He Did Not Wait Till the Word Was Ready

Love still takes the risk of birth.

Madeleine L’Engle

I began sharing these “Poems, Prayers, Psalms, and Promises” when the pandemic began, never imagining that I would still be sharing them now! But this brings me to Christmas, when I am going to cheat a little and share not one but two poems as part of this series, both by Madeleine L’Engle. I love the faith-filled honesty of these poems. They are not waxing nostalgic, as we can be tempted to do this time of year, but instead they grapple with the world’s pain in a very real and honest way.

This is no time for a child to be born, Madeleine wrote back in 1973, and if it was true then, it is no less true now. The earth continues to be “betrayed by war and hate.” We may not be worried about comets, but global warming, an unprecedented…