Joy and Tears Blending

Written July 1994

Deisul Mountains, Irian Jaya, Indonesia

My professional career and health challenges have followed a path common to those who have post-polio syndrome. In my 40's I was forced to retire from a stimulating profession as a missionary linguist in Irian Jaya, Indonesia. Here I talk to God about it all..

I am a tumble of thoughts and emotions. One minute expressing the pure joy of the encouragements You have sent, the next being close to tears of pain at the losses. But people tell me how this honest blending touches them.

That leaves me with a similar humble awe as I used to feel looking at those wild towering Irian Jaya mountains, trying and failing to comprehend the power that pushed them up so straight and tall. Power persistently demanding conscious humbled recognition as it regularly shook those mighty mountains, sliding soil down sheer cliffs, exposing rock that winds and time took decades to cover.

Fear of that power softened to wonder at the sight of the bursting joy of  waterfalls leaping, laughing with unrestrained abandon down those same cliffs. The same cliffs displaying trembling scars and laughing beauty. Those two needing to dwell together for the mountain to declare the full wonder of your power.

I am much smaller than those giant mountains, but I am a much greater creation. My heart isn't mere stone. It is alive. It has been given grace and faith with which to blend the weeping and the laughing into an even more wondrous declaration of your power. Your power in a human heart. That is what the painful scraping and washing joy -- wedded -- expose. Awesome.