AUGUST 8
She thought that she had never before had a chance to realize
the might, grimness and tenderness of God. She thought that
now for the first time she began to know herself, and she
gained extraordinary hope in this beginning of knowledge.
—JAMES AGEEIf we have ever wondered about the limits of our strength
and our ability to endure, our experience of loss will tell us
much. Our life is shaken to the foundation. But we survive.
And out of this terrible, rarefied self-knowledge comes, if
we are fortunate, a kind of empathy with all of creation—a
sense of the wonder at the suffering and the beauty, of the
world. We know ourselves to be in this world, to be part of
it and also that it is out of our hands. We cannot manage
any of it, but we are in the hands of One who can.
In this purifying and terrible wisdom, may I feel the regenerating
presence of God, for consolation, and for hope.