Today's reflection is by Joshua Anderson, member of the Lutheran Episcopal Ministry at MIT
Having God witness my inmost feelings can seem scary. Deep within my
heart is where I store my wildest dreams and deepest fears; it's a place
where I feel totally vulnerable. There is also no place to retreat from
inmost heart, no further defenses I can hide behind. The only thing I
can do is meet God face to face: to talk or to wrestle or to quietly sip
our tea. Whatever we do, we can't avoid each other.
That sense of being bound together can make my impression of God being
the "hearer of [my] tongue" more frustrating when I can't see the
results of my prayers. Sometimes I want to scream, "He-LLOOO!! Are the
words not coming out of my mouth? Why haven't I gotten what I want? Why
isn't my problem resolved yet? You're right there, for crying out loud!
Take care of this, God who is able to do infinitely more than we can ask
or imagine." Like a mother rocking a tired child who is exploding in a
fit of screams and tears, God holds me tightly and lovingly in times
like this, listening to my complaints and comforting me with whispered
words recognizing my struggle. In God's intimate embrace, I observe a
glimpse of the heart of God and eventually hear in a still, small voice
the words of God's tongue. As I live into the vulnerability of being
lovingly witnessed, truly observed, and unfailingly heard, God and I are
bound closer together and our intimacy deepens. And, with God's help, I
begin to reflect back to God and to others what I have observed of
God's heart and the words I have heard from God's tongue.
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