“I am not a child now
I can take care of myself
I mustn’t let them down now
Mustn’t let them see me cry
I’m fine, I’m fine . . . .”
I love Jonatha Brooke’s song “I'll Try,” because I do try . . . and try. But sometimes I just don’t feel fine. Sometimes it just feels like I pray, and study, and pray, and listen, and pray, and pray, and pray . . . and still things don’t work out the way I thought they would. I see examples every day of physical healing, resurrected hopes, and personal, collective, and global transformation. But sometimes I wonder: Shouldn’t all that prayer and study prevent altogether misunderstandings, unkindness, alarming physical symptoms, and the threat of hurricanes each season?
Then, one day, I was reading one of Jesus’ parables. It was one that I had read so often that I could recite it by heart: “Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock” (Matthew 7:24, 25).
