Not as I would have it . . .

Each morning I read several daily meditations from recovery programs.  This morning one of them included these sentences:

"With my life in God's care, fear, uncertainty, and anger are no longer my response to those portions of life that I would rather not have happen to me.  The pain of living through these times will be healed by the knowledge that I have received the spiritual strength to survive."

Well, for sure these days have a lot of portions that I would rather not have happen.  From the global, to the national, to the local, to the personal, there's a lot of disruption and interruption of my plans and desires.  And some days - some minutes of each day - fear, uncertainty, and anger do indeed crop up.  At those moments it can be hard to hear or believe that my life is in God's care.   If this is care, I want to say, what is neglect like?  If my life is in God's care, what of those whose lives are immeasurably harder than mine?  Words like the ones I quoted can sound facile.

I do believe, however, that I have been given the strength to survive.  My life is a miracle.  It was a miracle that I survived my youth, my drinking and drugging days.  It has been a miracle to be held during the times that I got lazy in my own recovery work.  I have been given the strength to survive, even before I reached out to God, but since then I have learned to thrive.  Death, loss, disorientation, financial insecurity, fallout from my history and my addictions - none of them have severed the connection to God.  God initiated that connection; I just responded.  I still respond, as well as I can.

These times are hard.  But God is strong, and fierce.  We can reach out for the strength to survive, and to thrive.  And beyond that, we find the strength to reach out to others who need to see God in the flesh, in another person.  Even behind our masks, our eyes can smile.  We can still talk.  We can share what we have.  When we do, we actually get stronger.  Abundance grows as it's shared.

So today, I will stand in the knowledge that I, that we, can weather all the storms confronting us.  Together we get through.

And today's Gospel at the Eucharist:  Matthew 11:28-30.  Go get it!