Greetings to you all. This is the fourth day of my agoraphobia challenge, and it’s amazing what foolish things my mind can attach my anxiety to. As the time with my family draws to a close, I’m still ruminating about how to manage my luggage. Before I arrived in Ely I sent a bag of clothes ahead so as not to have a heavy, unmanageable suitcase. So by the time I leave Ely on Tuesday for the next leg of my journey, I need to change into clean clothes, then ask my son to wash the dirty dirty ones, parcel them up, and send them back. This seems like an appalling thing to ask of anyone, so I’ve been worrying about it for days. You might say it’s not really part of being agoraphobic, but in fact it’s all part of not wanting to be any trouble, not attracting any attention to myself, and, above all, not wanting to presume on others in case they reject me. All these things were big no-no’s during my childhood, and I still struggle hard with them. I guess that partly explains why I never developed the confidence to cope with life.
Anyway, the plan for the morning (worked out over a very good dinner at Pizza Express), is to meet in a coffee shop, then go round Ely Cathedral. It might make you smile to hear that though I’ve visited Ely Cathedral quite a number of times, and love it dearly, I’ve only once, many years ago, gone past the barrier where people pay to enter. Normally, I confine myself to the free side-chapel for private prayer, and the excellent shop. Spending money to go round the whole building just seems too extravagant, and I’ve never overcome this. Hopefully, with encouragement, I’ll do better today!
After all that tangled thinking, here is today’s prayer, which is perhaps rather suitable for reflecting on whilst visiting one of the most magnificent, beautiful and richly-decorated buildings in the world…
We are one
I praise you! (Psalm 63:3; NLT).
You alone are the one we worship (Isaiah 26:134; NLT).
I love you, Lord (Psalm 18:1; NLT).
I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one (John 17:22; NIV).
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It makes no sense
To say, “I praise you, Lord,”
For we are one.
It makes no sense
To say, “I worship you”,
For we are one.
It makes no sense
To say, “I love you, Lord”,
For we are one.
Yet still I say
These things to you each day –
For we are one.