Words of Light and Hope from Fran Neale (AWA)

Words of Light and Hope from  Fran Neale, AWA

I read this poem over fifty years ago in the Parish magazine of the church I belonged to then, in Worthing. I don’t know who wrote it but think it says something important, though not necessarily comfortable.

God is true.

I asked for bread; God gave a stone instead.

Yet while I pillowed there my weary head,

The angels made a ladder of my dreams,

Which upward to celestial mountains led,

And when I woke beneath the morning’s beams,

Around my resting place fresh manna lay;

and, praising God, I went upon my way,

For I was fed.

 

God answers prayer: Sometimes when hearts are weak

He gives the very gifts believers seek.

But often faith must learn a deeper rest,

And trust God’s silence when He does not speak;

For He whose name is Love will send the best.

Stars may burn out, nor mountain walls endure,

But God is true, his promises are sure

For those who seek.

 

Maybe, like me, you know the first few lines of this prayer, by Reinhold Niebur, but perhaps not all of it…..

 

God grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change,

the courage to change the things I can,

and the wisdom to know the  difference.

Living one day at a a time,

enjoying one moment at a time;

accepting hardship as a pathway to peace;

taking, as Jesus did,

this sinful world as it it,

not as I would have it;

trusting that You will make all things right

if I surrender to Your will;

so that I may be reasonably happy in this life

and supremely happy with You for ever in the next.

Amen.

 

Here is a short poem I learned from my grandmother; again I don’t know who wrote it.

Let me grow lovely growing old,

So many fine things do –

Laces and ivory and gold

And silks need not be new;

And there is healing in old trees,

Old streets a glamour hold.

Why may not I as well as these

Grow lovely, growing old?