What’s the rush?

The Slow Return of Hope

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On the web – 4

It’s quite easy in life to bounce from one thing to another without paying much attention to anything. It’s the usual mode of the world we live in. But when we do that, we miss a very great deal. We don’t really get into the deeper aspects, we don’t think things through properly. On the one hand we don’t see the wood for the trees, but on the other hand we don’t have time to even get to know one, single tree in the depth it deserves – the crevices in the bark, the shades of green in the details of the leaves, the patterns of the veins in those same leaves, the gentle sound of the breeze filtering through the canopy. The aroma of moist earth and leaf-mould.

Sandy doesn’t make that mistake, it’s even in the title of her blog – Run with Patience (KJV Heb 12:1). Here’s an extract from a recent article to give you a flavour of her approach, at the end of the extract I’ll place a link so you can read the rest direct on Sandy’s site.

Extract from Sandy’s article – The slow Return of Hope

There are seasons when the soul does not sing easily. Seasons where faith feels less like soaring and more like sitting quietly in the dark, trying to remember what light once felt like.

I think that’s why I keep returning to Book of Lamentations, not because it resolves suffering neatly nor because it offers quick comfort, but because it refuses to lie about pain.

The older I get, the more I realize how rare that is.

We live in a culture deeply uncomfortable with grief. We rush people through heartbreak. We hand out silver linings while wounds are still open. Even in faith spaces, we sometimes move too quickly toward redemption language because suffering itself makes us uneasy. We want resurrection without sitting at the tomb. We want healing without fully acknowledging what was lost.

But Book of Lamentations lingers in the ruins. It lets the smoke rise, the silence ache, and grief breathe.

And strangely, that honesty feels sacred to me.

Because there are losses in life that cannot be reduced to inspirational lessons. Some grief changes the architecture of a person. Some suffering rearranges the nervous system, the body, the assumptions you once held about safety, love, God, or the world itself.

Sometimes you survive something, but you do not emerge untouched.

I think Scripture knows this better than we often allow ourselves to admit.

Read the full article on Run with Patience

Here’s the entire article on Sandy’s site. I suggest you read it to discover the precious truth it contains. Explore the other articles on Sandy’s thoughtful site as well. Perhaps bookmark the blog, or sign up for email notifications whenever new articles appear.

See also:

• The sound of staying – Run with patience
• Yaroslava (Culture, history and life in Ukraine) – X (ex-Twitter)

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Run with patience

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