Thank you. What I see in your comments is the beauty found not in strengthening or building one's faith, but in discovering the source of faith right there with you all along. Faith knows how to grow; you made a great garden.
I was glad to read the author went through a process of "deconstruction, but not disintegration" -- such a more encouraging perspective and process than what so many young people have seemed to experience in the past decade. It's good to read of a believer grasping onto and holding onto the understanding that it's not what I do but what the Lord has done for me. It's a well-written reminder of Galatians 2:16, "know that we are not justified by works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ." Thank You, Jesus!
I was struck by the phrase 'managed emotion'. For me that names something I keep running into -the way that somehow our nurture in prayer can encourage us to tidy up our emotions before consciously framing our prayer more verbally. So we end up treating God like a potentially tetchy relative or teacher who needs us to present ourselves civilly so as not to take umbridge. What I've been discovering is that the psalms really are an encouragement to speak raw-ly and even uncivilly. Heck, God knows us anyway, it's really just us openly admitting how it is, acknowledgedly before God. Until I (we?) do that, somehow we are actually sealing it off from God and missing the comfort of connection in it.
Thank you so much for using your gift. I haven't been able to concentrate lately because of mu own mental state, but read this all the way through. It really is spectacular and not only the writing but the message. Love, love, love the idea you bring that we have to do nothing. He has come to us. Beautiful
Beautiful and timely reflection for me, a similarly exhausted mom of 3 young boys, who also needs to be reminded that prayer is not *my* work but actually a fruit of *His* love and our relational dance. I find a similar balm in praying the liturgy of the hours, because in praying the Psalms, I am given the words I cannot come up with on my own. And since they are also God’s words, I hear him speak to me as well.
This is why I enjoy the Liturgy of the Hours as well and I always feel close to God when I do. I find myself now repeating fragments of them during the day and it is yet another chance to be close.
A wonder-full story beautifully described. You have come to rest in the arms of One who loves you, and has always loved you. In your story I see a person who has had to reach that place where you could only stop in weariness. Stop. You have lived the darkness of un-knowing to arrive in the dawn of a new certainty: while you were still far off, He came for you. Nothing you did would get you into His presence except the recognition that He is love and He loved and loves you. Your love is a response to His.
Sarah, I identify with you and with this essay in many ways. I became mentally ill in my late teens. I was a mother already. I got steadily worse, until at twenty-four, after losing my brother to suicide, I found Christ. What I thought I needed was certainty and control. It was hard to let go of but years later, the cognitive dissonance won out. It was a scary journey. But I didn't disintegrate either. These days, in this weird cultural climate we are in, I too feel unmoored and hardly able to pray or read the Bible. You have helped..once again. Thank you.
As an 83 year old who has been a stumbling follower of Jesus most of his life, and still just beginning to enter in to the mystery of God's love, what you write resonates very strongly. Thank you (and wish I would have known you are in Oxford when we were there last October!)
“ I have come to believe that Love is the mystery that arrives within our stories, vast and benevolent, thrusting himself into our hands, our broken hearts, our weary, prayerless minds. My faith will always shift and change, not because he is less true but because his kindness is so much greater than my frail imagining. Love grows. Fear crumbles away. Faith ripens.” Thank you dear Sarah. This is exquisite writing. This piece is encouraging me to return to just sitting before my icon of Jesus praying and quietly repeating the Jesus prayer this lent. In recent days - I am reading your Reclaiming Quiet book. Reading it ever so slowly to savor its beauty!
Wonderfully beautiful, Sarah. God truly is the giver of all things. I have started Visio Divina for Lent and just two days in can see how 40 days of this practice will be life giving to me. I should use icons more throughout the year. Thank you for this post!
My own prayers in the last months of early pregnancy have been curtailed to “Lord, please help me get through this,” and I have been grieving the loss of the long prayer conversations in the middle of the night. I have had the same worries about falling away, and have been similarly visited and comforted. It was good to read that you are here in His own presence, too, bringing nothing but need and still finding steadfast love.
"Ah, look, it's Himself." I don't think I'll ever be able to approach the Lord's table again without thinking of this!
It will stick in my mind as well Maribeth as I remember our Irish Parish Priest, growing up. God is right there.
