Waiting for God
“O Lord, my heart is not lifted up,
My eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvellous for me.
But, I have calmed and quieted my soul,
Like a weaned child with its mother;
My soul is like the weaned child that is with me.” Psalm 131
I come to early church with all the concerns of the day and the present week and the past week. I am not playing the harp because I am having difficulty putting in new strings for two that have recently broken. It is the first meeting for discernment for the Daughters of the King at St. Mark’s. We have a wellness forum during the adult formation hour that I have been working on. There are some pages missing in the Eucharistic Prayer for the next service in the Altar Book. I decide to go and sit at the back of the church and try to quiet the busyness about these concerns and more. The church is absolutely quiet. The long green season hangings are more calming and simplistic with a hint of the ornamental. The candles are lighted and flickering. The summer flowers are in honor of the mother of a friend.
I am in a beautiful place built to bring us closer to God, but my head is still a mess. How can I see or taste a glimpse of the holy before the service starts? Must I wait for some moment during the liturgy, at the scripture, in the prayers, the sermon, the music, the Eucharist? I pray for guidance, actually for help. The message comes. Start intercessory prayers. You have not said your private prayers this morning before church. Too busy. I start praying for those I am committed to pray for each day. If I know them, I imagine them with Jesus. Almost immediately, I feel that peace that passes understanding, a calm.
Time after time this is my experience. I begin to know a peace whenever I can get out of myself and my world and my concerns and send love to my neighbor by visiting, calling, writing, serving or a multitude of other ways, but especially in intercessory prayer. I rarely know how these prayers affect those I pray for, but with each prayer, my mind and my body also take me to find Jesus as I try to connect others to that healing love.
Joanna joannaseibert.com