The weekend just gone, it was such a privilege to be with Sheila at Rhythm of Hope. This day, sensitively curated for couples journeying with infertility and childlessness, is an amazing thing, combining thoughtful talks with heartfelt worship and bringing together people who are walking a difficult path, often feeling alone. SWH has always been a supporter of this day, and so it was this year. Lizzie also joined via video.
I shared the poem I wrote, which shares its name with this blog, and realised I’ve never posted it on here in full. You can listen to it above, and here’s the text below…
Which is why I’ve come to see the glory in the pit
And God is there in the thick of it
There was a bad man in the good book
who took a good look at his bad life
and picked a fist fight with God.
He didn’t know it at the time
but as he wrestled the almighty in the grime
of arid desert ground
he found in the fight some inner fibre and strength
and though he went away limping
he was walking taller than ever.
He was Jacob,
but the new name God gave him
became a byword for a nation
that even to this day wrestles and tussles
with its own identity
and with its neighbours and aggressors
so I’ve come to see
that there’s some truth in that old story
that in the wrestling pit of life is where the glory resides –
Not in the Disneyland rides
Or the holiday slides
Or the dressed-in-white brides.
No the glory resides
When we look God in the eyes
And start to fight
As we start to cry.
The glory is in the pit
It’s NOT in the script-
You know, the script?
The script we feel we ought to recite
For the play we didn’t write
But that we think is right
The script that dictates
we meet our soulmates
kiss and caress them
dress to impress them
until when the time’s right and the venue’s free
it’s all – “here comes the bride”
And honeymoon in Bali.
And then KIDS
And this where the script gets you to pick
how many
and what you’ll name them
before there’s any indication
that it’s even possible.
Cos here’s the nub of it
THERE IS NO SCRIPT
Life’s acts aren’t fixed
and one in six of these fairytale plays
never makes it to the stage anyways.
And the problem with this obsession with the script
that’s total bullshit is
What if your story doesn’t fit?
Which is why I’ve come to see the glory in the pit
And that God is there in the thick of it
And though God knows I prayed
that He would get us to the good bit
where it didn’t hurt so much
and where I didn’t cry so much
and where my love would get to touch
her firstborn son
and that he’d have my eyes…
I came to realise
that God was with us in those tear drenched nights
that God’s with-us-ness is written on his birth certificate
Emmanuel – God with us
God with us in the tears and wounds and pain
with us in the darkness and the rain
God with us behind the closed doors of our grief
That become my hope and my belief
That God is with us in the shitty pit – He has to be
Else life and faith is surely just catastrophe.
But faith, like life, has come to mean for me
The mingling of tragic and funny
Each colour of the rainbow
Each clouddrop of the rain
Saltwater and honey
Love that tastes like pain.
God give me strength to go through this again
God give my story grace so that it matters
And faith to tell it from the place of shattered hopes and faded dreams
That from the rubble
From the seams
Of these unscripted stories
God might weave
And build
A world
Less like a fairytale
more like a wrestling bout.
Perhaps that’s what it’s always been about.
