The Daily Pearl
On Trust
A pearl kept from the brand’s mornings: a verse to hold, a prayer to say and a word to carry.
“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”
Proverbs 3 : 5-6
A Prayer for This Morning
Lord, my own understanding is the railing I reach for first; teach my hand a better hold. I acknowledge you in the plans I have made and in the ones that have unravelled. Direct my paths, and give me the grace not to redraw the map every hour.
Affirmation
I do not need the whole route in order to take the next right step.
The Reflection
Lean not unto thine own understanding is not a case against thinking; Scripture has no quarrel with the well-used mind. The operative word is lean. The question is load-bearing: what takes your weight when the explanation runs out? A woman can think clearly all day and still know where she actually rests.
The promise attached is quietly precise. Not he shall explain thy paths, nor even he shall smooth them, but he shall direct them. Direction is given the way the sea gives passage: one bearing at a time, in weather that keeps changing, to sailors who cannot see the far shore and were never asked to.
In Her Company
St Faustina Kowalska
A young Polish sister whose whole message rests in five words: Jesus, I trust in you. She wrote them beneath an image of mercy, and the world still prays them.
Helena Kowalska was born in Poland in 1905, the third of ten children, and entered religious life as Sister Faustina. In her convent diary she recorded the message of Divine Mercy that has since circled the world. She died of tuberculosis at thirty-three and was canonised in 2000, the first saint of the new millennium.
Image via Wikimedia Commons
The Wardrobe