Never sure why the big convergence of heavy thoughts, the piling up of all that’s missing, more who than what.
After breakfast with my friend, Martha kindly reminded me to let loose of that which I can’t change. Jud would’ve said the same. Sometimes the eldest child in me, the preacher’s kid, wants to fix what’s not mine to fix. To heal what only God can with the cooperation of institutions and individuals willing to be healed.
Stuck in place times like these remind me of Reinhold Niebuhr’s prayer, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”
Needing to learn to wait on wisdom.
Depression, futility took me back to the May 21st reading in Frederick Buechner’s Listening to Your Life.
“All the absurd little meetings, decisions, inner skirmishes that go to make up our days. It all adds up to very little, and yet it adds up to very much. Our days are full of nonsense, and yet not, because it is precisely into the nonsense of our days that God speaks to us words of great significance—not words that are written in the stars but words that are written in the raw stuff and nonsense of our days, which are not nonsense just because God speaks into the midst of them. And the words that he says, to each of us differently, are be brave…be merciful…feed my lambs…press on toward the goal.”
Nonsense made holy.
Speak, I pray, into the nonsense of this day, Harbinger of hope, Lord of unimaginable Goodness and Grace.
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I needed this today. Thank you dear Jan. Love you and praying for you!
Thanks Jan. Your sensitivities expose my indifference to some of the small things God does not want me to miss. I need to learn to play more “small ball ” in life.
Blessings, Dale