The floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. But it did not collapse; it had been set solidly on rock. —Matthew 7:25

A few years ago, during the 500-year flooding in the Midwest, our local river nearly reached my friends' back door. I called to offer whatever help I could, but their response was calm. Their house sat atop a slight incline. It was just high enough, a few feet from the swollen river's edge. Dramatic as the flooding was, I was more struck by my friends' lack of anxiety. It was not a blind naïveté. Their home could have been a total loss, like many others' were. But they are people of faith, and I think their reaction would have been very much the same no mater what befell them: "We're okay. God is with us here." I think trust in God looks very much my friends' stoic confidence that everything will be all right - not because nothing bad can happen, but because we believe that God will be with us when it does.

Loving God, help me to trust that you will be with me during all the difficult times of my life. Karla Manternach

If your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light; but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be filled with darkness. —Matthew 6, 22-23

One day a friend and I exchanged glasses.  How strange everything looked!  What a relief to get mine back.  When I wear them, my world works; without them everything blurs.It's not so easy to put on and off the lenses Jesus talks about.  How do we see properly, rather than through the lenses of fear, shame, defensiveness: the many things that fill us with darkness?

The best answer is prayer.  Without time for prayer, we're apt to be misled by our own egos. The first time I entered a silent retreat, I was amazed to discover anger.  A little later, amazed still to realize the anger wasn't "out there", somebody else's doing.  It was within me!  I'd been in the darkness of self-ignorance.  Through the lenses of prayer, I what I was carrying, and so came a few steps closer to being freed of Lord!  Heal my inner vision, that I might be filled with you.

Mary Marrocco