Comforting God

I’m still mulling over yearly meeting and our inability to come to consensus on the issues related to same sex relationships. We’re still divided as a yearly meeting, and this is causing paralysis, as well as distress.

One morning recently, as I agonized in spirit, I found myself repeating in prayer, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” Then my prayer morphed into, “It’s alright. Please don’t be sad. It’ll all work out.”

This reminds me of when our children were small. After I brought a new-born Kristin home from the hospital, she had her bouts of crying, like all small babies. There were even times when, being tired myself and having tried all I knew to address her distress, I just left her in her cradle to cry it out.

This alarmed her older brother, and three-year-old David would tell me, “Mom, Kristin’s crying! You need to ‘there-there’ her!” Apparently when I held her and patted her back, I would murmur, “There-there. There-there.” Soon we adopted the phrase, “to there-there Kristin.”

Back to the present. As I was praying, “I’m sorry. Please don’t be sad,” I realized that I was trying to “there-there” God. That brought a smile, along with a sense of the ridiculous. Who was I to comfort God? Who was I to tell God to just relax, that it would somehow all work out? Who, indeed?

I sensed God smile back, and real comfort took place, in a God-to-me direction. Seeing the humor in this serious situation again restored perspective and faith.

The church belongs to God, and God will lead us as we seek, ask and listen. In the meantime, I will continue praying and waiting and working and loving. In the words of Julian of Norwich, “All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.”

Yes.

There-there.