headlines and lullabies

"Deep breath. We are where we are. The world is as beautiful and broken as it ever was, and if you're anything like me, it takes some tricks to get back to centered, whole, deep-breathing, faith-filled places. On the days when, after watching the news or opening a letter from our bank, I'm tempted to lie down on the ground and let the anxiety I feel about our world flatten me like a steamroller, instead I do these things:

I pray. I speak to God, sometimes out loud, often in the car, frequently in the shower. I ask for help about things I don't understand. I ask peace, and grace, and the ability to see outside myself. I pray for people who are at the mercy of these scary headlines... And I pray for the people who can solve these problems - politicians both federal and local, pastors, philanthropists. I pray for a way through, a light at the end of the tunnel...

Someone asked my dad recently how often we can pray for the very same thing, and he said that we should pray as often as we need to until the anxiety subsides, until, as it says in the Bible, we are filled with the peace that passes human understanding. That sounds delicious: peace that passes human understanding. That's what I'm starving for, and so I've been praying, sometimes even just the same phrase or sentence over and over again. I find that's an awful lot of praying for the same thing, but also that the anxiety does eventually subside, and the peace does indeed come, and it's pretty much the best feeling in the world."

- Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet