"This place engulfs me," my "sister-cousin" Margie said some years ago, a perfect expression for how so many of us feel about this lake or another special place. For nearly seventy years this very spot has been a sanctuary for my soul, a quiet retreat when the storms of life are raging around me.
My favorite time of all, though, is in the still morning, when not even a zephyr disturbs the water and it reflects the sky and trees like a mirror, an almost perfect image of the original. The calls of geese and great blue herons making their morning flight peal clear as church bells on a summer Sunday. The secret is in the stillness.
When pain and sickness or the world's adversity overwhelm me, sometimes I have to stop crying out to God for relief, stop the music I love, the noise of television and internet, and even conversation with loved ones, and simply be still. And that is when the pain eases and I feel God's calming presence even more than in the most beautiful sanctuary. And He reminds me:
“Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” (Psalm 46:10 NIV)
How hard it is to be still! Just like the lake is ruffled by the slightest breeze, I let myself be bothered by the smallest adversity-- a malfunctioning cell phone, a spill on the stove, not to mention the big things like the death of a loved one or the insanity swirling around us in this broken world.
"Sister-friend" Linda sent me this gem not long ago : "To love a person is to see all of their magic, and to remind them of it when they have forgotten." (Author unknown). Shouldn't we all be mirrors, first and foremost of our great and loving God, Who created us "in His own image" (Genesis 1:27)? And then of the loving people He has placed around us, who like us are His own image-bearers? Imagine a world where we are all still enough to see the face of God reflected in each other.
"After the earthquake a fire passed; but Yahweh was not in the fire. After the fire, there was a still small voice." (1 Kings 19:12 WEB)
"He must increase, but I must decrease" (John 3:30)
