A Twisted Crown of Thorns ®

In 1939 when King George had to muster some courage and give his Christmas speech – as the second world war loomed heavily over the future of Great Britain, Europe and the world, he borrowed the words of a poem written in 1912.

The poem had actually been first published just two years before the first world war. Interestingly it is so suitable for such a time as ours when now with the COVID-19 virus pandemic we see a foggy darkness descend and grip the world and life as we know it appears to be coming to a slow distressing ebb for the 21st-century millennial. For such a time as this…

“The Gate of the year” also titled ‘God Knows’:

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:
“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”
And he replied:
“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”
So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night.
And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.

So heart be still:
What need our little life
Our human life to know,
If God hath comprehension?
In all the dizzy strife
Of things both high and low,
God hideth His intention.

God knows. His will
Is best. The stretch of years
Which wind ahead, so dim
To our imperfect vision,
Are clear to God. Our fears
Are premature; In Him,
All time hath full provision.

Then rest: until
God moves to lift the veil
From our impatient eyes,
When, as the sweeter features
Of Life’s stern face we hail,
Fair beyond all surmise
God’s thought around His creatures
Our mind shall fill.

“The Gate of the Year” is the popular name given to a poem by Minnie Louise Haskins. The title given to it by the author was “God Knows”.