Good morning…
“As of today you are not required to wear a mask,” the friendly woman said as she checked me into the two-night retreat entitled “Caring For The Whole Person.” How amazing to return to the holy grounds of the Ignatius House Retreat Center for the first time since the worldwide pandemic began. Silent. Yoga. Retreat. What a sacred space to unmask myself, to breathe unhindered God’s fresh air.
Settling into a small, modest room, I happily hung up my green cotton mask, a mask I had worn like a necklace most days since March 2020. Now it dangles on the right side of a framed poster with the word Determination. The subtitle beneath reads: “The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”
Triumph. I don’t use that celebratory word very often, but hanging up my mask, I somehow felt gloriously triumphant.
With triumphant joy you will drink deeply from the wells of salvation (Isaiah 12:2-3, TPT). The footnote here reads: “The streams of salvation represent Jesus’ life in us. (See Isa. 41:17-18; Jer. 2:13; 17:13; John 4:13-14; 7:37-39; Rev. 7:17.) Through Christ, God’s sons and daughters are living wells of salvation, containers bringing the water of life to others.”
Not all people can hang up their proverbial masks, symbolizing the end of a long, hard conflict. For some the battles continue to rage on. Grief. Illness. Addiction. Violence. Unemployment. Emotional, relational, spiritual poverty. “The poor and needy search for water, but there is none; their tongues are parched with thirst. But I the Lord will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them. I will make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys. I will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs” (Isaiah 41:17-18, NIV).
For those of us who can humbly begin to hang up our masks, how might God tap our inner streams, bringing Christ’s living water to people who are parched? Caring for the wholeness of Jesus’ life in us, we become overflowing containers carrying the refreshing love of God.
…Sue…
