Oh how easy it is, to forget God’s deeds. As soon as things are hard, or the path forward obscure, I forget. It’s not that I forget God’s there, or doubt in God’s providence. Rather, I begin to interject myself in ways that are neither helpful, or feel good.
When things are hard, I sometimes throw my hands up in the air, figuratively, and get a little dooms-day-ish. Currently my loved one is becoming increasingly symptomatic in their significant chronic mental health disease. They’re increasingly withdrawn, and non-communicative. That’s a big red flag for us, as they normally spend a lot of time on social media, for better or worse, talking to their thousands of fans, literally. Now, they spend most of the time in their bedroom, coming out to occasionally smoke or drink, or even more occasionally, eat. Woe is me. There’s nothing I can do about this, except fret. And so, forgetting God’s deeds, I fret. Worse, I return their surly tone with my own, as if that will help, or as if they can do anything about the disease in their brain.
Similarly, when I cannot see the path forward, I jump in and plan or organize or force a way. Certainty, even my own contrived, likely-to-not-happen plans are more comfortable than the unknown. My family plans are pretty non-existent now, between the pandemic and the uncertainty of my loved one’s condition or presence at any given time. Therefore, clearly, I’m needed to jump in and construct a plan, a future, a vision forward.
Just like the Israelites in Egypt, I soon forget God’s deeds.
This is why I pray the Morning Office. Every morning, I’m given a chance to remember God’s deeds. Whether it’s with the Lord’s Prayer, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, or a song of Isaiah, ‘Surely it is God who saves me, I will trust in him and not be afraid’, every day, I’m given text to pray and remember. I will trust in him and not be afraid. I will trust in him and not be afraid.
That trust in God doesn’t make things any less crummy for my loved one. It doesn’t mean the delusions are gone, or the smiles return. It doesn’t make it any easier to watch. But for a moment at least, I remember that God is with us both. God, the ever present, ever loving, ever merciful God. I do not need to fret, or wring my hands. To be clear, I’m not suggesting all will be ‘well’, and I sometimes wish my faith would indemnify me and my loved ones from any harm. But that’s not how it works.
With regard to my plans for an uncertain future, they are never as good as God’s. Again, the song of Isaiah reminds us of a better future with God, “you shall draw water with rejoicing from the springs of salvation”. That is better than any contrived plan of mine.
This morning, I’m thinking about the moments when I’m in prayer, remembering all of the things that are so easy to forget. When I pray my repetitive morning daily office, I am repeatedly interrupted from my chronic forgetting.
No comments:
Post a Comment