Sweet Revival of the Soul

“True hope dwells on the possible, even when life seems to be a plot written by someone who wants to see how much adversity we can overcome. True hope responds to the real world, to real life; it is an active effort.”

— Walter Anderson

Struggling souls depend on hope for revival. That hope is awakened by faith-held action—to go on in the hopeless, helpless moment, beyond the negative pale, redeeming the positive.

To be sung in the first person, here is a poem, for you, if your mood descends to the blue:

Swimming against the tide of abandonment, I remind myself of divine enchantment. (For, I am won to the Saviour who descended for me.)

Tumbling in the mix of desolating confusion, I remind myself of the Presence of No Illusion. (God, no less.)

Flattened by the reticence of goals, I remind myself of the Resurrector of souls. (We are raised by request, yet again, by the Son.)

Numbed at the gapingly vacant soul-mood, there is cherished remembrance of nourishing divine food. (Jesus is the Bread of Life.)

When We Feel Abandoned

Rejection is the lowest form of emotion we can experience, for it has trusted in love and unfaithfulness has failed it.

When we feel abandoned we ought to remember the Son scooped and won us. Abandonment has no victory over the soul revived, afresh, by the Holy Spirit.

When We Feel Confused

Chaotic thinking and anxiety abounding, there are times like these where our hearts cannot make sense of our heads.

When we feel confused we ought to remember the Foundation—that Presence of No Illusion is there, in our midst, calming the flailing mind, urging us to take self-respite. The busied mind must take its space.

When We Feel Like A Failure

Whilst the goal of life is to hit the target, whatever that is, we frequently miss. Hope tells us that failure cannot ever define us, unless by choice; to succumb to the inaction of fear when going on in action—the opposite of how we feel—would be the right and better thing to do.

When we feel like a failure we ought to remember there is a Resurrector of souls we call upon in moments like these—to lift us into modes of learning-despite-humiliation and into that raised state of trying again.

When We Feel Empty And Numb

Numbness is possibly the most hopeless of states; yet, it, of itself, is not beyond hope.

When we feel empty and numb we ought to remember to be gentle with ourselves; to go to the divine feeding trough, to the Bread of Life, and eat for rest.

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Whether we feel abandoned, confused, like a failure, or empty and numb, sweet revival of the soul is but the vision of hope away. Hope believes because it can, especially when all of life is against it. Hope remembers the vision far off and feels the Presence of God near.

© 2013 S. J. Wickham.