Hold Everything Lightly

"Hold everything in your hands lightly, otherwise it hurts when God pries your fingers open." (Corrie ten Boom)Our quote this week comes from Corrie ten Boom, author of The Hiding Place. If you haven't read The Hiding Place*, you are really missing out. This memoir is both a spear to the heart and a balm to the soul. If only we could learn to live up to the Gospel in our daily lives the way Corrie and her sister Betsy lived up to it in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany.This is one of those books we refer to in our family as a shared experience. One sister will say to another, "Remember that time in The Hiding Place when..." And we will all nod our heads and murmur our understanding.This Lent our series is on this very thing, the idea of holding things lightly, or as put in The Ladder of Divine Ascent, "holding all things with an open hand."  (Did you read the first Lenten post yet?)It brings to mind today Elizabeth Bishop's One Art: "so many things seem filled with the intent / to be lost that their loss is no disaster." We lose things every day. We lose even precious people. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. (Job 1:21).In our Christian understanding, we have no fear of losing. People are not lost; they are called to the bosom of the Father. God has ordained for us our lot, and it's His guiding hand that protects us and molds us. He takes things away to build us and to grow us into more than what we could ever be on our own.Or as Corrie ten Boom puts it: “You can never learn that Christ is all you need, until Christ is all you have.”Tomorrow is the first day of Great Lent in the Coptic Orthodox Church (calendar of fasts), and we will have a very special guest post by Jen of ::Meditatio::! Although her background is Episcopalian, Jen decided to try fasting Coptic-style this year... how is she faring? We'll find out tomorrow!In the meantime, enjoy this week's lock screen!

Do you want access to all the lock screen thumbnails at once (over twenty of them now!) for easy choosing and downloading? [thrive_2step id='2294']All you have to do is click here and opt-in for instant access.[/thrive_2step]

Make sure to click to open at full-size to save and set as wallpaper lock screen. Share this post on Facebook to inspire your friends as well!All photography and design work is my own; please use and share freely for personal use. You may not include these wallpapers on other sites or any commercial product, without my prior, written permission.  *affiliate link