Answered Prayer

Last night, I was working on a poem, out of my journal entries, that was going something like this:

I say to myself: I am who I am
but I know I am not who I was.
I say to myself: I am who I am
but I do not know who I will be.

I can be in this moment,
on the phone
in conversation
by myself or with a friend.

When suddenly I am aware that I have left
my body behind,
and I have dropped
into this other world.

I am on a short path in the woods,
round a corner
and come to a place by a lake.
I sit. I look. I listen.

I am enveloped in the stillness.
It is quiet, but not silent.
It is undisturbed.
It is where I am undisturbed.
It is the Lake of the Lost...

I say to myself: I am who I am
but I am not who I was.
I say to myself: I am who I am
but I do not know who I will be.
* * *

There's more, but really, that's as far as I got.

Then, this morning, I woke with a prayer playing in my mind.

Each first Thursday of every month I worship with a small group of people at a church, in the style of Taize, a form of singing mediation. For a few months now, that worship has been an oasis for me-- its own "place by the lake," if you know what I mean. Last Thursday was my first since my firing. I went, for consolation, and to celebrate life as I know it: the three transitions: my mother's away from this life, my granddaughter's toward this life, and my own from life as I knew it to life as I will come to know it to be. I was consoled, and life was celebrated, and in the being still I was refreshed and renewed.

This morning, one of the Taize songs returned to me: "I am sure I will see the goodness of our God in the land of the living; yes, I will see the goodness of our God! Hold on! Trust in the Lord!"

As I sat by the edge of the Lake of the Lost, this song found me. And these words:

My God said to me: I Am Who I Am
and I Am Who I Ever Have Been.
My God said to me: I AM Who I AM
and I Am Who I Ever Will Be.

Amidst the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," and the changes bidden and unbidden in my life, I am comforted by God's constance. I WILL see the goodness of our God in the land of the living! I WILL hold on! I WILL trust in the Lord!

Praise God! And may you be blessed this day and always...