Good morning…
Opening time and space in these first wee hours, I wait for God to whisper. Who knows what will bubble up and spill on my journal?
As I wait, quietly attentive, I strangely feel drawn to doodle. I doodle my memory of 93-year-old Betty Skinner’s room in her assisted living facility in Florida. I sketch her bed, her book-filled desk, and her small window overlooking the tiny garden. Then I draw a stick figure of Betty waking from sleep to conscious awareness on this morning when she will celebrate with family and friends the life of Bryant Skinner who recently died at age 96. Somehow my simple sketch feels like a prayer.
Now words we read aloud in class this week deepen me into more of God’s early morning gift.
“The Greek word for rest is hesychia, a term that also came to mean praying,” writes Sue Monk Kidd in When The Heart Waits. “Hesychasm was a way of unceasing prayer in which a person descended into the heart and built a nest for herself and God, a place where she rested in the divine Presence, staying there throughout her day, throughout her pain, conflict, and struggle. To sit while Jesus prays brings us to this kind of nesting in the heart. It allows us a replenishing rest in which we can be still and listen to the prayers and words that the Spirit whispers inside us. Julian of Norwich said that when a person is at ease or at rest with God, she ‘does not need to pray, but to contemplate reverently what God says.'” (135-136)
So on this sacred morning when I do not know exactly what Betty needs, I descend deeply into my heart, building a nest to rest with God, trusting the Spirit to whisper for me. What a restful, replenishing use of these dark, early hours as I give to God our friend Betty Skinner, lifting her into the light of our LORD who knows her every single need.
Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves…and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good (Romans 8:25-28, MSG).
…Sue…
