Time after I came to your gate with raised hands asking for more yet more. You gave and gave, now in slow measure, now in sudden excess. I took some, and some things I let drop; some lay heavy on my hands; some I made into playthings and broke them when tired; till the wrecks and hoard of gifts grew immense, hiding You, and the ceaseless expectations wore my heart out.
Take, O take, has now become my cry. Shatter all from the beggar's bowl. Put out this lamp of the importunate watcher; hold my hands, raise me from the still-gathering heap of your gifts into the bare infinity of your uncrowded presence.
"Peace, peace, be still" came to me today when everything about me seemed in crisis. Tense, worried, anxiously running to and fro, I was like a tumultuous sea. Surely when the surface water is disturbed, we cannot see what otherwise would be clearly visible in the sea's depths. "Peace, be still." I suddenly realized that as long as I was rushed and agitated, I could not see beyond the surface of my problems. As my emotions quieted, I realized that God also was present in the depths of my life, the course of everlasting love unhindered by my problems.
