In the momentous and the mundane, in chaos or quiet, God’s there. For He’s incapable of abandoning you.

I was housesitting for my sister and noticed a book on her bookshelf with an intriguing title: Beginning to Pray. I wasn’t a beginner. Decades earlier, my Mom had routinely tucked me in at night with a prayer. Still, the book called to me. I began reading the story of an older woman who visited her priest with a sad story. She told him, “I have been praying all my life. I go to church regularly, but I have never felt the ‘presence of God’ that people talk about.”

The priest gave her what she thought were strange directions: “I’d like you to go to your bedroom and sit in your favorite chair. Don’t worry about praying. I want you to sit before the face of God and knit.”

When the woman returned to the priest, she told him, “After knitting for a while, I began to notice how quiet it was. How very, very quiet. I listened. Then I realized the Silence was a Presence.”

“The Silence was a Presence.” Sitting in my sister’s living room, I turned the book face down on my lap. The woman’s words surrounded me with truth. I sat before the face of God in the quiet of the room. And soon, I was enveloped in a sacred stillness.

Fast forward a decade. I’d read many more spiritual books and was hungry for the unique unconditional peace of God’s Presence as I sat in my own home, intent on praying. My seven-year-old wanted to show me how he’d memorized a limerick. Three minutes later, my five-year-old needed a band-aid, and soon, my one-year-old was howling because his walker was stuck on the edge of the coffee table. “God, if this chaos wasn’t in the way, I could meet you in the silence.” An inner wisdom—that wasn’t mine—spoke, “The chaos isn’t in the way. It is the way.” Our daily path, with all its obligations and twists and turns, is a sure route.

I still value silence as a vehicle to God, and I do my best to find it whenever and wherever possible. As Rumi said, “Silence is the language of God, all else is poor translation.” But when it comes to meeting God, you and I can trust God’s wisdom and intense desire to be with us. If you want a relationship with the Spirit, who is literally your Soulmate, God will provide. If you want to want it, that will be enough. God’s Grace is always enough. And it’s Raining Grace!

Today, be aware.
God’s Life floods your heart.
It’s always Raining Grace.

Home Page

Books by Sally

| ​Embrace the Day |

Let me not in anguish say,

When tragedy knocks here,

“Oh my, ungrateful fool I was!

I missed the golden year.”

Life is glad and joy is mine,

But often pain reigns ‘round me.

Reduce my days to trite concerns?

Let mundane things confound me?

While time is sweet and love surrounds

May I grow and give and BE,

For never will this time return,

Unless it comes to haunt me.

Today, be aware.
God’s Life floods your heart.
It’s always Raining Grace.

Books by Sally

| ​The Power of Acceptance |

Few practices provide more spiritual growth, freedom, or inner peace than acceptance. When our boat has capsized and broken into pieces, there is little point in struggling against the rapids. Better to go with the flow until another option opens up. Acceptance means to stop fighting the flow of life and trust that God has plans for us downstream.

Acceptance is a potent form of prayer. It is honoring God not just with our holy words but with our attitude and actions. Acceptance involves letting go of the need to be in control—a need based on the illusion that if we don’t accept what is happening, it won’t keep happening. To be genuinely free of unrealistic demands on ourselves, others, God, and life, we must humbly admit that we’re not the center of the universe—with others, God, and life revolving around us and doing our bidding.

I started this piece with the words, “Few practices …” How appropriate—because acceptance takes practice. The next time someone cuts you off in traffic, notice your reaction. Can you accept that people aren’t perfect drivers, and they probably aren’t out to get you personally?

Life provides tons of frustrating opportunities to practice acceptance—to get good at it! We won’t be up to accepting the true heartaches that befall us with sanity and peace unless we practice acceptance daily. Frustration takes on a whole new meaning when seen as an opportunity to grow in freedom, trust, and relationship with our loving God. And, as always, our generous God provides the grace we need to do what is impossible on our own. Ask for the grace of acceptance.

Today, be aware.
God’s Life floods your heart.
It’s always Raining Grace.

Books by Sally

During my action-packed, responsibility-laden teaching days, sleeping wasn’t always easy. Praying and relaxing my muscles usually helped me drift off at night, but one night I was drifting nowhere. I was stuck firmly—exactly where I’d been all day—awake. It didn’t help that my husband started lightly, politely snoring approximately four minutes after our heads hit our respective pillows. My eyes were closed, but my mind remained wide open to thought after thought, worry after worry. How could I help a student who was grieving the loss of his father? Should I change the schedule of talks for the retreat? Was Friday’s lesson plan the most engaging way to introduce a new topic for discussion? Lying there, tense and tossing, I didn’t know my shift was over—that God takes the night shift!

