Food for the Wilderness
Daily Devotion
April 23, 2020
Ann Beck, Pastoral Associate
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Traveling has been on my mind. The flight reserved months ago to Spain in mid-May was permanently highlighted on my calendar, so it’s a visible daily reminder of anticipated plans erased from reality. It was to be a pilgrimage journey, of exploration and exciting challenges, and like all travel is – life changing. I love traveling to unfamiliar places, experiencing new worlds.
Instead, a sudden fall on an icy driveway a month ago took me on unplanned journey of healing for a fractured wrist. A long healing, and in this pandemic world, quarantined. An unwelcome sojourn of recovery and separation.
Delta has not yet officially cancelled my flight, but the inevitability is clear. I am, like all of you, now traveling on a different journey, a world we didn’t want to explore. We’re navigating a landscape so foreign to what we know, we’re even learning a new language along the way (just think of all the words that have suddenly become part of our common vocabulary).
So I’m finding it helpful to take Bonhoeffer’s quote to heart and trust that there will be new insights and growth along the way, leaning with faith into God’s compassionate presence in the midst of whatever happens. We don’t know what this journey will hold. It is a harrowing trip, with uncertainty of what is on the road ahead, and we all will have our own experiences. We will be changed, travel does that – especially when we let go of control and let God fill the moment with grace. Be ready to be surprised ~
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6