Smoke Rise

Isa. 42:3

A

 smoking flax hangs somewhere between life and death. Its heat holds on by its fingertips. Like a fish out of water, a smoking flax silently gasps for air. A faint curl of smoke ascends like a plea for help and prayer to heaven. Isaiah said of God, “A bruised reed shall he not break, and a smoking flax shall he not quench…” (Isa. 42:3). Job on his ash heap, Elijah beneath the Juniper, David on his knees in Psalm 51, are a few examples of faith at the edge of the abyss. John the Baptist once sent a note to the Master, “Art thou He, or do we look for another?” Then God, the same one who breathed into Adam the breath of life in Genesis, and touched the damsel in Mark chapter 5, softly blows on the last smoldering amber clinging to the cotton calling forth a flame. God says, "Tabitha, cumi." Life has a way of bruising the reed and sucking the oxygen from the furnace, so it behooves us to stay close to the bellows, the Book and breath of God, to find in it a breeze, a splint and brace for bruised and broken hearts.   -id