Thursday of the Second Week of Advent

Be still before the Lord
   and wait patiently for him.  Psalm 37:7


I mess with the candlewick. I pick up my phone to check the weather. I contemplate adding a coat of polish to my nails. I almost check my email, but pull myself back at the last moment. I return to prayer.

Even after all these years of early morning discipline, even though I crave the pre-dawn quiet, even as I yearn to drop deeply into meditation of the holy, I am challenged by restlessness. I know the blessing of being still before God, but getting still is its own task.

Stillness does not come quickly. It requires surrender, and attention. Sometimes it needs to be carved out of a day. Perhaps I need to mine for stillness, or skillfully scrape my way into its cavern. Or cultivate it like a gardener. 

Or maybe it only requires a moment, a breath.

It is an act of love, I realize. Being still before God is loving God, and taking the chance to be loved by God. Which is hardly a chance at all, but a sure thing. I simply need to be still long enough to know this. Which only takes a moment and a breath and all my life.




Copyright Anne E. Kitch 2014