Alone in prayer

Tuesday in the Second Week of Lent

For God alone my soul in silence waits,

from whom comes my salvation.

Psalm 62:1

As the two of us sit down to dinner, I light the candles in our Lenten desertscape that sits on our dining-room table. The candles are stubs, left over from some other time. I placed them there because Lent seems like the right time for remnants. And they still give light. They are held by the sand that fills a wooden tray, and in between them is a small wooden peg, a person alone in the wilderness.

Our diner table is a sacred place in our home. Countless meals have been served and shared here, countless graces said, countless conversations offered about how the day went. My spouse and I ate and prayed here in the early years, we raised our children around this table, and now this is where we welcome them and their partners home.

I relish the solitude of the wilderness. I am strengthened by the silence. I wait and listen for God’s word. And…I am surrounded by the prayers of others. Those who have crossed the wilderness before me and those who are my companions along the way now. And even those who have yet to set foot on this way. For God’s time is always and God’s way eternal.