Traveling with Brother Lawrence

Stranded in Sanford

God, the one and only—I’ll wait as long as he says. Everything I need comes from him, so why not?

Psalm 62–2

You know you’ll be challenged in a day that includes travel and a book launch you weren’t expecting. Except you were expecting to launch in a general way, just not that particular day, or that hour, as you were packing a car for a two-month trip.

The External Story

Travel would be by auto-train, a new experience, which usually adds a few new challenges/stress (like getting lost, getting misinformation, GPS failures, delays, cancellations). Incidents and hiccups along the way add up to a missed train, an overnight in a hotel, and delays in doing book launch thingies.

Add gas lines, wobbly WiFi, and operating in a June heatwave suffocating the South. Air pumps that don’t work. Key cards that lock you out of your hotel room and require you to change rooms.

Dinner is a wilted something you fish out of the cooler and hope the ice packs survive overnight. Pouring more ice cubes in the cooler in the morning.

The Internal Story

Agh!!!

Angst, shock, and arguments (as holy as I could muster) in a packed train station. Wandering off to a hotel, dazed and wondering how to think. I was too tired and overheated to be thoroughly mad (and shock helped). And after a shower, settling into my new room, notifying people at my destination, and finishing the barest of essentials on the book launch, I flopped on the bed. That was a day, Lord.

I fished through my backpack for some reading material. Brother Lawrence—The Practice of the Presence of God guy. Bingo. I needed a spiritual giant in a day where I’m spiritually bedraggled to put some fiber back in me. I’d read it again—after a first read many moons ago. A few gems:

“Lord, I cannot do this unless Thou enables me.”

“When he had failed in his duty, he only confessed his fault, saying to God, I shall never do otherwise if You leave me to myself; it is You who must hinder my falling and mend what is amiss.”

A monk after my own heart. Sometimes circumstances overwhelm our humanity, but God superfuels us with strength and bring us through. And sometimes he does it through a book. I fell asleep adopting Brother Lawrence as my guide through a trip north. Despite the day, I had a comfortable bed with a roof over my head. It was enough and tomorrow was another day.