The “day shift/night shift prayer” is a prayer of trust that I heard about through the greatvine, word of mouth. For many of us, our to-do list at day’s end has as many items untouched as it has tasks crossed off. But just because there’s work to be done doesn’t mean it’s today’s work. This prayer’s pithy metaphor makes the process of letting go more natural and effective. Ask God for the grace to pray it well, to mean the words and say them with a faith-filled heart. The language below is mine. I’ve adapted the prayer to fit my needs and encourage you to do the same.

I hope and pray, fellow traveler, that you’ll rely on God to take each night shift of your life. He never sleeps and never quits loving, treasuring, and caring for you. If you have a little one, you can help your child get into the habit of turning things over to God at bedtime by reading Night of Mysterious Blessings as you tuck them in at night.

Return to Home Page

Books by Sally

Christmas is a time of gift-giving. In preparation for a new year to breathe, live, and enjoy another spin around the sun, we might want to ask Christ for the gift of virtue as our Christmas present in 2022.

We’ll need virtue to live as fully as possible in the coming year. The source of the word “virtue” is clarifying; it comes from the Latin noun virtus, meaning “strength.” We don’t need to manage our lives without God’s strength, which is abundant. The more we rely on him, the more we are aware of his presence within us—an awareness that makes life vivid, meaningful, joyous!

We all have challenges. Christmas itself can be a challenge—trying to keep a happy cool when presents must be wrapped, cookies baked, and the house readied for guests. No need is too small for a powerful prayer: “Help!” Virtue, strength, is available for those who ask. “(We) can do all things through Christ who strengthens (us)” (Phil. 4:13).

I wish you and your family all the wonder and blessings of a Spirit-filled Christmas—and all the strength of a virtuous new year!

Return to Home Page

Books by Sally

|I Struggled to Give My Son a Faith I Didn’t Have|

I flew out of bed at the sound of Brian’s chilling screams. My five-year-old sometimes had bad dreams, but this was different. The air in his room seemed charged with danger and dread.

“It’s okay, honey.” I sat on Brian’s bed and patted his hands. “I’m right here. It’s just a nightmare.” I tried to assure both of us.

Brian’s body remained rigid with terror. I flicked on the overhead light, kissed his cheek,  and carried him to the rocker. Brian was inconsolable.

It occurred to me that I should pray. In fact, I should pray out loud. But what if I prayed, and God did nothing? Brian was just learning about God. I needed to protect his young faith against the slings and arrows of outrageous life. Sometimes God’s “mysterious ways” made me doubt his providence altogether. “It’s okay, honey. Really. Shhhh,” I hushed in motherly tones. But Brian’s fear was building, not abating.

“Sweetheart,” I said in desperation, “let’s talk to God about this.”

“Dear God,” I began.

Between the words “Dear” and “God,” Brian’s little body went limp with peace. My prayer wasn’t compelling, memorable, or well-spoken—a lackluster string of words—but it didn’t matter. The moment, the meeting, belonged to my son and God. My prayer trailed off with a final “Amen.”

As I rocked my peaceful child, I realized I’d had a wake-up call. Not Brian’s terrified screams in the middle of the night, but a wake-up call concerning my lack of faith. After all, I’d been afraid to pray out loud with my son. I’d had so little trust that God would come through. Also, it seemed I was interpreting the struggles in my life as some sign of abandonment. When God’s answers weren’t what I’d hoped for, I felt He hadn’t answered at all.

Brian stretched, repositioned himself in my arms, and laid his head back on my shoulder. The warmth of his body comforted me.

I knew I had so much spiritual growing to do. I remembered the man in Scripture who asked Jesus to heal his son, telling Jesus, “I do believe. Help my unbelief“ (Mark 9:24 KJV). I could identify! If doubts are part of being human, if they are natural, I needed the supernatural. I needed God’s grace. I knew faith was a gift God longed to give.

Brian interrupted my thoughts, sitting upright in my lap. His eyes wide with wonder, his little voice solemn with awe, Brian whispered, “Mommy, how did He get here so quick?”

Today, be aware.
God’s Life floods your heart.
It’s always Raining Grace.

It was my last class of the week—my first week as a teacher.

“Ms. Metzger, you made a mistake when you totaled my score on the quiz. I earned an 87, not a 92,” the student said.

“Wow! How honest you are. I’ll fix it.”

The student’s eyes widened. “You’re not supposed to fix it! Most teachers reward honesty by not changing the grade.”

I smiled. “Then I won’t change a thing.”

When life tests you and you score poorly, it’s safe to come to God and admit you only deserve a C. God is gracious. He doesn’t record your mark in some giant gradebook in the sky, fixed for all eternity.  One of the most essential aspects of prayer is to be yourself, to be real, to be honest. Intimacy is always based on transparency. If you want a deeper relationship, bare your heart and soul to God. (Nothing you say will be news to Him anyway.)

