Be still and know that I am God.

God knew that I needed this weekend at this time in my life.  It was the first overnight women's retreat from church and we spent the weekend looking at and talking about this Psalm.  What does it mean?  It can mean many different things at different times.

Rapha:  be still
Hebrew:  loosen your grip
Latin:  to vacate


Be still...quiet, calm, silent, aware, receptive, breathing, don't worry, listen, patient, open, release
   we "surrender" in order to know that God is in control.
   we "let go" in order to know the saving power of God in our lives
   we "give up trusting" in ourselves and our own designs in order to experience the glory of God's all sufficiency.

Know...understand, believe, trust, accept, awareness, confident, realize, intimacy

know that I am God...recognizing, acknowledging and answering God, have intimate relationship with Him by what He says in the Bible...His Holy Word, give up control, trust, believe it, abundant love, complete surrender, experience God, recognize the things He does in our lives.

Did you know that you could just say "Amen" all through out the day for your little prayer to the Lord?  I liked that idea a lot.  For example, after changing a dirty diaper:  AMEN!!  After doing all the dishes morning, noon and night:  AMEN!!  After folding all the clean clothes:  AMEN!!  After putting away all the clothes:  Amen!!  Do you get the picture?  How great it is to always be in the presence of God, and how better than to always be in prayer.  Our Blessed Mother, Mary says:  "Pray so that your lives can become prayer!"  How beautiful is that and how awesome to live your life as in prayer...always acknowledging God throughout the day for all the joyful and wondrous things He does for us.

Martin Luther says:  "The fewer the words, the better the prayer."  "Amen" fits right in with his thinking~!

I have come to realize that the presence of God is within.  It is His voice that brings calm and direction, so I must remember to sit, be still and be aware of Him in my life...every moment of every day.

In the chaos of finishing up a new house, moving from the old, packing, unpacking, washing windows, wiping down doors, vacuuming, vacuuming, vacuuming (the new house!) cleaning out a garage...it was time for me to be still....to just breathe and not stress about all these delays with subs not showing up for the scheduled work.  On Friday at 2 PM I again asked Scott if I should just stay home because I was feeling guilty about leaving him with all the stress on his shoulders.  But my DH encouraged me and said, "No, you need to go and enjoy yourself and have a good time and get some reflection time."  So at 4:30 pm that afternoon I was on my way to the retreat and it was the best thing I could do for myself.  I am now sharing with you this great verse from Psalm and challenging you to read the verse, reflect on it and to maybe keep saying it to yourself:  Be still, be still, be still, it can come to mean:  don't worry now, I am taking care of things!;  I have things under control!; trust Me!


A new mantra for me:  "Give me the grace to be quiet, to listen for your voice in my heart."