The Daily Pearl
On Provision
A pearl kept from the brand’s mornings: a verse to hold, a prayer to say and a word to carry.
“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”
Matthew 6 : 28-29
A Prayer for This Morning
Father, you dress the meadow that no one visits and feed the birds that own no barns. I bring you the accounts I have been running anxiously in the dark. Clothe today's needs in your own time, and teach me the lily's unstriving trust.
Affirmation
The One who arrays the lilies has my measurements.
The Reflection
Consider the lilies is a command to look, and looking takes time the anxious rarely give. The lily makes no fibre, spins no thread, holds no stock against the winter; and yet Solomon at his coronation was the duller sight. The point is not that the flower is idle. It grows. The point is that its loveliness is issued, not earned.
Anxiety always presents itself as prudence, which is why it survives every rebuttal. Christ's rebuttal is not an argument but a field. Your Father knows what you need before the list is drafted; provision is his craft, and he has never once dressed a season late. The lilies are not exempt from winter. They are simply never asked to sew for it.
In Her Company
St Zita
A serving girl who trusted each day's bread to God and shared it before she was sure of her own. The kitchen was her chapel, and it never ran empty.
Zita was born near Lucca in Italy around 1212 and entered domestic service with the Fatinelli household at twelve, remaining for forty-eight years. She gave her own food, and sometimes the pantry's, to the poor, trusting God with the difference. She is the patroness of domestic workers, and her memory is kept with keys and bread in Lucca to this day.
Image via Wikimedia Commons
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