Perhaps authenticity is most critical when you’ve goofed up. Owning up to your failure gives God opportunity to work miracles. He patiently labors to transform you. He provides the strength, wisdom, and courage to begin again. God loves you in spite of you and rewards your humility and trust with grace abundant. God promises to distance you from your mistakes “as far as the East is from the West” (Psalm 103:12).

I find looking at my moral mistakes difficult. I want to avoid the uncomfortable. Today, we say that shame is unhealthy, and it is. But that doesn’t mean that mental health lies in hiding our guilt or justifying our less than noble actions.

St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, formulated a daily practice called the Examen. It’s an examination of consciousness, not merely an examination of conscience. You ask yourself: How did I do today? Where did I find God? Where did I miss His presence and His promptings? What were my motives? What fears drove me? It’s a practice that demands candor and courage and leads to spiritual and emotional growth.

In dealing with everyday negative emotions, 12 Step programs recommend that you “Name it. Claim it. And Dump it.” (“I feel nervous. This fear belongs to me. I don’t need to keep carrying this burden.”) This simple little process can prevent burying feelings. When you bury your feelings “alive,” they tend to dig their way to the surface, where they can trip you up on your journey time and again.

The same process of naming, claiming, and dumping is healthy when dealing with everyday negative actions. Naming and claiming them before a Power greater than yourself gives you a power greater than your own to move on. You are granted a clean start. God makes all things new.

Today, be aware.
God’s Life floods your heart.
It’s always Raining Grace.

|He’s Carved Your Name in His Palm|

“Are we almost there?” whined four-year-old Brian an hour into our twelve-hour drive. Our summer adventure had been carefully planned and enthusiastically explained. We were a family with great expectations.

“Brian, honey, maybe you could entertain your brother,” I said, looking back at one-year-old Jeremy, whose face was contorted. He was ready to burst again into tears of boredom. The silence in the car had been only a brief intermission—a gift of Jeremy’s ten-minute nap.

Brian reached up and shielded his ears as Jeremy shrieked.

The trailer we had borrowed swayed from side to side in the strong wind, and the bike rack on top of our station wagon caught the wind and produced a mournful howl. The crying baby, whining child, and howling bike rack made quite a trio, serenading my husband Mike and me as we drove down the lonesome highway.

Our nights were slightly more challenging than our days. At 2:00 a.m. on the first night, I stood outside our thin-walled trailer to check the noise level of Jeremy’s shrill cries. Just as I’d feared, our son was letting everyone in the park know he was not a happy camper. He wanted his own bed at home. He wasn’t alone.

Eventually, we arrived at the heavily-billed Atlantic. We enjoyed the waves and the beach of the Atlantic until Jeremy created a game. He thought being pulled back onto our blanket and having his mouth emptied of sand was fun. He kept me guessing by crawling in different directions, changing his speed, and filling his mouth to various degrees.

To top it all off, there was the ring, or the lack of one. On the fifth night of the trip, I sat beside a crackling campfire, staring at the empty prongs that should have held my diamond. I owned no other real jewelry. I treasured my engagement ring and wedding band so much that they were enough.

I scoured the campsite that evening and in the morning light. During the days of travel home, I searched our trailer thoroughly. I’d memorized the nicks in the sink, the snags in the carpet, and the indentations the furniture made in the carpet’s worn nap. I had splinters from sweeping my hands along the bottoms of drawers. The diamond was nowhere to be found.

I asked for the grace of a new perspective on our trip, and as we pulled the camper into our driveway, I knew my prayer had been answered. I was grateful that I had a home to return to and happy to help my husband carry our sleepy little boys into their awaiting beds. Adorable Jeremy patted me gently on the back before I laid him down, and Brian curled up immediately under his covers. Mike and I whispered and giggled as we tucked the boys in; we were exhausted but giddy to be home. We fell into our own bed, cuddled up, and counted our blessings. Life was about finding meaning and being thankful—despite what happens.

The next morning I swept the trailer carpet one last time so we could return the camper. I couldn’t believe I’d missed the bookmark wedged between the rug and the tiny couch; I’d thoroughly combed that territory. As I scooped up the card, I read its words: “See, I will not forget you. I have carved your name in the palm of my hand.” The verse was from the book of Isaiah.

I glanced back at the floor where I’d retrieved the bookmark. Glistening in the light that streamed from the tiny skylight above me lay my diamond—a stone symbolizing not only the love between my husband and me, but the Love that guards us on life’s winding, difficult, yet joyous journey.

Surely there aren’t always happy endings. We can’t demand them as proof that we are safe in His hands. Only faith can promise that. But there are those little reassurances. We must carve them into our hearts for safekeeping. We may need to draw on them for the real challenges of life. Our God is the same, yesterday, today, and tomorrow. God is good. All the time.

