So many times I whine that I’m “waiting on God,” but the truth is He is the one waiting on me. In our confession, surrender, and stillness God works a miracle: He turns our “waiting” into praise. What joy it must bring the Father when His children begin to understand that kind of love. Can […]
Still Saturday: No Hurry
“There is a particular weariness that rises in this space of waiting. But I don’t think it’s the waiting itself that is wearying me – I think it’s my resistance to the wait. I’m like a dog straining at the end of a lead, wearing the pads of my feet raw on the sidewalk as […]
Five Minute Friday: Here I Am
Morning, Jesus. Here I am. Are you still here? Of course, you are. Silly me. Would you like coffee or tea? Why are you looking at me like that? Oh, the dishtowel. Why am I wearing a red dishtowel on my head and this red top over my green nightie? Well, remember that guy in […]
Still Saturday: Still Again
I stop. Still. And wonder. Why does the breeze ripple the lake everywhere but in its center? Why is the center so still? So calm? So clear? Is it because it’s gone deep in the center? Or is it because it’s simply centered? And can’t be ruffled? Or touched by the wind? I am hushed. […]
Still Saturday: All Shaken Up
And we did do some talking, but eventually this wise woman said to me, “Ruth, you are like a jar of river water all shaken up. What you need is to sit still long enough that the sediment can settle and the water can become clear.” ~Ruth Haley Barton in Invitation to Solitude and Silence Welcome […]
Still Saturday: Here I Am, Father
A still morning Because I am loved and I love, I don’t have to worry about my response or lack of it. I don’t have to struggle with my desire to understand. I don’t have to wrestle with my feeling of unworthiness. All I have to do is be still, stay close and let you […]
For When Your To-Do List Looms Large
I brew a cup of Darjeeling, then slather a toasted sourdough English muffin with butter. I spoon on some homemade strawberry freezer jam, enough to drip down my chin when I take a bite. The white wooden porch swing hangs from rusted chains and creak-squeaks as I settle into it. It’s hot already, but it’s […]
Still Saturday: When Talkativeness Prevails
Silence is nothing else but waiting for God’s Word and coming from God’s Word with a blessing. But everybody knows that this is something that needs to be practiced and learned, in these days when talkativeness prevails. Real silence, real stillness, really holding one’s tongue comes only as the sober consequence of spiritual stillness. […]
Still Saturday: So We Might Know Him
In a culture where busyness is a fetish and stillness is laziness, rest is sloth. But without rest, we miss the rest of God: the rest he invites us to enter more fully so that we might know him more deeply. “Be still, and know that I am God.” Some knowing is never pursued, only […]
Still Saturday: The Rest of My Life
“There is a rest in love. A pause, a trusting pause before a spinning world. A place of mending when the threads have come undone. Lord, you calm my resisting soul. You hush the voice of urgency, of panic, of alarm. You call down severity, diminish need. You tender me to silence, loving, curing silence. […]
