Oct 14, 2006 |
by Annette Bridges. © 2006. All rights reserved.
It’s about time to begin my packing list. Weeks before a trip is scheduled, I start my travel preparations with a list. Mostly I do this because I don’t want to forget anything I may want during our vacation. My husband would probably tell you that I generally overpack my bags with more clothes, etc., than I could possibly need or use. Nevertheless, his comments don’t deter me in the least as I move forward toward our trip countdown.
Did you know there are guides on how to pack a suitcase? Yes, over the years I’ve come across dozens of packing guides and many helpful tips. One such guide begins, “Packing a suitcase is a strategic exercise in maximizing space and minimizing wrinkles.” My mom has often boasted about my skillful ability to make the most of my packing space.
Yet another guide begins, “Knowing how to pack a suitcase is essential to being a good traveler.” However, 27 years of traveling with my husband have taught me a successful and happy trip requires more than the items I pack in my bags. Indeed, the most important thing I need to pack doesn’t require luggage. As the title of a recent online chat featured on www.spirituality.com put it, “Don’t forget to pack prayer.”
I’ve found that beginning trip preparations with prayer has helped me add items to my suitcase that I might not have thought I needed and then would indeed need during the trip. In addition to packing, planning for a trip can raise all sorts of anxieties. For me, this has included fear of flying, health concerns, inclement weather dreads or any other unexpected or unwanted catastrophes.
With plenty of worries to fear and fret about, it’s a wonder anyone can ever have a happy vacation. But prayer can help us find the perfect solution for every situation. During one trip on which everything went wrong, including a hurricane evacuation, prayer made the difference in turning the trip into a safe, and still fun, adventure.
Packing prayer means acknowledging God’s control and power before you pack — or rather, before you even make your packing list. Then, certainly every day throughout a trip, packing prayer is listening for God’s wisdom and knowing that He is providing us with the practical ideas we need. Packing prayer means we’re alert to the angels of His presence — the spiritual intuitions and thoughts God gives us. These spiritual guides will lead us on a safe journey and also deliver us if we get into any trouble. For the Psalmist promises, “For He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways” (Psalms 91:11).
The Psalmist also tells us how we hear the guidance our angel guardians give to us when he says, “Be still … ” (Psalms 46:10). Being mentally still may not always be easy, especially in challenging times, but doing so, if only for a few moments, will help us to hear God’s angel messages more clearly.
As we prepare for traveling and embark on our travels, we can be assured that God is with us to care for us each step — or mile — of the way. We can trust in the Psalmist’s reassuring message, “The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore” (Psalms 121:8).
So, when you’re preparing to travel, don’t forget to pack prayer and have a great trip! That’s my plan, too!
Oct 13, 2006 |
by Annette Bridges. © 2006. All rights reserved.
The Bible in My life
How well I remember the Bible stores read to me as a child! Daniel in the lions’ den. Joseph with his coat of many colors. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the fiery furnace. David and Goliath. And many others.
Throughout my life, the Bible has been my life coach. If I need guidance of any kind, I know I can find it in the Scriptures. And Science and Health assures me that “the Bible contains the recipe for all healing” (p. 406). Again and again, I am finding this to be so.
Not long ago I learned a lesson from the account of Daniel’s interpretation of King Nebuchadnezzar’s dreams, in chapters one to four of the Old Testament book of Daniel. The king sought advice from magicians, astrologers, and sorcerers, about the significance of these dreams, but they gave him no satisfaction.
Eventually Daniel – who had prayed that the “wisdom and might” of God might be revealed to him –was brought to Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel offered an interpretation, but the king feared that the humility called for in Daniel’s response, which pointed to God’s supremacy, would threaten the “power, and strength, and glory” he had worked so hard to attain.
It was Nebuchadnezzar’s pride that caught my attention. At the time, I was working on a variety of projects. I enjoyed what I was doing, but I was feeling that I was the only person on the job who could accomplish the tasks efficiently. Many days, I felt burdened and overwhelmed. I should have asked for assistance from other members on my team, but I didn’t – mainly because I didn’t think anyone else could get the job done as well as I could.
Soon, I began to suffer from severe headaches. I couldn’t sleep at night, because I would lie in bed thinking about all that I had to get done the next day. Some nights I suffered constricting pains in my chest that were so severe I could hardly breathe.