Today, be aware.
God’s Life floods your heart.
It’s always Raining Grace.

Most of us struggle to be authentic. If we don’t win the battle to be ourselves, our self will never have a chance to be. No one else can take over the privilege and challenge of our self-expression.

I believe the glorious freedom of authenticity lies in realizing our lives are not about us. If we are not the central focus of our lives, the burden of proof—of proving we are worthy—falls off our shoulders. Liberation is ours.

In my youth, I was a people pleaser. The source of the problem was not self-adulation, but a sense of not being good enough to live up to self-imposed ego demands. If others were pleased with me, I felt worthy. Like the chameleon, the people pleaser needs to adapt to the environment, to the surrounding people. They please others at the expense of maintaining the unique identity that is their gift.

People Pleasing Kills Creativity. For an artist, people pleasing is deadly. When I was a pleaser, I couldn’t freely write, pour out my heart, find my voice and let it be heard. To do any of those things was to risk rejection, to have people not pleased with me. Writing this blog entry and posting it would have been impossible.

But I can have the pluck to be me and write freely if I realize I’m just not all that important. Let’s face it, in 60 years I’ll be dead. (I chose that number because old habits die hard. I knew you’d think I was relatively young—which seems to please a lot of people.)

If the point is not to prove myself as a writer, if the point is you, my audience, and what I can contribute to your thought life, or your life in general, if you are my focus, then I’m free. The point is, I am not the point, the be-all, the end-all of writing, or of living. My life is not about me!

As ego diminishes, courage increases. As concern for others becomes larger, my need to be larger than life (larger than I am) becomes smaller.

This insight is nothing new. Long before the internet made it possible to be humiliated instantaneously on the world stage, to be undone in the time it takes to press tweet, post, or send, this idea was floated. Some 2,000 years ago, it was written, “Love casts out fear.” When I reach out to others in love, whether it be on a keyboard or around someone’s dining room table, I am without fear.

Well, maybe not without it. Perhaps just less dominated by it. I’m human, and it’s human to want to be loved. The prayer of St. Francis says it well: “Let me not so much seek to be consoled, as to console; to be understood, as to understand; to be loved, as to love.”

In the final analysis, we’re all “perfectly imperfect.” We do our best. And we’re dependent on the grace of God, which, thank God, rains abundantly.

My prayer for you–today, be aware.
God’s Life floods your heart.
It’s always Raining Grace.

I came home from church that Sunday not in my Sunday best. Oh, my clothes were okay, but my adolescent heart was in tatters. I’d been praying for a family member for months, seemingly to no avail. The Gospel reading that day had been about Jesus calming the sea, but I had missed the boat. Christ’s power with the wind didn’t peace amid the storms in my soul.

A friend had recently told me that the ancient practice of visualizing Scripture stories had given her a thirst for the Bible she had never known before. Could my imagination help me take a story I’d heard umpteen times and get something new from it, or renew something old and somehow lost within me? My doubting mind and mood said, definitely not! But I was desperate.

First, I reread that Sunday’s Gospel. As expected, it did nothing for me. Then, as my friend had instructed, I asked the Holy Spirit to direct my prayer. I confessed my inability to feel prayerful and my need for help. Still doubtful, I closed my eyes. Help came. The Spirit of God is incredibly creative! (Duh)

The Senses of the Imagination  I began to use all of my senses to imagine as vividly as possible what I might have heard, seen, smelled, tasted, and felt if I had been with Jesus in the boat that day. I experienced the assault of the wet wind, the rocking of the boat, the smell of the salty, fishy air around me. The vessel was swaying so violently that with each tilt it picked up buckets of water.

The anger I’d been feeling all week turned into its original, root emotion—fear! Are we in this world alone? At the mercy of chaotic forces around us? Is God paying attention to our plight?

I turned to see Jesus, who sat in the back of the boat—sleeping! “Wake up!” I pleaded.

The World Was Unplugged  Jesus stood, lifted His arms, and brought utter calm to the waves. He stilled the wind. It was as if time stopped. The world was unplugged. I had never heard a silence so complete in my life. Yet, at the same time, the stillness was somehow alive, filled with Divinity.

Then Jesus stood near me, looked into my eyes for an eternal moment, and asked, “Why are you so afraid? Do you yet have no faith?” I suddenly awakened, keenly aware–God had not changed.

The God who had been with me through every stormy moment was there. As always. In ALL ways–PRESENT.

I had nothing to fear from the tempests in my life. I knew the power of God once again, on a deeper level, and I saw the power of Spirit-led creative, imaginative prayer. God would build on that experiential knowledge of the power of the imagination years later when I found myself happily immersed in the spirituality of St. Ignatius of Loyola. To find out more about spirit led prayer, click here.

My prayer for you–today, be aware.

God’s Life floods your heart.

It’s always Raining Grace.