Thursday, May 29, 2025
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Refrigerator
Five hundred years ago Teresa of Avila prayed “Solo Dios basta,” God alone is enough. Henri Nouwen remarked that this prayer, spoken slowly and out loud, “can help me enter into God’s presence, where there is peace and certainty that God is always with me and loves me.”
Let nothing disturb you
Let nothing frighten you.
Those who cling to God
will lack nothing
Let nothing disturb you
Let nothing frighten you
God alone is enough.
Henri, like all of us, needed to discern whether his experience and thoughts “were of God or not.” Especially when my body or circumstances seem to betray me, I need reassurance that God has not abandoned me to despair, exhaustion, fear or self-rejection. I awaken many mornings full of energy and hope, but as the day wears on, I wear out!
I will not leave you an orphan, says the Lord. I will come back to you, and your heart will rejoice.
This morning I laid in bed awake until I realized all I was doing was rehearse what I needed to do when I got up. We bought a refrigerator a week ago. We have been making do in our Urbana kitchen with three smaller refrigerators (10, 3 and 3.5 cubic feet), after our lovely side-by-side Amana bit the refrigerator dust a year ago. Not a problem when we were only here a short time. But now, looking at three months here together, we visited Home Depot and found something a little more “normal.”
Our Frigidaire was delivered today, and although we chose a narrow model, we had to remove one door and the pneumatic closers on another to make a straight road for the delivery guys. We needed to rearrange two tables and one of the refrigerators. Our stove had to be unplugged and moved out of the way.
I’m glad I got up and we got started, because the truck arrived four hours early (they did give us a call 35 minutes before they arrived). The fridge fit through all the doors (just barely), the guys leveled and plugged it in, we pulled off the Saran wrap protecting its stainless steel skin, and now we have enough refrigerator space for two families. We are only two people, so … I think we’re good for awhile.
Let nothing disturb you
Let nothing frighten you.
Those who cling to God
will lack nothing
Let nothing disturb you
Let nothing frighten you
God alone is enough.
We finished what needed to be done beforehand, and Rashan and Marcus did their part very well. I over-thought the whole thing – worried about getting our part right. When the day was done I had become quiet again, relaxed in the freedom of being finished.
Jesus said to his disciples, “A little while and you will no longer see me, and then again a little while later you will see me again.” But the disciples did not know what he meant.
Then Jesus spoke to them again. Perhaps he thought his words were comforting, although they explained very little.
Amen, amen, I say to you that you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. But then your grief will become joy.
As usual with the words of Jesus, I learn much about myself when I read what he says to his disciples. Reminding myself of his presence and his unqualified sufficiency, his more-than-enoughness on every day of my life, God’s quiet peace returns.
Your grief will become joy.
But I’m really not very good at this “reminding.” Margaret helps me remember, and I hope I help her too. We are simple human beings, falling on our faces often. But when that falling feels like failure, God just asks me to get over myself and worship him instead. That’s the good kind of falling on my face. This prone-before-the-altar is not just for monks and nuns. We all get to/need to fall down and worship.
The Lord has made his salvation known.
(Acts 18, Psalm 98, John 14, John 16)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
#
