Tag: Proverbs

Fellow Travelers

Perhaps if more people thought in terms that we might travel the very path that others travel we would be more accepting of them as co-travelers and more eager to help – and be helped.

Meditation Thought: “A kind man benefits himself, but a cruel man brings trouble on himself.” (Proverbs 11:17)

Lord, is this the same thing as “what comes around goes around?” Somehow thinking in these terms really makes sense. So many things in our lives seem to travel in circles. Perhaps if more people thought in terms that we might travel the very path that others travel we would be more accepting of them as co-travelers and more eager to help – and be helped.

Maybe you made you made us with a ‘sixth sense’ that we move in circles, perhaps returning over and over into the same places, even though we might not recognize them as the same because their ‘season’ has given them a different look. Perhaps as we repeat our journey we are to grow more knowledgeable and able to travel more alertly and competently and appreciatively.

If so, help me cope better and better with each encounter, and Lord, I do have the desire to learn from my journey and to help others learn more about you and your will for their lives in addition to them becoming more aware of your reality.

My Creator, Sustainer and Helper

Meditation Thought: “Go to the ant you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer, and gathers food at its harvest. (Proverbs 6:6-8)

“Do not fear – I will help you. I will help others through you. I have prepared ahead of you. I can use every event and circumstance for good – providing you heed my instructions. Be alert. Be at peace. These events and circumstances are not antagonists but co-joiners to accomplishing good works.”

Mom went on to share throughout the day in various written prayers. These were written in May of 2002 – shortly after the Alzheimer’s diagnosis.

“All right, Lord, my intentions are good. But – good intentions do not accomplish the deed. Please give me the will and the strength to accomplish the works which you desire of me.”

“Dear Lord, my Creator and Sustainer and helper: Thank you! I am more convinced than ever that you are with me, helping and encouraging me – and through the trial my family and I are enduring that You are working good – for us and probably for other people too.

I almost see myself from outside myself and wonder how I can feel so calm – really almost excited too – when I have such an upsetting diagnosis. Somehow You have entered into my mind – even my emotions – that you have assigned me a quest to help people to either avoid the disease or cope with it. I have a big imagination, but it couldn’t conjure up the thoughts – and particularly the emotional feeling – that is taking place. I don’t know what the future holds, but Lord I pray that I can always hold on to your reality in my life as much as I am at this moment.

As is natural, I know I don’t want to be a burden, and yet if it is necessary so that You can perform some action that is Your quest, then I’ll accept it. I’m not accepting it gladly, but as a little child obeys its parent, that is the intent of my heart. You have worked miracles for my good, and I know you can work a miracle for my good in this situation.

…I praise You and thank You for what You are doing for me and for others. I don’t know that Your will is for the situation, but I do know that it has been in some of the most painful experiences of my life that You have revealed Your love and Your power to me.

Therefore, my pledge to you this day is that I shall try to accept that ‘Thy will be done.’

… Please sustain me, Lord. I know how weak and cowardly I am, but I know too, that these qualities can be restructured and renewed with Your power to make me ‘a new creation’.”

She then shared a bit about this meditation process – as she was correcting an “error” in the personal prayer part (not shared here) where she said a family member had called her ‘yesterday’ and it had actually been several days before. She writes:

“Although I honestly believe that the thoughts in meditation time are prompted by God, for they flow so easily, and so often later prove valid, still I am involved in the process and am prone to error. I don’t know the ‘ins and outs’ of these sessions, but I do know that just trying to communicate in this manner with God has enriched my life and helped other people.”

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