It was during one of my sleepless nights that I reread that story about Nebuchadnezzar. Suddenly I realized that I was expressing a similar kind of puffed-up pride. I had been thinking my skills were indispensable and irreplaceable. Self-righteousness and self-justification controlled my reasoning and actions.
Then it struck me that it wasn’t until Nebuchadnezzar had humbled himself before God and learned to “praise and extol and honour the King of heaven, all whose works are truth,” that his life was restored and renewed (Dan 4:37).
Reading about Nebuchadnezzar’s experience made me feel humble, too – even a bit ashamed of myself. I was reminded of Jesus’ words, “I can of my own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me” (John 5:30).
Gradually I came to think of the Bible’s characters as friends who shared not only their trials and challenges with me, but also their triumphs and the lessons they had learned. It was encouraging to know that others had walked down similar paths, surmounted roadblocks, and gotten back on track when spiritual insight called for a change in direction.
“Throughout my life, the Bible has been my life coach” H Mary Baker Eddy explained that we have the ability to improve our circumstances when she wrote, “If you believe in and practice wrong knowingly, you can at once change your course and do right” (Science and Health, p. 253). So that’s what I did. After praying to better understand God’s power and His government of our workplace, I became more of a team player – delegating tasks and sharing responsibilities. I stopped judging and criticizing others’ efforts. In fact, I gained an appreciation of my fellow co-workers and their talents that I didn’t have before.
I stopped taking myself so seriously, too. I started seeing my work in a new light, viewing it as an essential element in the business of glorifying God. Thinking with God. Seeing what God sees. Knowing what God knows. From that point on, work was handled so harmoniously that it was like watching musicians playing a symphony.
The headaches stopped, as well as the chest pains. There were no more sleepless nights. Joy and lightheartedness filled my days in the office. My Bible friends had helped to rescue me!
Oct 13, 2006 |
“Journalism is a public service and readers are best-served if I and the people I am writing about speak the same language.”
So wrote Jill Carroll, freelance reporter on assignment for The Christian Science Monitor, in a scholarship application shortly before her kidnapping in Iraq. The Washington Post reported.
At the time of my writing this column, the world still awaits the outcome of her ordeal. And I hope when this is published the world will have received good news. But her words are giving me pause today and I know they will continue to do so in the future.
Many newspapers have been writing about Jill. And many have shared more information about the newspaper she was writing for. Such as “The Christian Science Monitor was founded in 1908 by a woman, Mary Baker Eddy, who believed passionately in the power of prayer.” (Chicago Sun-Times)
The paper is owned by the church Mary Baker Eddy also founded. It is an international daily newspaper, winner of seven Pulitzer prizes, renowned for its balanced, in-depth news coverage of world events and issues. (www.csmonitor.com)
The Sun-Times also reported, “The paper has an implicitly spiritual mission, one that by all accounts Jill – a young woman from Ann Arbor, Michigan, who moved to the Middle East a few years ago because she wanted to understand the region and humanize the lives of its inhabitants – believes in with all her heart: ‘to injure no man, but to bless all mankind.’”
Jill has been dedicated to learning Arabic since her arrival to the region and it has been reported that she can speak Arabic well enough to easily talk to the Iraqi people and interview Iraqi officials.
But I think perhaps her idea of speaking the same language may go beyond the limits of verbal communication although certainly important. Perhaps the secret to speaking the same language is rooted in the stated mission of The Christian Science Monitor – “to injure no man, but to bless all mankind.”
How do we speak so as not to injure?
Qualities seen in Jill’s writing come to mind. Honesty. Sincerity. Empathy. Thoughtfulness. To name only a few.
I hope Jill will be writing for the world about the world again in the future. But perhaps her life and example will inspire and encourage us. Learn to speak to one another, our neighbors and strangers, our friends and foes, in such a way that enables us to live in peace and understanding each other.
Tolerate and accept there will be differences. Appreciate and honor varying viewpoints. Respect uniqueness of cultures. Believe there is one God regardless of many religious beliefs and practices. No one is greater than another in His eyes.
Her example is helping me share her passion. Her resolve. Her mercy. Her faith. Her hope.
For humanity’s sake, I’ll try to speak the same language to all I meet. A high goal? Maybe so. But if we all try, mankind will surely be blessed.
Oct 13, 2006 |
by Annette Bridges. © 2006. All rights reserved.
Are you beginning the New Year with confidence and expectation or with dread and trepidation?
