Resting Mercies

Saturday in the First Week of Lent

You trace my journeys and my resting-places
and are acquainted with all my ways.
Psalm 139:2

For the umpteenth time, I thank God for being home. For cooking my own food. For sleeping in my own bed. For praying in my usual space. As I linger in this contemplation, I sense there is something more here than simply the comfort of the familiar. It might be about rest. Sacred rest.

It is not only on the journey that God is present, but in the resting places as well. In creation, God sanctified rest, blessed and hallowed the seventh day. Times of being still and being restored claim a holy place on this Lenten journey.  And I recall too, that in music, there is a sign for a rest—for the interval between notes. It is not that this rest makes the notes possible, but that it makes them music.

I have a friend who always offers me travel mercies. Today I call on resting mercies. That God will protect my rest, shield my joy, keep me close. That I will remember that the intervals are blessed, and are required to stir my heart with sacred song.


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