It captures a lot of where my heart and mind have been these past few months.
As I look at the world it is very clear that things are shifting, things are changing. In times of change, or transition there are two very normal reactions.
People often rush to return to what was. Something familiar can be comfortable, make us feel safe, even though it might not be the best place for us. Transition and change are unnerving and many people rush to return to what was so they can feel comfortable and safe.
On the other extreme, it is not unusual for people to rush through a season of transition hoping to find a new place of stability and safety. Again, transition and change are unnerving. Moving quickly towards a new normal can make us feel secure.
The struggle with both of those responses is that they rob us of experiencing significant growth. Most often it is during seasons of transition and change that we learn about ourselves, our world, and God’s invitation for us.
I have returned to this prayer a number of times since I first found it. It brings me a sense of peace and calm, even when the circumstances around me are anything but calm. May we grow to trust that God is working in us as we pass through “some stages of instability.”
Patient Trust
Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through some stages of instability—
and that it may take a very long time.
And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.
—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ
excerpted from Hearts on Fire
You can find the link to the prayer here: https://www.
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