“You have granted me life and steadfast love, and your care has preserved my spirit.” –Job 10:12

Poor Job! He has led a virtuous life. In all things, he has been blameless. But now, God allows Satan to put Job to the test: will Job still praise God if his life becomes total misery? “Betcha he won’t,” Satan says. “Betcha he will,” God counters. And Satan goes to work. Job’s livestock is carried off and all his servants killed. Job is suddenly impoverished. His ten children are killed when a house collapses on them. Then in Satan’s second act, Job is covered with loathsome sores and misery. Job’s helpful friends show up to point out that Job must have been a terrible sinner because this wouldn’t have happened to a virtuous man. Standard theology of the day. Fess up, Job.

Even Job’s wife says, “Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God, and die.”

And yet Job persists. Angry? Yes. Wanting to confront God? Yes. But ready to back out of his relationship with God? Not now. Not ever.

Things do go wrong in our lives. Terrible things happen to good people, things they don’t deserve. But isn’t that universal? I don’t know anyone who hasn’t suffered loss, pain, wounds. There have been extreme times when we were near despair. So in tough times do we still praise God? In our futures will there be light in the dark times? Will we wonder: where is the light? Where is God?

Jesus never said life would always be easy. But he did say that he, love itself, would be there with us. And he has been. Is now. And will be.

If Job can confess, “You have granted me life and steadfast love, and your care has preserved my spirit,” maybe, just maybe, you and I can do the same.

Leonard Cohen’s song Hallelujah is a prayer that catches Job’s attitude. He writes…

And even though it all went wrong
I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah.
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah.
-Tom Worrell

On a late September day in 1978, six sailor friends and I set off from Rockport, Maine toward Huntington, N.Y. We left Penobscot Bay on a stiff wind and pointed the compass south-southeast toward Long Island. As day dissolved into evening, the weather deteriorated and we found ourselves in the eye of a powerful Atlantic storm. Battered by 30-foot waves, our Irwin 39’ eventually lost power, all radio communication, and the mast. We lurched from port to starboard as the vessel continuously tried to right itself.

At the mercy of weather and every crest and swell of frigid waves, I had a choice: panic or acceptance. I chose the latter and descended into a state of utter calm. If this was my time to die, at 21, that was God’s will. As my friend, the captain of Liberty, sent up fizzling red flares into the dark sky; I sang:

Kumbaya, my Lord,
Kumbaya;
Kumbaya, my Lord,
Kumbaya;
Kum bay ya, my Lord,
Kumbaya,
O Lord, kumbaya.

Yes, come by here, my Lord, I prayed. Come by here.

Many moments later—a few hours? A lifetime?—a blinding white light shone from the horizon. It was not yet dawn. As the light approached, the silhouette of a huge naval destroyer gained on us. After many harrowing hours, we were found and rescued, one person at a time ascending a Jacob’s ladder to safety onto a 448-foot U.S. Naval vessel. All the hours we didn’t know if anyone had seen our flares, they did.

God did too. This experience taught me the power of God’s protection and love. While we were floundering, He was on the way. Another lesson? I have counted every day since a gift (now at 63). God is good. God is faithful. God is love.

Dear Lord, help us to receive each day as a gift and abide in the knowledge that You are ever good, faithful, and loving. Amen.
-Ashley Sweeney

“O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever.” -1 Chronicles 16:34

King David instructed the Levites to sing this verse while they officiated in the national sanctuaries. They wore very elaborate robes and sang with various musical instruments. The instruments of that time were harp, finger cymbals, stringed lyre, horn and pan flute.

It seems to me that David’s time spent in places for worship were no different than our times of worship. We may not leap about, dancing and offering burnt offerings, but we hear the same words and sing the same verses. We use instruments and wear vestments.

I often wonder if we pay attention, learn, follow and thank the Lord just like the people of David’s time did. I’d like to think that we do even a bit more.

I am amazed at the deep meaning of this simple directive. It has been said and sung over thousands of lifetimes. How can anyone not believe something so simple yet so profound?

Holy Father, thank you for the beautiful Scripture verse and song that we use today, just as our ancestors did. Let us hold its deep meaning and your steadfast love for all eternity. Amen.
-Sister Katharine, OSB

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” -Deuteronomy 6:4-5

The Shema is one of only two prayers that are specifically commanded in the Torah (the other is Birkat Ha-Mazon — grace after meals). It is the oldest fixed daily prayer in Judaism, recited morning and night since ancient times. The first part of the Shema begins with one of the best-known, most fundamental expressions of Jewish belief, and the one from which this prayer gets its name: Shema Yisra’el… (Hear, Israel).

שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָה ׀ אֶחָד ׃
Sh’ma Yisra’eil Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad.
Hear, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.

וְאָהַבְתָּ אֵת יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ בְּכָל־לְבָבְךָ וּבְכָל־נַפְשְׁךָ וּבְכָל־מְאֹדֶךָ׃
V’ahav’ta eit Adonai Elohekha b’khol l’vav’kha uv’khol naf’sh’kha uv’khol m’odekha.
And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
(Source)

While Ron was in Vietnam, I was living in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, and on Friday nights I sang in the reformed Jewish synagogue choir and on Sundays, the choir at St. Paul’s by the Sea Episcopal Church. Nowhere was the liturgy more similar than the beginning of the Shabbat service and the beginning of the Rite I Eucharist service. During that time, I grew to appreciate the historical context of our worship and to understand it in a new and deeper sense.

“Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith:
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and with all they mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it. Thou shalt love the neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
-BCP pg 324

Holy One, help us to recognize the richness and history of our liturgy. Bless us as we seek to live a life filled with your love and grace. Amen.
-Cathey Frederick

Many people are surprised when they find out that I am a convert to Christianity. Apparently, I give off the vibe of being a lifelong Christian who was raised in the faith. That could not be farther from the truth. My parents and brother are varying degrees of agnostic, and my extended family is largely the same way.

What changed things for me? A woman named Lou Ellyn Griffin.

Lou Ellyn had lived in my neighborhood since before my parents bought the house where I grew up. My mom remembers her making an effort to welcome them to the neighborhood, and her daughter Page would come over and help my mom out with my twin brother Sean and me when we were babies. My parents got two kittens from them when Sean and I were a few months old, and one of them, Ben, was with us for close to 16 years.

When Sean and I were in first grade, she invited the elementary school kids in the neighborhood over to her house to bake cookies. After the other kids left, she sat down on the couch with a book of Bible stories and read us the Christmas story. Having been raised by a mom who read to us every night from an early age, we thought this was pretty cool and asked her to read more stories to us. She agreed and read all of the stories about the miracles and parables, the crucifixion, and the resurrection.

Sean and I ended up being cat sitters for their family throughout our school years and engaged with them for various things. When I was ten years old, she started having me help her teach English and American customs to groups of exchange students that would come. She and her husband Gerry were never pushy about their faith, but she made sure I knew that I was loved and that she would be happy to tell me more if I ever wanted to know. The seed was planted in me, and I did eventually take her up on talking about faith issues. She rejoiced when I accepted Christ as a teenager, and she is very much my godmother. She and I are still in contact, and she is one of the first people I contact if I am ever in a situation when I seriously need prayer.

Thank you, Jesus, for the people you put in our lives who bring us closer to you. Amen.
-Jen McCabe