As a parent it is often hard. We have babies to take care of. They need their nappies changed, feeding, cleaning, and playing with. Then at 3 am they wake us up because they are crying. Wanting to be held in the darkness of a new life. Not sure what the darkness represents, but knowing only the warmth of a parent's embrace.
As a parent or teacher, spending quality time with our children. Emotional volcanoes soon erupt. Do we run away, or do we sit at the foot of the mountain listening to the rumblings deep within? Confusion emerges. A sense of being lost and unsure. As parents or teachers, we are called to support and be present with our teenage children, even when they may not want us around.
All of this is part of God's will.
Then we have work pressures. The pressure to perform. To rise to work expectations. These expectations impact what we do as parents. Our vision may shift to these work demands. Then something deep inside us reminds us there is something more important. To be a parent amongst competing demands requires a deeper vision and an integration of the different parts of who we are.
Our culture does not help us with this. Often it fragments us. Putting things in separate boxes. Demanding material success. More wealth. A higher position. The façade that 'I am okay.' Our culture wires us to live on the surface of things. But we need to go deeper.The 'Our Father' prayer says, 'your will be done.' God's will. Not our will. We must stop. Stop the noise. Stop the constant doing and doing and doing. Stop the busyness. Only in stillness can we more fully see God. As the Psalmist writes, 'Be still and know that I am God.' Christian meditation calls us to be still. Only in stillness can we more fully hear God speak. To set aside a time when we do nothing, but rest in God's presence. To be. To focus on the breath. Of course, our ego fights this. To sit in God's presence. Like Mary waiting for the birth of her child. We must wait. Maybe for nine months. Maybe for forty years, like the Jewish people who wandered the desert. Waiting is a blessing. We wait for God. If we truly want to know which bus to catch, we must wait at the bus stop and not catch every bus that goes past. Maybe one hundred and fifty buses will go past before we get on the right one. When you wait like this, you notice things. Walking along a road in Northern England, on the way to Walsingham. A place where Mary appeared. In the dead of winter. In the cold. In the rain. Many cars and trucks drive past. Sometimes forcing you to jump into the muddy paddock. Your feet become covered in mud. But you notice each car. You notice each truck. Time slows down. Time slows down so much that twenty years later you still hold a vivid memory of this moment. God is hidden in the fabric of our day. God cannot be caught at speed. We are blessed in the yearning, the birth pains, and the mud on our feet. They ground us. They give us a sense of being. Only after we have wrestled with life can we look back and say, 'There was God.'
Journal and reflect on the following
- Where in your own life is God's will currently 'hidden,' and what might that hiddenness be inviting you to freely choose?
- What are the 'buses' you tend to catch out of impatience?
- Which parts of yourself feel most 'in separate boxes' and what would integration actually look like?
- When the 'emotional volcanoes' erupt in your children, or in yourself, what helps you sit at the foot of the mountain rather than run? What does faithful presence cost you in those moments, and what have you learned by staying?
- Looking back, where can you now say 'there was God' in a season you couldn't recognise at the time?
Please pray the following prayer
Loving God,
your will is often hidden from us, and in that hiddenness you invite us to freely choose love. Yet we confess how hard it is to stop, to quiet the noise, the busyness, the constant doing and the weight of competing demands that pull us in every direction and fragment who you have made us to be. Teach us to be still and know that you are God. Give us the patience of Mary, who waited for the birth of her child, and the trust to wait at the bus stop rather than chase every passing distraction. Help us to find you hidden in the fabric of our ordinary days, in the cries of a child in the night, in the rumblings of a teenager's heart, in the cold and the rain and the mud on our feet. Slow us down, that we might notice you. And when we have wrestled with life and look back over all of it, grant us the grace to say, 'There was God.' Amen.
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