I had a long, sorrowful talk with a dear friend last night. My heart was, and is, heavy for her. She is hurting. This morning, I found myself praying this line for her over and over as I took my shower, made the bed, and got dressed: “Lord, give her summer weather in her heart.”
I’ve referenced this quote before on the blog: it’s the closing line from my favorite Puritan prayer from the Valley of Vision. I stopped and wondered why this particular phrase was so arresting to me. Ever since I read it for the first time, back in college, on that tan couch under the grimy window of our loft apartment, it has stuck with me as a go-to phrase. It is my murmured prayer in times of chaos. “Lord, give me summer weather in my heart.” When I was commuting two hours a day on mass transit. When I got one more bad-news email at work and I just couldn’t deal with it. When a friend said hurtful words. When I’m irrationally angry at someone I love. When I’m positive that our stuff won’t fit in the moving van. “Lord, give me summer weather in my heart.” I love this line because it’s such an exceptionally beautiful image of peace. It helps answer the question in my head, “What is peace?” My heart seems rarely to be still, but I don’t know what it is that I’m aiming for. How do I be still? How do I be peaceful? Summer weather. There’s a rich, heavy quietness about it. Every day of the summer we each experience the move from cold, alert buildings to that warm bubble of outside. We slow down. Nature is in full bloom, and in this little corner of the world, full of thick forest, that means we are snuggled between thousands of massive trees, creeks, and corn fields. Breezes are gentle. Afternoon rain often comes in slow, large drops from sunny skies, rather than in winter’s piercing, icy sheets. Long shadows. Humming cicadas. All feels right and as it should be. When I don’t know how to be peaceful in my heart I remember these words. I ask God for peace like summer’s still heat. -- There’s a reason the Bible talks about peace so much. Because we need it so desperately. We need it when we are shocked and horrified by senseless acts of violence against innocent fellow citizens. My heart aches that we still live in a place and time where men are hated, suspected, and killed based on the color of their skin. How, Lord, do we still live like this? Sin hurts so badly. It is so ugly and disgusting. Yes, we live in a place and time where a man is killed because he was driving an old car with a taillight out and his skin was black. And therefore he fit a stereotype that spoke danger to an officer. Yes, we live in a place and time when men believe god is asking them to blow up people for his kingdom. Yes, we live in a place and time where it is politically incorrect to defend unborn children’s lives. Yes, we live in a place and time where white teenage boys shoot praying black people in a church in the south. And yes, it is all evil and unjust. That is the power of sin. It is a wretched stain. It is death. All over social media people are posting things like: “It’s 2016: c’mon people.” “Why in this day and age?” As if somehow being in the year 2016 makes sinful people more enlightened. Sadly, the fact that it’s 2016 and not the “dark ages” doesn’t make a real difference at the soul-level. We are still broken. There will always be violence and injustice as long as “this place and this time” is this side of eternity. Oh, how it breaks my heart. But I know that it breaks my God’s heart even more. And so I can only rest—find summer’s weather—in the fact that because he “so loved the world he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (John 3:17). We so desperately need saving from days like these. Thank you, God, for loving us enough to save us from the sin that makes us kill one another. I turn again to the Repose prayer (which you can read here, but I would encourage you to buy the full Valley of Vision as well): “I have cast my anchor in the port of peace, knowing that present and future are in nail-pierced hands.”
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Authorwife to a med student and mama to three under three, seeking the joyful and learning to live by faith. Find me on Instagram and Pinterest or shoot me an email. I'd love to hear from you!
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