Lenten Devotional Series

I gained some helpful insight around the time of my daughter Amalee’s 6 month doctor visit.  At her check up her doctor told me that it was important for me to play peekaboo with her.  When I asked why, she said that it helped to ease separation anxiety and would teach her about object permanence.  Babies don’t understand that when they can’t see, touch, hear someone or something that person or thing continues to exist.  They get anxious thinking that mom and dad or their favorite toy is gone for good.  

At certain times in our lives we have an unquestioned trust in God and an understanding that God is at the core of our being, but then full-contact life comes at us and makes us believe that we exist apart from God and that God has in fact forgotten us.  This might sound silly but if my daughter needs me to play peekaboo with her so that she will learn that I am there even when she can’t see me, maybe we also need to learn that God is there even when we think She isn’t.  Instead of object permanence we’re learning God permanence and perhaps it is not so much learning as remembering that we came from God, God lived with us and we will go back to God.    

When I am lonely, I find myself longing for God to appear.  My heart aches to sense God's presence.  My prayers are more intense.  If I never sensed God's absence I know I would take God's presence for granted.  I tingle with the prospect of the joy I will have when God's face reappears.

Dear God, help us to remember that you never forget us.  Remind us that you are the god of the resurrection and after our forsaken hour there will be new life.  Amen.