Ordinary Time

Pause

“...new life starts in the dark. Whether it is a seed in the ground, a baby in the womb, or Jesus in the tomb, it starts in the dark.”

Barbara Brown Taylor, Learning to Walk in the Dark, 2014

Listen

The Lord is good to those who hope in him, to the person who seeks him. It’s good to wait in silence for the Lord’s deliverance.

Lamentations 3:25-26

Think

Waiting is hard, particularly in silence. What is the author of Lamentations saying?

There was a woman named Julian of Norwich who lived from 1342-1416. It was a time in history when women did not have much of a voice or power.

When Julian was 30, she was very sick and near death. She survived, but wrote about that difficult time and the way God came to her. Julian would write a lot about evil and suffering. She concluded that God walks with us in the midst of our suffering, and that God is present even in the silence. Her writings have become a classic, and her perspective on God has sustained many when they were waiting as she was several hundred years ago.

One famous quote from Julian is: “All shall be well, and all shall be well … For there is a Force of love moving through the universe that holds us fast and will never let you go.”

Susan Sytsma Bratt

Pray

Steadfast God, today I pray for a glimmer of your glory and peace as I wait. Amen.

Go

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.