poetry

"All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through:
I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.
Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin:
I talk of love —a scholar’s parrot may talk Greek—
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.

Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack.
I see the chasm. And everything you are was making
My heart into a bridge by which I might get back
From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking.

For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains
You give me are more precious than all other gains."

~C.S. Lewis

The early church in Hebrews "joyfully accepted the confiscation of their property" because they knew that had better and lasting treasure (Hebrews 10:34). they rejoiced that someone took their stuff. it seems ridiculous to the world, and most of the time to me too, but it's beautiful lunacy of following Christ. that having someone take your stuff would be a blessing and that pain would become precious in the light of what we are promised and given.