I loved Thelma’s ‘Thought’ last week, it was so evocative and reminded me of the excitement of walking across untrodden snow – it brought particular occasions to mind with all their joy – and it reminded me of the promise of making a new start. It also reminded me of the poem itself, written by Minnie Louise Haskins who was a student, then later a teacher, at the London School of Economics. Her senior tutor at LSE described her as ‘A woman of unusual capacity and character … a rare understanding and sympathy and infinite patience, combined with a great deal of love and interest in people’ She was certainly a woman of profound faith as the second part of her poem shows. For me it tells us that even when the snow has become dirty and churned up and the novelty has worn off, God is still there, holding our hand and leading us in the right direction. She called the poem ‘God Knows’
So heart be still:
What need our little life
Our human life to know,
If God hath comprehension?
In all the dizzy strife
Of things both high and low,
God hideth His intention.
God knows. His will
Is best. The stretch of years
Which wind ahead, so dim
To our imperfect vision,
Are clear to God. Our fears
Are premature; In Him,
All time hath full provision.
Then rest: until
God moves to lift the veil
From our impatient eyes,
When, as the sweeter features
Of Life’s stern face we hail,
Fair beyond all surmise
God’s thought around His creatures
Our mind shall fill.
NB. To read the beginning of this poem see Thelma’s Thought for 1st January, or search on line for ‘I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year…’
[Jo Spray]