It was earth day.
I could see the outdoors from my bedroom window, and I could hear the birds singing coming in with the fresh air of an open window. I would have wished to be outdoors, with the trees and the birds, instead I was fevering in my bed.
Frankly, this feels like a good image for this year during a global pandemic. Stay home, socially distancing, and make sure to wash your hands. I watch imagines and news reports and try to understand what the world and I personally are going through.
Man, it is exhausting.
I sunk into bed feeling not only unwell but swirling with the thought of my own Covid test and all the implications that will come from either result.
Lord, you say the earth is yours and everything in it, but these things do not seem to fit today. As I prayed and complained I listened again to the birds singing. Their song sounded hopeful. It sounded present to the moment. Then this passage came to me:
Matthew 6:25-34
25 “That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? 27 Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?28 “And why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, 29 yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. 30 And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?31"So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ 32 These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. 33 Seek the Kingdom of God[a] above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.34 “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.
This did not take away my realities, it did not cause me to bypass my own human feelings lying in my bed, but it gave me pause. Sometimes pause is just what I need. You as well?
This pause gave me a place to root my hope. With all the uncertainty I need a hope rooted deeper than my own lived experience. I think this is part of the reason I love to read about the Spiritual Mothers and Fathers of the past. To see how they too held onto hope and faith in unbelievable times. The hope that the Lord provides and looks after even the birds, allowed me to rest in that same promise for even that moment. Root my hope in those same unfailing promises.
Even while lying in my bed I too am being provided for and not forgotten, just like the birds.
Comments