This Day

Here is a portion of a poem my father loved to hear his sister read huddled in the library on dark and brief December days:

 

Snow-Bound

The sun that brief December day
Rose cheerless over hills of gray,
And, darkly circled, gave at noon
A sadder light than waning moon.
Slow tracing down the thickening sky
Its mute and ominous prophecy,
A portent seeming less than threat,
It sank from sight before it set.
A chill no coat, however stout,
Of homespun stuff could quite, shut out,
A hard, dull bitterness of cold,
That checked, mid-vein, the circling race
Of life-blood in the sharpened face,
The coming of the snow-storm told.
The wind blew east; we heard the roar
Of Ocean on his wintry shore,
And felt the strong pulse throbbing there
Beat with low rhythm our inland air.

Meanwhile we did our nightly chores,--
Brought in the wood from out of doors,
Littered the stalls, and from the mows
Raked down the herd's-grass for the cows
Heard the horse whinnying for his corn;
And, sharply clashing horn on horn,
Impatient down the stanchion rows
The cattle shake their walnut bows;
While, peering from his early perch
Upon the scaffold's pole of birch,
The cock his crested helmet bent
And down his querulous challenge sent.

Unwarmed by any sunset light
The gray day darkened into night,
A night made hoary with the swarm,
And whirl-dance of the blinding storm,
As zigzag, wavering to and fro,
Crossed and recrossed the winged snow
And ere the early bedtime came
The white drift piled the window-frame,
And through the glass the clothes-line posts
Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts.

So all night long the storm roared on
The morning broke without a sun;
In tiny spherule traced with lines
Of Nature's geometric signs,
In starry flake, and pellicle,
All day the hoary meteor fell;
And, when the second morning shone,
We looked upon a world unknown,
On nothing we could call our own.
Around the glistening wonder bent
The blue walls of the firmament,
No cloud above, no earth below,--
A universe of sky and snow....

Not Yet Complete?

"For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad" (2 Corinthians 5:10).

"Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward" (1 Corinthians 3:13-14).

At the last trump, we must appear before the Bema Seat. Which things done in the body with the leading of the Spirit will bring glory to God? Which things done in the body contrary to His Word and Spirit will be consumed by fire?

"And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be" (Revelation 22:12)

For years I kept this “book without a cover” on my desk at work. Inside the cover, my father-in-law had taped the following words.

New Life in Christ, Abundant and free!
What glories shine, what joys are mine,
What wondrous blessings I see!
My past with its sin, The searching and strife,
Forever gone, - There's a bright new dawn!
For in Christ I have found new life!

Perhaps his reward is not yet complete?

The Day of Honor

“A good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one’s birth” (Ecclesiastes 7:1).