I wish I were not such a slow learner. I am facing an unpleasant situation over which I have almost no control. Circumstances are proceeding according to other people's priorities and values, circumstances which impact me directly, but which I am powerless to control. I would like it very much if God simply placed the matter in my hands and said, "You take it from here," but I don't see that happening, and I am hard pressed to see a happy ending to this situation. This is one of those "hard eucharistos" I've talked about occasionally, where I am forced to trust God. I know the Christian life is a life of faith, but there are times I wish it were a little less so.
Be that as it may, I am (reluctantly, I admit) choosing to trust God for the outcome. I feel like Peter when Jesus asked him if the disciples were going to follow the crowd that was abandoning Jesus left and right. "Where else can we go? You have the words of life," was Peter's response. Where else, indeed? I can rant and rail about this situation, but I might as well bang my head on one of those big rocks on our backyard terrace. So, I choose to trust, and as a sign of that trust, to thank God for this situation as it forces me to my knees.
Years ago, Andrew Murray wrote a little book, "With Christ in the School of Prayer." Christ's School of Prayer is not so much a seminar or an academic class that we take. He schools us by placing us in situations where the only thing we can do is pray. It's very pragmatic, but it's also pretty challenging. I'm grateful to have been accepted into this school, but have to admit some of the coursework has been a bit more challenging than I anticipated. It appears as if graduation is a long way off, so I had better buckle down and study, not by reading a book or listening to a lecture, but by actually praying this through.
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