SUZY PARISH
Hope blooms in unexpected places
There’s a Hole in the World Tonight
“There’s a hole in the world tonight
There’s a cloud of fear and sorrow
There’s a hole in the world tonight
Don’t let there be a hole in the world tomorrow.
Oh they tell me there’s a place over yonder,
Cool water running through the burning sand.
Until we learn to love one another
We will never reach the promised land.” Hole in The World, The Eagles
I can’t get this song out of my head tonight.I am sure the heart of God is broken over our world. I have to limit my news consumption. I take in enough, the essentials, then I pray.
Don Henley explained in the liner notes for The Very Best Of The Eagles compilation that he penned Hole in the World on the darkest day in American history: September 11, 2001. “I sat down at the piano in my home studio and started putting some chords with the phrase ‘hole in the world,'” he said.
Bear with me while I pull some themes together for you. It seems sometimes the hole is so deep that we can’t claw our way out of it. That is where the second part of my theme comes in…
“There is no pit so deep, that God’s love is not deeper still.”
― Corrie ten Boom, survivor of Nazi concentration camps, beloved evangelist and writer. I’m sure many of you have read Corrie’s writings, if you haven’t had the pleasure please look her up. She was an amazing woman of God who stood strong in one of the darkest times on our planet.
Don Henley pinpointed the problem, yes, the hole. It’s in our hearts and he says the “place over yonder…the promised land” can be reached when we learn to love one another. I have to go one step further Don. Yes, we learn to love one another, but it is only when this happens:
“…hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
6 For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.”Romans 5:5-6NASB
God answers the darkness with light. He fills in the holes in our world with the willing voices of His children! We are many, we are made strong by the blood of the Lamb.
(Tattoo courtesy of Eric Wilson, author of Fireproof and many other best selling Christian books. Thank you Eric for permission to use this.)
https://www.facebook.com/EricWilsonNovelist
Wow. Very relevant and much truth in what you have written.
I remember my kids, and myself, listening to that song. I think Laura downloaded it online back in the days of Napster. I found it and related to it. Corrie Ten Boom’s quote is now what I tell people who are depressed or feel trapped. It is Psalm 139:7-12 in a nutshell:
Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
I love that Corrie Ten Boom quote Suzy! Blessings to you…