February 3, 2010

Of Tossings and Tears

Excerpt from
Psalm 56

"Are they not in your record?"

Reflection
by Felix Carrion

Sometimes you read scripture and come
across a passage for the first time. You ask yourself, "How could I have
missed it?" Here are the beautiful words that I didn't even know were
there: "You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your
bottle. Are they not in your record?"

As I type these words on my
computer, a red line keeps coming up beneath "tossings." I right click
on it, and the suggestion for correction is the word "tossing." Well, I
prefer the way Psalm 56 reads. God knows my many, many tossings. And God
counts all of them.

I didn't know that God owned a bottle. Or
that all of my tears are in that bottle. God must really know what those
tears would fetch on the open market. Not one of my tears has ever
wasted away. Like the Psalmist, I believe that all my tossings and tears
are in the safekeeping of God's eternal record and reckoning.

I
know this language is poetic and metaphorical. But they lead to this:
trust. Can you trust God? Do you trust God? Those who arrive here find
that their tossings and tears were the mysterious passageway that led
them through the labyrinth of life to trust God. Tossings and tears are
plural, but trust is singular.

Prayer

O
God, all I can pray right now is thank you forever and ever!

Dear Jesus, at times we become so caught up in our problems we forget to
intentionally share our life with you. Please forgive us for excluding
you from our every day. We allow various thoughts and feelings to invade
our life that often crowd you out. Please help us to come to you
quickly with our praises, problems and perplexing moments. You are life.
We need you. Please infill us now.