Thank you. What I see in your comments is the beauty found not in strengthening or building one's faith, but in discovering the source of faith right there with you all along. Faith knows how to grow; you made a great garden.
I was glad to read the author went through a process of "deconstruction, but not disintegration" -- such a more encouraging perspective and process than what so many young people have seemed to experience in the past decade. It's good to read of a believer grasping onto and holding onto the understanding that it's not what I do but what the Lord has done for me. It's a well-written reminder of Galatians 2:16, "know that we are not justified by works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ." Thank You, Jesus!
I was struck by the phrase 'managed emotion'. For me that names something I keep running into -the way that somehow our nurture in prayer can encourage us to tidy up our emotions before consciously framing our prayer more verbally. So we end up treating God like a potentially tetchy relative or teacher who needs us to present ourselves civilly so as not to take umbridge. What I've been discovering is that the psalms really are an encouragement to speak raw-ly and even uncivilly. Heck, God knows us anyway, it's really just us openly admitting how it is, acknowledgedly before God. Until I (we?) do that, somehow we are actually sealing it off from God and missing the comfort of connection in it.
Thank you so much for using your gift. I haven't been able to concentrate lately because of mu own mental state, but read this all the way through. It really is spectacular and not only the writing but the message. Love, love, love the idea you bring that we have to do nothing. He has come to us. Beautiful
Beautiful and timely reflection for me, a similarly exhausted mom of 3 young boys, who also needs to be reminded that prayer is not *my* work but actually a fruit of *His* love and our relational dance. I find a similar balm in praying the liturgy of the hours, because in praying the Psalms, I am given the words I cannot come up with on my own. And since they are also God’s words, I hear him speak to me as well.
This is why I enjoy the Liturgy of the Hours as well and I always feel close to God when I do. I find myself now repeating fragments of them during the day and it is yet another chance to be close.
A wonder-full story beautifully described. You have come to rest in the arms of One who loves you, and has always loved you. In your story I see a person who has had to reach that place where you could only stop in weariness. Stop. You have lived the darkness of un-knowing to arrive in the dawn of a new certainty: while you were still far off, He came for you. Nothing you did would get you into His presence except the recognition that He is love and He loved and loves you. Your love is a response to His.
Sarah, I identify with you and with this essay in many ways. I became mentally ill in my late teens. I was a mother already. I got steadily worse, until at twenty-four, after losing my brother to suicide, I found Christ. What I thought I needed was certainty and control. It was hard to let go of but years later, the cognitive dissonance won out. It was a scary journey. But I didn't disintegrate either. These days, in this weird cultural climate we are in, I too feel unmoored and hardly able to pray or read the Bible. You have helped..once again. Thank you.
As an 83 year old who has been a stumbling follower of Jesus most of his life, and still just beginning to enter in to the mystery of God's love, what you write resonates very strongly. Thank you (and wish I would have known you are in Oxford when we were there last October!)
“ I have come to believe that Love is the mystery that arrives within our stories, vast and benevolent, thrusting himself into our hands, our broken hearts, our weary, prayerless minds. My faith will always shift and change, not because he is less true but because his kindness is so much greater than my frail imagining. Love grows. Fear crumbles away. Faith ripens.” Thank you dear Sarah. This is exquisite writing. This piece is encouraging me to return to just sitting before my icon of Jesus praying and quietly repeating the Jesus prayer this lent. In recent days - I am reading your Reclaiming Quiet book. Reading it ever so slowly to savor its beauty!
Wonderfully beautiful, Sarah. God truly is the giver of all things. I have started Visio Divina for Lent and just two days in can see how 40 days of this practice will be life giving to me. I should use icons more throughout the year. Thank you for this post!
My own prayers in the last months of early pregnancy have been curtailed to “Lord, please help me get through this,” and I have been grieving the loss of the long prayer conversations in the middle of the night. I have had the same worries about falling away, and have been similarly visited and comforted. It was good to read that you are here in His own presence, too, bringing nothing but need and still finding steadfast love.
Sarah!!!!!! Your words are a gift but the real gift is “Herself!” behind them. ❤️
Thank you. This really encouraged me today in my own time of feeling emptyhanded.
Thank you. That was what I needed to hear today.
This is beautiful, thank you for sharing!