Good morning…
As the first one awake, I wait for the freshly ground coffee to drip through the pot. The pastel sky peeks through the window, reflects off the borrowed black table, and invites me outside. Sipping with the rising sun, my lips and my eyes are filled with delight.
As I rest here with God passionate prayers rise up too.
I pray for a dear friend whose sixteen year old daughter now battles through a relapse, just one month away from being five years cancer free.
I pray for the two non-profits filling my time and my heart, Julie’s Dream and PAWkids, and the real relationships being built with families in need.
I pray for all of the excited couples being married this summer and all of the hurting couples divorcing during this transitional life season.
I pray for our church family and God’s churches around the globe as we inch our way out of this historic pandemic and into deeper connectivity.
I pray for friends who are struggling with ALS, Alzheimers, and diverse, depleting diseases and for the dear loved ones who are providing gentle care.
I pray for our family members, born by blood or by the Spirit, dispersed throughout the world to organically spread God’s kingdom on earth.
I pray for those grieving deep loss, as we all learn to live on with our dearly loved ones eternally resting in oneness with our Creator in heaven.
I pray for my spiritual direction clients who keep a finger on their soul’s pulse, sensing month by month what God is inviting, pruning, cultivating.
I pray for the women who will return to our living room this fall to study, chapter by chapter, the life-giving wisdom we will unpack with our Lord.
In silence I feel drawn back inside to pour mug number two.
Beaconed outside myself by the growing light over the lake, I lean back into the cozy words I sipped from yesterday.
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DAILY MEDITATION | JULY 20, 2021 – God’s Heart Has Become One With Ours by Henri Nouwen
When we say to people, “I will pray for you,” we make a very important commitment. The sad thing is that this remark often remains nothing but a well-meant expression of concern. But when we learn to descend with our mind into our heart, then all those who have become part of our lives are led into the healing presence of God and touched by him in the center of our being. We are speaking here about a mystery for which words are inadequate. It is the mystery that the heart, which is the center of our being, is transformed by God into his own heart, a heart large enough to embrace the entire universe. Through prayer we can carry in our heart all human pain and sorrow, all conflicts and agonies, all torture and war, all hunger, loneliness, and misery, not because of some great psychological or emotional capacity, but because God’s heart has become one with ours.
Unless the Lord had given me help, I would soon have dwelt in the silence of death. When I said, “My foot is slipping,” your love, O Lord, supported me. When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought joy to my soul (Psalm 94:17-19, NIV).
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Sipping with the cloudy haze of this brand new day, I somehow sense the heart of God slowly becoming one with ours.
…Sue…
