anchoring in deep waters

I typically don’t write about my work in this blog – but lately it has been remarkably challenging.  It seems the more I work on this discipline of quietness, calmness, the more my spirit is challenged daily.  Again today, I turn to the classic poets … for words to help me center my thoughts.

Light human nature is too lightly tost
    And ruffled without cause, complaining on 
    Restless with rest, until, being overthrown,
    It learneth to lie quiet. Let a frost
    Or a small wasp have crept to the inner-most
    Of our ripe peach, or let the wilful sun
    Shine westward of our window, straight we run
    A furlong’s sigh as if the world were lost.
    But what time through the heart and through the brain
    God hath transfixed us, we, so moved before,
    Attain to a calm. Ay, shouldering weights of pain,
    We anchor in deep waters, safe from shore,
    And hear submissive o’er the stormy main
    God’s chartered judgments walk for evermore.
~Elizabeth Barrett Browning

[Your beauty] should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. ~1 Peter 3:4

My prayer tonight is for anchoring in deep waters!