from The Lutheran - February 2009 Story by Mary C. Lindberg
from The Lutheran - February 2009
Story by Mary C. Lindberg
What are you doing to manage your stress and use your faith as the economy sinks lower and lower?
I've been struck by how clueless we were that economic systems could change. Decades of acquisition didn't exactly tone us for leaner times. But those leaner times are here, and as painful as the situation may be, we're suddenly connected in a way we haven't been for decades. We face these changes en masse. So I know I can turn to you and ask: "How are you doing?" I want to know — I care in the way people care who know. I need your ideas and reflections about walking with God into the unknown.
Here are three ways that helped my family move from initial panic about the economy to a more creative quest for God's help:
1. Pour in the good news first.
Every morning my husband and I wake up to the clock radio. Recently we realized that before we were even conscious, our brains were hearing bad news: "Stock market down;" "Thousands more job losses." It's always hard to wake up, but this was ridiculous.
We talked about the percentage of negative news on the airwaves and knew we had to counter it with good news (or sink into despair). Now we wake to a music CD and save the news for a little later. We give each other a prayer or verse upon awakening. They don't call the gospel good news for nothing! Here are some verses to wake up to:"I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly" (John 10:10).
"I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139:14).
"Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread" (Luke 24:35).2. Angel, I need you.
At Christmastime, stories of angels speaking to Mary, Joseph and the shepherds spoke to me: "Be not afraid!" How I needed that message! I tried to put on such a brave face for our children, not wanting them to worry about money and the future. Alone one day, I burst into tears. "I need you angel. I need you, angel," I sobbed.
I came away with a mantra that centers me: "I am afraid, but God is not." I repeat these words whenever anxiety creeps too close. "I am afraid, but God is not." It's an honest truth: a witness of how this faith thing works.3. Use the examen prayer.
Do you use the examen prayer? The word examen is like "examine" — this way of praying means paying attention to each day and what it means. Our family prays this way every night. Gathered around a candle, each person tells their most joyful and most challenging times of that day. With the examen, one day doesn't just get swallowed up into another. We find out all kinds of things about one another. We see God at work in many ways. It's a bigger picture of God's world, where people rejoice and need help. At the end of the examen one of us prays, "God bless us in our happy times and light the way in our darkness."
Our current challenging times — painful and frightening as they can be — will show us what God is made of and what God made us to be. We're God's children — God looks at us with that same look of love with which we gaze at our children. And God wants us to know upon what and whom we can depend. God sees our potential, our roots, our support system — even when we don't.
May we know the gift of a common humanity and the power of shared faith.
Reproduced by special permission of Augsburg Fortress”
(www.theLutheran.org).
The Lutheran is the magazine of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. More informatiom or to subscribe to The Lutheran.,