God's Thread

The poetry of Amy Carmichael always seems to express, without insincerity or affectation, what so often seems to be common in most peoples' experience. Her collected poems fill over 400 pages, but I'm not going to put them all down here... at least not all at once. This one I especially like - particularly the last part, beginning with the phrase, "...but I alone am He..."

"An ill dread is hanging over me,

Slung on a single strand of cobweb thread.

I do not know how I can live today

The usual life of common duties, turn

A calm front to the day's perplexities,

A smile upon its small, persistent cares -

While inwardly a raging fear devours

Courage in mouthfuls; and my chariot wheels

Drag heavily; and gladness flies from me,

Leaving me standing shivering on the edge

Of unknown desolation; and all things

Look dark to me. O God, Thou knowest my fear;

Go Thou not far from me lest trouble be near."

~ ~

"An ill thou dreadest hanging over thee,

Slung on a single silken strand of cobweb thread -

Think: Is it cobweb thread? No spider of chance

Spun that fine-twined thread from out herself

In blind obedience to some unknown law.

But I, thy God, thy Father, spun that thread

Whose very substance is My eternal will,

My eternal Love. And in My hand I hold

The further end and guard its whole long length

From human intermeddling. I may use

Some visible hand to operate and loose

The seeming ill; but I alone am He

With whom thou hast to do. And I, thy God,

The Father of Lights in whom no variableness

Nor shadow cast by turning ever was,

Am with thee, to be light to all thy days,

Even to the end. Therefore, thou wilt be strong

And more than conqueror; for I am here:

I go not from My own when trouble is near."