit, no matter what is going on in my life. I rejoice too that my own struggles these days have made those lessons ever richer for me, and that I know because I know because I know that my feet stand firm upon the solid rock, and that my life is hidden with Him. Streams in the Desert speaks again:

"Every saintly soul that would wield great power with men must win it in some hidden Cherith. The acquisition of spiritual power is impossible, unless we can hide ourselves from men and from ourselves in some deep gorge where we may absorb the power of the eternal God, as vegetation through long ages absorbed these qualities of sunshine, which it now gives back through burning coal."