redemption | Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Keeping our Small Boat Afloat: Thoughts on Redemption, Giving up Regret, and my Thirty Year Marriage

Anita Mathias — Tue, 26 Mar 2019 18:48:11 +0000

Our wedding portrait, 30 years ago I love this verbally rich “worship song” from the young song-writer John Mark Macmillan He is jealous for me. Love’s like a hurricane, and I am a tree Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy. I don’t have time to maintain these regrets, When I think about […]

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For our griefs, failures, tears, Christ’s desire is “Let nothing, nothing be wasted”

Anita Mathias — Wed, 21 Nov 2018 12:45:37 +0000

So, yesterday, my labradoodle, Merry, who is three quarters poodle, a hunting breed, came home from her walk with Roy, tail wagging, and with a present for me… a beautiful, quite adorable rabbit–perfectly dead. I screamed! I love rabbits, and we’ve had several as pets over the years. In fact, this was probably a descendant […]

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Mud and the Breath of God: That is What We Are

Anita Mathias — Tue, 01 Sep 2015 15:34:17 +0000

Several years ago, I wanted to go through a study on Agape Love, the blazing core of Christianity–but not a particular strength of mine!! And being an extroverted, sort of A type personality, I got permission from my church to organise a Bible Study on the topic under their auspices. Now, like most everyone, I […]

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At the End of Broken Dreams, an Open Door

Anita Mathias — Sun, 22 Mar 2015 11:05:20 +0000

About 20 years ago, in Williamsburg, Virginia, we used to sing this in church, “At the end of broken dreams, an open door.” I sung it because I liked the lyricism, but I had no interest in the open door at the end of broken dreams because then the dreams would have to be broken, […]

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In which God Creates Beauty from My Mistakes

Anita Mathias — Mon, 26 Jan 2015 18:54:14 +0000

In this season of hibernation, I think… and my remembrance of things past is not unaccompanied by regret. Mists of sadness rise. I will not enter them for they might drag me into a quagmire. No, I will not re-read past chapters. Today’s chapter is being written—Jesus dictating, me writing. Or sometimes, me writing fast, impulsively, […]

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I don’t have time to maintain these regrets

Anita Mathias — Mon, 28 Jul 2014 21:12:09 +0000

My daughter Zoe introduced me to this song by John Mark Macmillan: I don’t have time to maintain these regrets I am a memoirist (and also a restless, tiptoes person full of hope for the future). However examination of the past is rarely without regret. If only. I wish I had But that’s it!! No more looking […]

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Stinging Nettle to Butterfly Wings

Anita Mathias — Tue, 10 Jun 2014 09:08:13 +0000

And how, and how Could that prickly caterpillar –All bristles and danger– Feeding on the stinging nettle in my garden Become a peacock butterfly, Four shimmering iridescent eyes? My God, my God, redeemer, Even today, take my life, The years lost to self-pity, anger and sadness, False starts, wrong directions, promising trails abandoned […]

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In which Christ can heal the fierce memories of the past

Anita Mathias — Tue, 15 Apr 2014 20:08:30 +0000

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun. Keats, sitting down to read King Lear again, feels torn between anticipation and the dread of immersing himself again in this scabrous tragedy. Once again the fierce dispute, Betwixt damnation and impassion’d clay Must I burn through; once more humbly assay The bitter-sweet of this Shakespearian […]

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He Makes the Failures of Friday Beautiful in His Time

Anita Mathias — Thu, 03 Apr 2014 20:23:50 +0000

Ravaged by grief, she saw you standing right there, but did not recognize you. She was living in Friday, That traumatic Friday. But it’s Sunday now, And there you stand, In front of Mary. It’s a new day, The only day that really counts. Today. * * * Lord Jesus, I give […]

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Grieve No More For All That’s Broken

Anita Mathias — Mon, 31 Mar 2014 20:10:24 +0000

Wheat must be crushed to become bread And bread broken to be eaten. The chrysalis crumble for the butterfly, The egg splinter for the chicken. And sheets of coloured glass Must be shattered To become stained glass Through which the love of God– In rainbowed light– Shines. * * * And I consider… […]

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