Life's Presents

Here are some penetrating words from Frederick Buechner's "The Sign by the Highway":

"The old saying is that where there is life, there is hope, and I think that the hope that there is, the hope that if not tomorrow or the next day, then some fine day, somehow, life will finally give us the present which, when we open it, will turn out to be the one that we have waited for so long, which is the one that will fill the empty place, which is the peace that passeth all understanding, which is the truth, salvation, whatever we want to call it.

But one by one, as we open the presents, no matter how rich and wondrous they are, we discover that no one of them by itself, nor even all of them taken together, is the one of our deepest desiring--that ultimately, although her face is beautiful and draws us to her, life by herself does not have that final present to give. And to know that is the pain of it as again and again we reach out our hands to life for what we need most deeply, only to have it seized in the terrible grasp."