The Scorched Page


Paradise Story #3




Guest post by HolliAnne
December 19, 2018

I went to Paradise by myself today.  I wasn't even planning to go to our house, but I found myself turning the steering wheel to go down that old familiar road again.

I sat in the driveway staring at our chimney, not really sure why I was there.

My legs took me out of the car and over to the corner of the house that had held my "little" library.
I looked down at my feet and it was like something out of a movie.  A page from a book, singed and wet, but surprisingly legible.

I bent down and my heart skipped a beat.  It was a page from my favorite trilogy of poetry.
The Torch-Bearers.

I've been kicking myself for weeks for not grabbing my complete, signed collection of poetry books by my favorite author, Alfred Noyes.  My husband teases me for reading hundred-year-old English poetry, but I love this guy's writing!

The words that jumped out to me immediately are from the first volume of his Torch-Bearers trilogy, Watchers of the Sky.


"Oh with the torch once more, make all things new,
Build the new heaven and earth, and save the world."

Noyes frequently references Greek And Roman mythology and Christian scriptures in his poems.  This one loosely quotes some of the verses in Revelation 21:

"And I saw a new heaven and a new earth:  for the first heaven and the first were passed away; and there was no more sea."

"And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away.   And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold I make all things new."

I had ten thousand books in my library.  One page survived.  And it was from my favorite book.  And it was a reference to a promise that our lives and our homes will be restored and renewed.  I haven't had too many occasions in my life where I felt like God was trying to directly communicate with me.  But this was one of those moments.

"Behold, I make all things new."




**note about my niece, HolliAnne.  Her library contained the book collections of her late grandfather and her late father.  This has been an immense personal loss for her in addition to everything else that is gone.





Comments

Intense Guy said…
I hope she can rebuild her library. The devastation looks complete in the photograph.
8:32 AM, January 02, 2019
Far Side of Fifty said…
Ah the pain of the loss but also a message of hope.
8:23 AM, January 07, 2019
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