Saturday 1st December
Did you ever have one of those days where everything seems
to go wrong from start to finish? Well
today I had one of those kind of days.
Later in the evening I talk with a good friend of mine. She is a regular meditator, and day in day
out, year in, year out, rain, hail, snow, Christmas day, every day she never
fails to retreat to her special corner and observe the breath (vipassana) and
recite the mantra she uses interiorly in rhythm with the breath. She tells me how life changing it was for
her, and I know myself when I see her.
She is always positive, always happy.
She is definitely a good advertisement for daily meditation.
After having had a difficult day, more things go wrong for
me in the evening, technical things like the blog I can normally edit won’t
seem to bring me into the place where my posts are. I try several times, and
then the cursor starts doing a dance across the page. I can’t control it. It’s like it’s acting with a mind of its own.
Yes, I know that sounds quite comical, and on a good day, I will see the funny
side to it, but not now, not at this
particular moment. This final last straw is just too much and I find myself
descending into a very dark and bleak place.
It is a hellish place of futility as if I cannot see the point to
anything.
Now having been told by my warm and loving mother that Jesus
never fails us, I can never ever forgo this gift of faith that has been handed
on to me and which lifts me out of such places of darkness always when I need it most.
I have a bedside book called God Calling, a devotional diary
by Two Listeners. It says on the front that it has sold six million copies
worldwide, and so I randomly open it trusting and believing it will bring me to
a passage that will be relevant and so I open the book not by selecting a
particular page and theme, but just allowing myself to be led to wherever or
whatever it is I need to see and I am brought to July 7 with the heading which I would like to share with you whoever
or wherever you are on your journey.
Painful Preparation
“Help and peace and
joy are here. Your courage will be
rewarded. Painful as this time is you will both one day see the reason of it,
and see too that it was not cruel testing but tender preparation for the
wonderful life-work you are both to do.
Try to realize that
your own prayers are being most wonderfully answered. Answered in a way that seems painful to you,
but that just now is the only way.
Success in the
temporal world would not satisfy you.
Great success, in both temporal and spiritual worlds awaits you.
I know you will see
this had to be.”
Come to me, all you
who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and
learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for
your souls. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light. Matthew Chapter 11: 28 -30
The word yoke in this
context means something that binds.
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