Journey, Concluded

I’m sorry life got in the way the last two days and I didn’t get to post more installments of “Journey.” I will post the rest of it now.

The sections about the body and the Bible came to me fairly easily when I first worked on the piece. The one that follows about the Companion didn’t come together for me until much later. It took considerably more effort—not so much because of the truths in it but from trying to make it follow the pattern of the previous two.

The last section, I think, is my favorite. None of us know when it will be our time to slip beyond that window, and sometimes thinking about it can bring unease. I hope when my time comes for that, I will have lived so that I can face it peacefully and with assurance and that those I leave behind will be able to accept it the same way. So without further ado, here is the rest of my piece about “Journey.”

My companion for the Journey is a Comforter sweet, the Spirit of Truth, the Breath of God.
Though spirit, He is a person.
Though invisible, He is ever with me.
Though quenchable, He cannot be extinguished.

This Holy Companion for my journey both …
guides me and redirects me, comforts me and convicts me,
reassures me and prays for me in my weaknesses.

Sometimes He is grieved by my failures, sometimes heartened by my progress.
Sometimes He sustains me in the depths, sometimes challenges me to new heights.

Through every twist and turn of my journey,
over every mountain top, through every valley,
my Companion has been at my side,
my Map has been steady and true,
and my vehicle has stood by me.
Someday, at a moment chosen before the foundation of the world,
my vehicle of clay will reach the end of its tether.
Then the eagle will fold its wings, the tortoise draw into its shell.
I will step beyond the bridge and slip beyond my window in time—into forever.
© 1996 Esther Moneysmith Gross