Recently, I’ve been thinking about my father’s boat, and the inlet off Lake Erie, where it and a dozen or so small craft docked. My father taught me knot-tying, how to steer a boat in a storm, and when not to go out in the boat.
He and my mother allowed my brother and me to swim and boat whenever we wanted to except on Sunday mornings when we all went to worship together. In our lives we needed a dock, but also the safe haven and sheltering arms and love of Jesus. We were taught that one’s life is not just physical, but also spiritual—by living examples, not just empty words.
Where is your safe haven in the temporal world? Is it a person or a place? Where can you dock yourself and know you belong there? Is it a special place where you can also find Jesus in the quiet of your heart? Is it that devoted cousin or friend who knows who you really are and loves you in spite of— or because of—it?
This message is excerpted from “Safe havens,” by Barbara Miller from the March 23, 2015, blog of the Women of the ELCA. Today we commemorate Nathan Söderblom, Bishop of Uppsala, 1931.
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