A Prayer of Stillness

There has not been a lot of stillness in our lives lately.  Classes at Bethel started this week.  Eric's teaching a more-than-full load as usual, and I'm embarking on a new adventure with my first "real" college class (to native speakers - ack!)  in an intensive 7-week format.  Ian's been....well, let's just say he's been very four lately:  testing boundaries like they're going out of style (at which point I assure him, they're not) and just generally being a pill.  Add to that a visitation/funeral for Bethel's former president, community service with the school, a fireplace cleaning that turned into kind of a mess, and catering an art show at church -- well, it's been a doozy of a week.

So when Eric wisely suggested I take a morning to get some work done and do whatever I wanted to, I really couldn't argue.  Since it's yet another absolutely gorgeous day -- can't believe the fabulous weather we're having --  I hopped on my bike with my Bible in tow and spent an hour at the Mishawaka Riverwalk this morning.  I picked out a park bench on Kamm Island on the south side of the river, just across from the spot where Eric proposed to me over 10 years ago, and I just sat.  I took time to notice the things around me:  the cool breeze, a brilliant blue sky, the lazily meandering river, geese taking a ride backwards and sideways on their own personal aquatic thoroughfare, the scent of grass and water.  Eventually, I retrieved from my backpack a book of prayers written by Richard Foster, and quickly came across this one:

"I wait now in silence, Lord, that the good may spring up and the evil dissipate.

May the ocean of your light continually overcome the ocean of my darkness."  

After meditating on this for a while, God began to give me a true sense of peace.  Not just that feeling that you get when things are hunky-dory and nice.  But true, deep, supernatural peace.  The same kind of peace I felt in the days and weeks following Beta's death.  The unexplainable, transcendent calm that can only come from the Creator of the Universe and the Redeemer of our hearts.  And I felt thankful and truly alive.