Gentle Reader,
Today is one of those days when I feel the weight of my human fragility. Isn’t it odd that something fragile could be weighty? And yet it is. My body is tired after fighting colds and sinus infections since the end of January. My mind and heart are clouded with anxiety and sorrow. There’s only four weeks left in my seminary journey, and while I am so ready for the end it’s also a big life change. I want to weep and sleep.
I stretch out my hands to you;
my soul thirsts for you like a parched land.– Psalm 143:6 (NRSV)
Days like these remind me just how beautiful the Bible is. No, I’m not discounting the difficult or confusing parts. Those are real. But we don’t have to try and figure them out all the time. Nor do we have to focus solely on passages about having peace or hope or joy. Those matter. A lot. But sometimes we just need to sit. We need to raise our weary eyes to Heaven and breathe a wordless prayer.
A prayer that’s between a sigh and groan, and contains a wide array of thoughts and feelings.
God doesn’t mind that.
We won’t have the energy for working through the hard parts and we won’t be able to plunge into the pool of God’s peace without this pause. We cannot heal what we refuse to acknowledge, both on individual and systemic levels. I’ve been saying and writing this sentence a lot lately. We have to take the pause and the breath and speak the wordless prayers that come straight from the pit of our souls. We have to do the work of facing who we are, right now, and what we need, right now, before we can do any other work. And God is so patient and gracious and kind and meets us right where and as we are, with exactly what we need.
Gut-level and sometimes gut-wrenching honesty is part of traveling the pilgrim’s road that ends one day in the celestial city.
I mean, it’s not like you’re hiding anything from God, anyway.
Does your soul thirst for God today?
Mine to.
Come, drink the Living Water.
GRACE AND PEACE ALONG THE WAY,
MARIE
Image Courtesy of J. Brouwer