Be Still My Soul

I remember many a Sunday morning when our children were young that getting everyone ready and headed for church was such a harrowing experience that by the time I arrived, I wondered why I had even bothered. I was so frazzled, so discombobulated, I couldn’t even focus enough to worship.

I wonder if I had made a practice of singing Psalms of Ascent, or even made a practice of preparing the night before, I could have helped the whole family focus on the power, protection, security, and mercy found only in God.

I wonder if it I might have found a moment to see eye-to-eye with God. To center myself in the place where God receives me just as I am. Maybe I should have gone to bed sooner so I could rise and pray, not that God would still be there when I got there, but that I perceived God’s presence from the moment I woke.

Could I have made a way to live in such a manner that I was aware of God’s presence in the search for a hair brush, the finding of two socks that matched, trying to get everyone to the table so I would have time to dress? Could I have breathed deeply into a place of quiet trust that we would get there on time in spite of me?

Was there a moment when I was trying to get toothpaste onto every toothbrush that I could have calmed and quieted my soul. I wonder if God was struggling to get my attention when all I could focus on was getting coats and hats and where are those mittens, they are supposed to be in the sleeves of your coat.

Now, because of my suppressed immune system, I have quiet Sunday mornings where I go to church by myself on my computer. No getting out in the cold or among crowds of people. I can even stay in my pajamas, wrapped in a blanket of God’s love – God-bound, not home-bound.

I miss those hectic mornings, although I’m not sure I would want to relive them unless I could change them. After all, that is what God wants. He wants to change not the mornings, really, but to change my heart. For he searches my mind and my heart and encourages me to hold on to what I have until he comes.

Then again, Jesus didn’t rush to get to the temple. He stopped at the Sheep Gate - the gate through which the shepherds brought the sacrificial lambs. The shepherds were never “clean” enough to enter the temple. Near that gate gathered the ill and the infirm hoping to be the first to make their way, or to find someone to throw them into the healing waters. Jesus didn’t rush by, or slow down, he stopped.

Stillness in his presence is as much of a gift these days, as are the memories of those mornings when getting my family to church was more important than if I got there at all.