# Moving through suffering Day 4 > Come to Stillness: Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God. ### Opening Prayer: *Father, I know my wounded and broken places oh so well. At times they can consume me and keep me from being able to hear your voice. Help me to see my pain as an invitation to know you more intimately rather than a reason to doubt the goodness of your heart. Help me to know that through my pain you desire to accomplish something very good in me. In the name of Jesus, the author of our salvation, who was “made perfect through suffering.” Amen. (JLB)* #### Psalm for the Week: Psalm 121 #### My Help Comes from the Lord #### A Song of Ascents. *121 I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come?2 My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.3 He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.4 Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.5 The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand.6 The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.7 The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.8 The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.* ### Scripture for the Day: Psalm 109:21-26 *21 But you, O God my Lord,deal on my behalf for your name's sake;because your steadfast love is good, deliver me!22 For I am poor and needy,and my heart is stricken within me.23 I am gone like a shadow at evening; I am shaken off like a locust.24 My knees are weak through fasting;my body has become gaunt, with no fat.25 I am an object of scorn to my accusers; when they see me, they wag their heads.26 Help me, O Lord my God! Save me according to your steadfast love!* #### Reading for Reflection: *Many of us are tempted to think that if we suffer, the only important thing is to be relieved of our pain. We want to flee it at all costs. But when we learn to move through suffering, rather than avoid it, then we greet it differently. We become willing to let it teach us. We even begin to see how God can use it for some larger end. Suffering becomes something other than a nuisance or curse to be evaded at all costs, but a way into deeper fulfillment. Ultimately mourning means facing what wounds us in the presence of One who can heal. (Turn My Mourning Into Dancing by Henri J. M. Nouwen)* #### Reflection and Listening: silent and written #### Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself #### Song for the Week: It is Well *When peace like a river attendeth my way;* *when sorrows like sea billows roll* *Whatever my lot Thou hast taught me to say;* *It is well, it is well, with my soul* *Refrain:* *It is well….with my soul…it is well, it is well with my soul* *My sin O the bliss of this glorious thought;* *my sin not in part but the whole* *Is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more;* *praise the Lord, praise the Lord O my soul* *And Lord haste the day when my faith shall be sight;* *the clouds be rolled back as a scroll* *The trump shall resound and the Lord shall descend;* *even so it is well with my soul* ### Closing Prayer *Father, heal my wounds and make them a source of life for others; as you did with your Son Jesus. In whose name we pray. Amen. (JLB)*