WITH GOD IN A SENSE OF PEACE AND PURPOSE

One thing is becoming increasingly clear to me: that You cannot help us, that we must help You to help ourselves. And that is all we can manage these days and also all that really matters: that we safeguard that little piece of You, God, in ourselves. And perhaps in others as well. Alas, there doesn’t seem to be much You Yourself can do about our circumstances, about our lives. Neither do I hold You responsible. You cannot help us, but we must help You and defend Your dwelling place inside us to the last. -- Interrupted Life: The Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941–1943  

I am coming to believe...sincerely believe...that our very fear will save us for nothing turns us to God faster or more sincerely than fear. The world's shortest prayer, Help!, is no doubt the world's most sincere prayer in its moment.

We hear...we preach...fear not! But, if only from our eyebrows up, we know the Way is to welcome our fear...the welcome is our turn to God. 

It may be true...if we were capable of sincerely welcoming fear, we would not fear...and probably be turning to God a lot less. 

Some years ago, I read of Etty Hillesum. (In short, she was a Dutch Jewish author who in 1943 was deported and murdered in the Auschwitz concentration camp.) When first I read her story, I felt spiritually gobsmacked, and I still do. I had read of others, not many but some, who had walked through the fire...walked through in faith and love of God and humanity...and did not come strutting out the other side looking like our idea of a winner. In the process of their dying, however, they were wholly with God in a sense of peace and purpose.

Her life, her diaries, are of God and meant to be read, reread, passed on, savored and saved for all who come after to lift us just a tish higher on every reading. 

In the process of dying, there can be naught higher than to be wholly with God in a sense of peace and purpose.

Thank you.