Thy name is my healing, O my God, and remembrance of Thee is my remedy. Nearness to Thee is my hope, and love for Thee is my companion. Thy mercy to me is my healing and my succor in both this world and the world to come. Thou, verily, art the All-Bountiful, the All-Knowing, the All-Wise. (Bahá’u’lláh, Prayers and Meditations by Bahá’u’lláh, p. 261)
During this pandemic, my energy level has gone way down. Instead of welcoming all the Zoom meetings I’m being invited to, I dread another invitation. As an extreme introvert, I can’t cope with the volume of emails, phone calls, text messages and invitations being sent to me. I want to respond to them all, and I can’t. Not only that, but my bandwidth for participating in my usual meetings has gone way down. Now instead of 5-6 events in a day, I can only handle 1 or 2. I’m having to make difficult choices about which ones I will attend, which ones I will limit my time on, and which ones I will have to say no. This week I found myself having to say no to a devotional gathering over the phone, which has been going on every week with a dear friend, for almost 20 years. I didn’t want to cancel but I knew I couldn’t handle it. I was trying to talk myself out of it, saying: “nothing is better than saying prayers and immersing yourself in the Words of the Writings. It will be good for you.” Everything inside of me said NO! I couldn’t do it.
I decided to say the short healing prayer by myself instead. It’s a prayer I’ve memorized and said many times over the 35 years I’ve been a Bahá’í, and yet several phrases really stood out for me:
- Thy name is my healing . . . remembrance of Thee is my remedy: Sure, immersing myself in the Writings is healing. Participation in the core activities is healing. But so is remembering Him and repeating His Holy Name. I don’t have to do more than that.
- Thy mercy to me is my healing and my succor: I don’t have to do anything to please God. If I don’t attend the devotional gathering (or Feast or a Holy Day), I’m not going to lose out on His love. There’s nothing I have to do to earn His love. His mercy to me is my healing; not what I think I have to do to deserve it.
Knowing I can relax into God’s mercy and stop judging myself, I am grateful!
What jumped out for you as you read today’s meditation? I’d love it if you would share so we can all expand our knowledge of the Writings!
If you liked this meditation, you might also like my book God – Strengthening Your Relationship with God
Thank you for the reminder that we are free to worship the way we are able to!
Absolutely Mari! I think it’s part of the meaning of unity in diversity.
Thank you for sharing. have had these feelings also.
Thanks Gail. It’s good to know I’m not alone!
Dear Susan,
It seems my “bandwidth” has been narrow
all these years (thank you for starting or borrowing its humorous use, lol), because of
what I would call severe ADD (Amen inattentive
sub-type) and wariness of people generally.
My mom had at least the first of those two
influences, so genetics is likely part. Have I
mentioned here before “The Highly Sensitive
Person” & blog by Elaine Aron or Christine
Courtois’s work on “complex PTSD” ? Both are
important advances in “burn-out” study, a science which the Writings would likely sanction.
Elaine talked at length about knowing healthy
limits.
Your new comment look is awesome and
reader-friendly.
I’m glad you like it Steve. I can’t take credit – it’s automatic with the blog! 🙂 Thanks for the suggestions. I’ll check them both out.
My goodness! Scroll down the page and see what you have already done! You are a prolific writer, teacher, counselor, and so much more. At times we all need a rest and a period of rejuvenation. I hope you receive peace of mind and strength of body soon. I will say the Healing prayer for you too. And thank you for the many ways you are helping us all to carry on.
Thanks so much for the reminder, and the offer of prayers Carol! I can use all the prayers I can get! I definitely can drive myself to exhaustion and not know when enough is enough!
Thank you Susan,I was in the same spot where I was overwhelmed.Finally,this morning I have decided I should not drain myself as I needed to focus on my health and why to worry when I am conversing with Him every moment and that there are important decisions I need to make and its perfectly fine NOT TO JOIN MY BK 11 at this point but have a clarity of thought to make a wise decisions than to be all over the place.
You’re welcome, Rajiie. I’m glad it helped confirm you in your decision.