struggle

Father, I just want you to know that this is it. I've officially given up the search for a man. From now on, I’m done with the whole thing, and I’ll just live for you. Come what may.

There, I’d said the magic words. I cracked my eyes open to see if a man had now dropped out of the sky. Nope. I went about my weeks looking high and low for that man that God was now going to put in my life because I was done with the dating thing. Nada.

But it worked for that other girl! She told me so.

I learned something this week about the meaning of  “rest” from Henri Nouwen’s book The Way of the Heart.

In his chapter on prayer Nouwen explains that the literal translation of the words “pray always” is “come to rest”. This rest has little to do with the absence of conflict or pain. Quoting Nouwen, “it is a rest in God in the midst of a very intense daily struggle.”