A Prayer for the Big and Far Away Times

 

In the midst of what is otherwise a reasonable preparation-in-the-last-week-before-the-trip, I am finding the need to stop and just feel some things.

A number of people I love are carrying big things right now, and it's all happening all at once, or so it seems.  And it's all happening just now, before I leave for a bit.

It's only three weeks that I'll be away, and there's the wonder of all the means by which we can and will connect, I know.  But it is far away.  

I should be, and perhaps I'm getting to where I'm familiar with this both/and deal.  The tension between my two worlds, and that heightened sense of our human limitations of only being in one place at one time, even when I wish it was otherwise.

Because some of these things feel big.  And heavy.  And hard.  And I just need to stop and allow myself to feel it.

And in the pause to feel, I feel Him.  And it's like He stands before me and takes my hands in His and says, "Guess what?  I actually am in more than one place at a time."

Big, slow breath.  Yes.  This.  

And then the words of Paul, writing to beloveds who were far away and dealing with big things of their own...

....And having just reminded them that we can approach God "with freedom and confidence" (3:12 - gotta love that image!), 

Paul's prayer becomes my own prayer for this big and far away time right now.

For this reason I keel before the Father,

from Whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name.

I pray that out of His glorious riches 

He may strengthen you 

with power through His Spirit in your inner being,

 so that 

Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.  

And I pray that you, 

being rooted and established in love, 

may have power, 

together with all the Lord's holy people, 

to grasp how wide 

and long 

and high 

and deep 

is the love of Christ, 

and to know this love that surpasses knowledge 

-- that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians (3:14-19)

Yes.  All that.

And I imagine myself at Hot Springs, bouncing around to the song that was totally inspired by this text, about God's Everlasting Love being higher, deeper, reaching....  And knowing I'll be praying it over all those I can't be with at the moment, because God  is looking after all of it.

This pause is powerful.  And quiet.  And a welcome humbling.