Today, We Need the Grille

Anyone who has seen the news lately knows that we live in uncertain times. God is our refuge and safety (we remind ourselves), and if we dwell in Him and in His will we are in the safest place of all.

Yet our feelings may be questioning us on this matter.  Fear can easily disarm us.  We might find ourselves dealing with worry, depression, anxiety, confusion, distress. In the presence of unsettling circumstances, it can be tough to find what we've referred to as "the view through the grille."

"I am sometimes afraid to look at the world outside and even at the circumstances in my own life.... there is so much darkness to be found. But if I were to stand in a physical cloister filled with light, would I be afraid to look 'through the grille' for fear that darkness would flood through the grille and turn my light into dark? No, for when darkness and light encounter one another, light is always the winner! Darkness never floods into the light. Instead, light flows into darkness and changes at least a portion of it into light." (from book The Cloistered Heart)

I ask myself:  what situations are uppermost in my mind just now? Is anything worrying or troubling me?  If so, perhaps particular scriptures can be helpful, especially if I think of those as "bars of my grille."  A concordance is (for me) pretty indispensible in finding particular passages, and in fact I just went searching for an online version. This link, which I have not really used but have just discovered, seems promising: https://www.biblegateway.com/versions/  It offers various Protestant Bible translations, but there is also a Douay-Rheims.

Thank you also to the commenter who suggested this link:  http://www.catholiccrossreference.com/bible/nab-search.cgi  This one looks quite helpful, so I came back to include it here.

In addition, I hope to share (in the following days) some "bars of the grille" that have helped me as I've have faced particular situations. I have been busy gathering those lately, so if you hear hammering echoing through these hallways, that might just be me... nailing together a few panels of grille....

(for an explanation of what we mean by "the grille," click this line)