Minute Meditations

Our all-loving God does not desire that we seek suffering to become holy, but he does desire that we surrender to him in our suffering so that in our brokenness, his mercy can make us whole again. In being broken open by suffering, we are offered the opportunity to let those open spaces be filled with the mercy and compassion of our God, and in the depth of that mercy to be moved to love him more deeply. Surrendering to suffering is the path we walk backwards through the pain of the fall toward the life of Eden.

—from When We Were Eve: Uncovering the Woman God Created You to Be by Colleen Mitchell

It is God’s love that is still holding me by the shoulder as, spoonful by spoonful, I consume the warmth of his mercy into my physical and spiritual being. And when I am fully restored and well, it will be with love and great delight that he touches my hand and calls me to serve again.

We are not called to live a life of servitude to a demanding Father. We are his children whom he wants to heal and feed, then lift into service as evidence of his great love and delight in us. Let us not confuse the two any longer but open our eyes and be fed so that we might serve him from the fullness of our hearts and our confidence in his love.

—from When We Were Eve: Uncovering the Woman God Created You to Be by Colleen Mitchell

Like most people, I would prefer to escape deep loss and to avoid hard and challenging times. Yet the dark has given me gifts that are immeasurably deep. It was because I wrestled with the dark that I learned to see beyond what was happening on the surface of my life, and grew to understand that everything is more than it appears to be. In time I knew that the dark is not absent of light. Light moves within the dark at a great depth. With this realization came a glimpse of the inordinate beauty and power just beyond our sight.

from the book Stars at Night: When Darkness Unfolds as Night

Hold a space in your heart for the world. Were all ancestors of future generations who hope well build the fire that can be seen in the distance. All of us, each one of us, traveling together on the one road. And if we took responsibility for the world into our own hearts, what might happen?

from the book Stars at Night: When Darkness Unfolds as Night

What if we could place a meal on the table differently and then hear, finally, the simple thingslaughter, rain, and the smell of the sea? What if the dark is spilling the impossible blue on each one who passes by, breaking our hearts open until we see that everything gleams with lightuntil we are no longer able to pass by like a dream? A single sentence, a single word keeps turning life over. We are only given this day.

from the book Stars at Night: When Darkness Unfolds as Night

The dark meets each person in unique ways, and our individual thresholds assume varying forms. Each one is significant. When a life experience calls into question the things you’ve formerly known and believed, the moment can be decisive. From my own journey, I vividly remember times of sheer confusion when I didn’t know if I was being overcome by the dark, or by a great love. Then the wondering, too deep for words, if they were in fact the same.

—from the book Stars at Night: When Darkness Unfolds As Light by Paula D'Arcy