Friday, August 22, 2008

Dear God,

Everything was thicket. Couldn’t step in or walk through. Always stopped at the edge of the woods. What was in there? I wondered.

Little by little we’re making a clearing. And what we’ve found has amazed me. So much dead stuff and discarded debris, glass, rusted barrel, concrete, hoses, paper and more. Landscape specialists have probed their way through and have started cutting down dead trees, removing unwanted trash, burning limbs and branches, setting aside the good wood for neighbors to use this winter. Not only can we see our way through, we can actually walk in carefully, looking out for the stumps or tree roots. We can make our way to the water.

How often have I stood at a thicket too massive to walk through? How many times has my life become so complicated that I was paralyzed, made immobile, such that I couldn’t move?

Only when I turn slightly and call out your name am I enabled to see a way, a path, a spot in the thicket that gives me hope. Only when I trust you to show me the way am I freed to take the next step and the next and the next, discovering and learning how to let go of the debris I’ve collected in my own life. Resentment, fear, bitterness, hopelessness. Each of these steps takes me to the water that will nourish my soul, every parched crack drinking in life-giving water.

I know that you are the answer to every dilemma, every condition and situation. A renewed and deepened trust in you will lead me all the way.

God, Most Holy,
ever caring
and full of grace,
I always
wind up
at your feet;
I don’t have
to move
any further.
You are
all I need.
Plant me
beside you
so that
I will always
remain near.

Love, Andrea