Jun 7 2014 - Thoughts from a hospital ward

It is some time since I last wrote a Blog. I have been unwell for a few months and, after investigations it was discovered that I have heart block (a problem with the electrical systems of the heart which means that my pulse is slow and irregular - down to 36 in the mornings). I also have a leaky aortic valve which needs replacing. I have now been in hospital for just over four weeks awaiting surgery.

I have been encouraged to use my time to write - perhaps some poems. The room I now inhabit in the hospital has a view over Southmead and towards the Severn and beyond it the hills of Wales. Sometimes they can be seen clearly, but not this morning. So this is what I wrote:

This morning they are gone -
The Severn bridges and the hills of Wales
Hidden by a mist so fine
That it too goes unseen.
Things close at hand remain distinct
Nothing here has changed.
And yet the now unseen
Remains as much unchanged
The bridges stand where yesterday they stood
The hills unmoved by any fleeting mist.
And so the faithfulness of God
Remains unchanged, though it may be unseen
While closer things may crowd our shortened view.
Indeed, God's glory fills the earth
And all is animated by his power
Who gave life at the first and gives it still.
There are those moments
When the mist is blown away
And we see clearly and we cry "Glory".
But though these moments pass and mist returns
The glory and the faithfulness remains
And shall remain until all mist is gone
And we shall see as we are seen
And know as we are known
And cry as we have never cried, "Glory!"

Peter Misselbrook