Hard to Get

You who live in heaven
Hear the prayers of those of us who live on earth
Who are afraid of being left by those we love
And who get hardened in the hurt
Do you remember when you lived down here
Where we all scrape
To find the faith to ask for daily bread?
Did you forget about us after you had flown away?
Well I memorized every word you said.
Still I'm so scared I'm holding my breath
While you're up there just playing hard to get.

You who live in radiance
Hear the prayers of those of us who live in skin
We have a love that's not as patient as yours was
Still we do love now and then
Did you ever know loneliness?
Did you ever know need?
Do you remember just how long a night can get
When you are barely holding on and your friends fall asleep
And don't see the blood that's running in your sweat?
Will those who mourn be left uncomforted
While you're up there just playing hard to get?

I know you bore our sorrows
I know you feel our pain
And I know that it would not hurt any less
Even if it could be explained
And I know that I am only lashing out
At the one who loves me most
And after I have figured this all out
What I really need to know is

If you who live in eternity
Hear the prayers of those of us who live in time
We can't see what's ahead and we cannot get free
From what we've left behind
I'm reeling from these voices that keep screaming in my ears
All these words of shame and doubt, blame and regret
I can't see how you're leading me unless you led me here
To where I'm lost enough to let myself be led
And so you've been here all along I guess
It's just your ways, and you are just plain hard to get

-Rich Mullins

Harder To Believe Than Not To

What people don't realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross. It is much harder to believe than not to believe.

-Flannery O'Connor

Doing What You Are Told

…The bit of advice that comes into my head is this; don’t expect (I mean, don’t count on and don’t demand) that when you are confirmed, or when you make your first Communion, you will have all the feelings you would like to have. You may, of course: but you also may not. But don’t worry if you don’t get them. They aren’t what matter. The things that are happening to you are quite real things whether you feel as you wd. wish or not, just as a meal will do a hungry person good even if he has a cold in the head which will rather spoil the taste. Our Lord will give us right feelings if He wishes—and then we must say Thank you. If He doesn’t, then we must say to ourselves (and Him) that He knows us best. This, by the way, is one of the very few subjects on which I feel I do know something. For years after I had become a regular communicant I can’t tell you how dull my feelings were and how my attention wandered at the most important moments. It is only in the last year or two that things have begun to come right—which just shows how important it is to keep on doing what you are told.

-C. S. Lewis, Letters to Children