LORD my God, I called to you for help, and you healed me. Psalm 30:2
“Imagine your soul as being like the Tyne Bridge. There are busy times and quiet times. The job of the bridge is not to ask what is in the cars or lorries but simply to bear their weight for a few seconds and then to allow them to go on their way.
There is no problem when the flow of traffic is even, but when breakdowns and bottlenecks occur, the fights and impatience begin. Your soul too has to tkae the weight and let it go.
The suffering becomes prolonged only when you do not acknowledge its existence and let it pass on. Then it sits on your soul like a judgment. The time to repair the bridge is at night when the traffic is light.
Your prayer in quiet times gives you the strength to cope with the heavy, busy times. You dig, patch, and repair in the night. As a result the world can flow over your soul in the day without congestion.
You must allow the flow of faith, love, healing, hope, joy, and light to pass through you into the world. You must allow the flow of hatred, darkness, and sin to flow from the world through you to God.
All of this is done by prayer, and by forgiveness of yourself, of others and perhaps even of God Himself for what you feel He has done to you. Little by little, you grow in the power of prayer, in the ability to hear the weight and accept the contradictions of the two-way flow between God and the world.”
Aidan Clarke in Celtic Daily Prayer (New York: Harper Collins, 2002) 394-395.
Need strength to cope? I do. You think you need help and what I am learning is that in such moments you need healing.
“The time to repair the bridge is in the night.” Take your concerns to God on your bed. Call for help. Let Him heal you.
Let His love and hope transform you as, like Jesus, you bear the sins of those around you. This is what being generous conduits of grace is all about.