In the bleak mid-winter

It's cold here and there are icicles several feet long hanging outside my kitchen window.  The sun is just rising now, at 7am, and I am ready, oh so ready, for the end of this long, dark time.  In more ways than one.  I feel so tired this time of year, maybe it's the lack of light and the piling responsibilities.  Clinging, during hard times, to the words I find most comforting is the easiest thing to do.

"For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind."
(Phil. 4:13)

I've wondered why I find it easier to just fall back on those words when the going gets really tough, or words like them.  And I think I know why, now.  Max Lucado wrote a story about how he and some friends bought a sailboat, in Florida, and how they heard that there was a hurricane coming so they started planning how to best secure the valued boat.  They had elaborate plans to beach it and then tie it to various trees and all sorts of stuff, until an old sailor gave them this advice: "bring her out to deep water, anchor her hard so she cannot get away, and ride out the storm."  Lucado likened this to what we need to do with our faith.  We know that storms will come our way, Jesus promises that, and even if you aren't a Christian you know it, you've seen it.  Who hasn't weathered a tough time?  And yet we need to anchor somewhere so that when that storm comes, we can ride it out.  If you cast your anchor in mud (or build your house on sand, to continue the biblical stories) when the storms come, you will be washed away.  Anchor yourself in God.

It needs to be an anchor that is rooted in habit.  Habit seems to have such a bad rap in Christian circles these days, but this is how He created our brains, to function well when thought isn't possible.  Those actions that tighten your anchor, whether it be rote prayer, liturgy, the church calendar, or even familiar verses floating to mind, if those actions are practiced over and over until they become habit when times are good, then when times are bad and you're sitting holding a dying loved one's hand or facing a huge challenge or waiting on the Lord, and you cannot CANNOT think, you can still act. You can, without having to think about it, pull out your rosary, or your New Testament that you don't even remember packing but did, out of habit.

But if you don't, if you wait until the storm is upon you to reach for that bible or fall on your knees, though you may very well derive comfort and joy and answered prayer, you will have missed out on one of those precious gifts we're offered, a way to relieve some of our stress.  A way that God has said "Listen, I know stuff is going to happen, and I've hardwired your brains so that you can program turning to me as a default setting."

Perhaps those 'poor in spirit' that Christ talks about, perhaps they are the recipients of 'the kingdom of God' because being poor in spirit meant they had nothing interior to turn to but Him.  Did self-assurance stemming from money or possessions or education hold them up in trials, no.  They were poor in their spirits, they had only God.  When they fell, only God was there, and they threw their anchors deep.