Streams of Mercy

Several days ago, I found myself walking down the sidewalk behind a young woman wearing a t-shirt with these special words- words that touched my heart:

Dear person behind me

you are worthy

you are loved

you are needed

you are enough

you matter

never forget that

What an encouraging and meaningful message to share as we pass through each other's lives, going our separate ways. Truly this is a message that should be shared! In a time when we give little thought to being kind to one another, to focusing on “feelings” and the importance of every individual knowing they are needed and worthy and loved, this is something each of us needs to know.

Years ago, I first heard the phrase “Let your life speak.” It’s an old Quaker saying that undergirds the importance of our actions speaking louder than our words. It’s not just what we say, but the way we live that expresses our firmest convictions and deepest beliefs. This saying has served me well through the years, as I’ve tried to be a good steward of the life God has given me.

Parker Palmer’s book, How to Let Your Life Speak focuses on vocation, but now, it seems to mean something more. I read this a few days ago. “Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen to what it intends to do with you. Before you tell your life what truths and values you have decided to live up to, let your life tell you what truths you embody, what values you represent.”

Perhaps this is a life task to be undertaken in one’s later years, when vocation is seen more and more in the rearview mirror. “What does my life intend to do with me in the years to come? - an interesting new take on the question “What am I going to do with my life in the years to come?” Much of one’s task in living is to speak to one's life…. perhaps over time the task becomes allowing our lives to speak to us as well.

Theologian Frederick Buechner has this to say:

“Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace…There is no event so commonplace but that God is present within it, always hiddenly, always leaving you room to recognize him or not to recognize him.

So much thinking coming from those words on the back of a young woman’s t-shirt, as her life spoke to mine in passing. May my life speak such words of hope and encouragement and trigger such rich and meaningful thinking! “Lord, let my life speak,” is a meaningful daily prayer, as is “Lord, let my life/life speak to me.”

Elizabeth