Certainly last year humanity struggled with wrenching challenges – tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, fires, bombings, shocking terrorist acts. It surely does not make for a Happy New Year to start it with worries about what catastrophe will happen next in the world or in your own life.
I’ve become preoccupied lately with uncertainties in my life and anticipation of unwelcome changes in the future.
Recently, I came across a statement of promise written by Mary Baker Eddy in her book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:
“The divine Love, which made harmless the poisonous viper, which delivered men from the boiling oil, from the fiery furnace, from the jaws of the lion, can heal the sick in every age and triumph over sin and death.”
These words prompted me to read again one of my favorite Biblical stories about Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego when King Nebuchadnezzar ordered them cast into a fiery furnace for disobeying his orders. (Daniel – Chapter 3)
I’ve always been in such awe of this account. How even though they were bound and thrown into this fiery furnace, their lives were not destroyed. In fact, not only did they survive, the Bible says, “nor the smell of fire had passed on them.”
And they were not alone “walking in the midst of the fire”. When the King peered into the furnace, he saw four men and said the fourth was “like the son of God.”
In discussing this with a friend, she pointed out that they didn’t have to be pulled out of the fire to be saved. They were saved while in the midst of the fire. And the Christ remained in the fiery furnace with them walking by their side.
Pondering this Biblical story has brought me reassurance. It’s very comforting to know that no matter what situation I may face in the New Year, the Christ will be with me caring for me, protecting me, nurturing me, strengthening me. And I know this is true for everyone, too.
And this reassurance is increasing my confidence in a loving and all-powerful God that can conquer evil in whatever form it may appear. And encourages me to view the New Year through His eyes
Seeing through His eyes is giving me a different view than that of doom and gloom, illness and death. His vision is only that of the perfection and goodness He made.
Whether His children are walking in a fiery furnace or peacefully by the sea side, His beholds only His beloved children whom He will always care for. His sight never wearies or dims. His perception never changes. His outlook is hope-filled and joyous.
Such a view is helping me replace the New Year blues with an expectancy for a New Year of progress, restoration and healing.
Oct 13, 2006 |
by Annette Bridges. © 2006. All rights reserved.
When I think of the thousands of families displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, I can’t help but travel back in time when my life was traumatized by a storm of events.
It wasn’t a hurricane. Nor a flood. But it was equally devastating and for me, just as sudden.
I was ten years old that September evening, taking my bath getting ready for bed when my mom unexpectedly came through the door. She promptly whisked me out of the tub to make a quick departure to escape from her bitter and angry ex-husband – my dad. I was never to see my home or my dad again.
There was no time to pack, so we left with what little could be grabbed in a flash. All that was once part of my life – my toys, my books, my dog, my friends – were now very far removed.
For the months that followed, we were homeless with little money.
Some have asked my mom, what enabled you to survive such terrible conditions?
Call it a can-do spirit. Perhaps a positive attitude. Or a cheerful outlook. Or a never-give-up perspective. My mom could never be brought down, stopped or hindered – for long, anyway.
Or she has been asked, how did you hold onto hope when everything you once owned was lost?
I can only explain that it had to be her faith. Her faith in a new concept of God she had recently been introduced to. A God that is good and omnipotent. A loving God who will steer His children safely amid any storm. A God who has given His children the ability to prove evil powerless. A God who sent His son, Christ Jesus, to teach us how.
With her faith, came hope and expectancy. With her faith, came the vision to see good and to find new opportunities. With her faith, came peace of mind and yes, joy.
My memory of those childhood days is not of lack, uncertainty or fear. I never even thought of myself as homeless or poor.
Some may look at my childhood experience with sympathy or regret. But those days for me transformed into a great gift. A lesson in how to beat the odds. How to overcome the insurmountable. How to begin anew when all is lost. How to find something good in every moment. And the assurance, as the old saying goes, that “The darkest hour precedes the dawn.”
And there was a “dawn.” A new home and a happy life for both me and my mom. That included me being reunited with my dog.
My mom says these words from a poem called “Mother’s Evening Prayer” by Mary Baker Eddy, brought her much needed peace and confidence during downhearted and dismal days:
“Love is our refuge; only with mine eye can I behold the snare, the pit, the fall: His habitation high is here, and nigh. His arm encircles me, and mine, and all.”
So as I now think about all those precious families struggling to regain some sense of normalcy in their lives, I want to whisper in each of their ears and say, “Don’t lose your hope. Have faith. All will be well again.”
