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Daily Devotional for Friday, March 20
The news is scary, full of words we've never really given much thought to before--phrases like pandemic, self-quarantine, and sheltering in place. Good grief! Wasn't it just yesterday we were celebrating the New Year and all of the hope it brings?
Life is changing very quickly these days. Things we accepted as normal parts of life-hair appointments, worship services, and lunch with friends-are out of reach at the moment. We feel turned upside down, inverted and inside out. Shaken and stirred, dis-oriented and confused, we grasp for something to hold on to, something to steady us.
Fortunately we can find ourselves equipped; we can find ourselves upheld, not by our own wit or will, but by something else we have been carrying with us all along! Maybe we have to dust it off a bit, take it off the shelf, or reach down deep into our inner "pocket" to access it, but we have it. Do you wonder what I'm talking about? I'm talking about our rainy day faith!
You know that faith I'm talking about: It's the faith that we've been saving for times that are tough. We've steadily contributed to this well of faith week after week--when we attended church, prayed our nighttime prayers, or read our daily devotional. It's the faith we were shoring up when we were memorizing Bible verses like "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want." It's the faith that we were growing each time God walked with us through a difficult diagnosis, a lost job, a broken heart, or a trying time with a child. It's the faith that you've stored up for such a time as this--a time of uncertainty and maybe fear, a time when the only thing we can know for certain is that we are held by the Rock, steady and sure.
Now is the time that we claim that faith we've been saving for hard times and we cling to it, confident that God is for us and that nothing can separate us from God's love. Today, may each of us abide in God's hope, rest in the knowledge of God's mercy, trust in God's goodness and grace, and revel in the memories of God's tender care.
Chaplain Erin
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