Solitude and Silence

 Good morning, Father! It is currently 9:13 a.m., and DH is at the church's Men's Breakfast. I have a client at 11:30 a.m. on Zoom (virtual),  and I am not ready as far as grooming and hygiene.  But of course, this time with You is more important, and the opportunity does not always or often present so well.

I have chosen to remain "deaf" for this time to make the experience of silence more real, too.  

Funny coincidence that is probably not a coincidence: My YouVersion plan reading *and* the lesson I am teaching in Sunday School tomorrow are both from Matthew 5:13-16, "Salt and Light." Hmmm.

A little stream of consciousness? I am fairly sure You don't mind--and are not surprised by anything I am thinking anyway.

There are a bazillion things that swirl in my head for prayer.  Catching any one of them sometimes makes me feel worse rather than better because then I feel that I have neglected the others, which are perhaps more "important."  How do You define importance, Father?  There are my beloved daughters and their men, my husband, my mother, my sister with dementia, the war in Ukraine, our future with retirement looming, the Afghani family my DH is helping, my clients, my patients...

And then I look back on the list and note that I forgot DH's side of the family, our church, our neighboring city and its social problems.  

The story of Tending the Mountain Spring from the Grace Chapel pastor, Bryan Wilkerson, comes to mind.  (Someday I will find it and copy it into a format where I can reference it directly.) These times of solitude and silence don't present often enough, but at least on a daily basis I have been getting Word time and on a more frequent basis I am practicing and documenting prayer in my YouVersion app. That is, by the way, where I feel guilty praying for one thing and then not another.

Jesus, when You were limited by time and humanity, how did You make those choices?  I see that You took those times away.  Did You pray for Your apostles one by one? Did you pray for the cities and the people You had just left?  Did You anticipate Your next visit in prayer? 

Well, I see, Father, that it is now 9:37 a.m. and I probably need to (relative of the word "should") start with my ablutions.  After all this, I may end with the Prayer of Jabez from 1 Chronicles 4:10 

"Oh, that You would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let Your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain."

(Not really comfortable with the "free from pain" thing, although in a moment of pain, I am sure that I would be pleading for it.) 

I love You, Lord.

9:44 a.m.