Taken without consent

Like thieves they enter through the windows (Joel 2:9)
Loss feels so much like theft.
Families who expected years more delight from the company and love of their ageing relatives lose them in a heartbeat. University students who have spent days and weeks of worry and effort to secure a house with friends, find themselves stuck at home with their families. Couples who have planned the perfect wedding, school children who have prepared for the perfect exam, businesses that have planned the perfect product launch. All stolen.
Theft is sometimes thought to be the foundation of all crime. 'Murder steals a life. Adultery steals a wife. Slander steals a name. Cheating steals a game.' It is taking without consent, and consent can make the most terrible of events bearable.
A little known Christian mystic and missionary, Amy Carmichael of Dohnavur, who found herself confined to bed for the last two decades of her life, wrote that 'in acceptance lieth peace'. It is possible to gift consent to even the most unwelcome of circumstances, when we know deep down that the God who rules the universe loves us enough to give his life for us.

He said, ‘I will forget the dying faces;
The empty places,
They shall be filled again.
O voices moaning deep within me, cease.’
But vain the word; vain, vain:
Not in forgetting lieth peace.

He said, ‘I will crowd action upon action,
The strife of faction
Shall stir me and sustain;
O tears that drown the fire of manhood cease.’
But vain the word; vain, vain:
Not in endeavour lieth peace.

He said, ‘I will withdraw me and be quiet,
Why meddle in life’s riot?
Shut be my door to pain.
Desire, thou dost befool me, thou shalt cease.’
But vain the word; vain, vain:
Not in aloofness lieth peace.

He said, ‘I will submit; I am defeated.
God hath depleted
My life of its rich gain.
O futile murmurings, why will ye not cease?’
But vain the word; vain, vain:
Not in submission lieth peace.

He said, ‘I will accept the breaking sorrow
Which God tomorrow
Will to His son explain.’
Then did the turmoil deep within me cease.
Not vain the word, not vain;
For in Acceptance lieth peace.

Amy Carmichael, Candles in the Dark, CLC

The pebbles on Chesil beach

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