Certainty is certainly a thing to be admired. Assurance a thing to applaud. A steadfast nature something to cherish – mountains and marriage vows, unrelenting conviction and martyrs’ deaths. I am finding that there is little that is not finite and fickle. Stones that have stood a thousand years end in flame, and mountains – those granite cathedrals, nature’s Notre Dames – crumble and fall into the sea. I find myself a kindred wayfarer with Abraham, with the pioneers, with far flung missionaries.

I miss the certainty of the mountains. I wish for one day the steadfastness of wedding rings. I cherish the assurance of things with long established history. Yet – woe is me – even those may leave. Ah capricious world, so little in you remains unchanged. Inconstant hearts condemn the constant. Play the man steadfast souls, you may yet light a candle. A life well lived is one of quiet abiding. One that whispers, “still You are good and true” unto death – in bed or in flame – the most certain thing of all. A match of passion lighted is no good in an ever changing wind.

So I’ll call on the One who lights dead hearts and tames the wind and causes it also to storm. The One toward whom the near eternal peaks point, of whom the missionaries spoke, of whose grandeur the pioneers saw, for whom the martyrs died, and in whom Abraham had faith. This constancy, this faith, you see, was born only of a steadfastness our fickle hearts cannot comprehend. I’ll keep my life hidden in the everlasting and unshaken One who grants me perseverance in his constancy.

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth give way, though the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling.” Psalm 46:1-3

“Once we’re thrown off our habitual paths, we think all is lost; but it’s only here that the new and the good begins. As long as there’s life, there’s happiness. There’s much, much still to come.” War and Peace