Be Still
By Alexandria Lukashonak

"Summertime and the living is easy…" The words of this song keep playing in my mind. They bring back my childhood when summer days meant quiet times with the mid-day heat and gentle breezes. Quiet times also meant playing with my dolls under the snowball bush in the yard, picking vegetables from my "victory" garden, devouring books that I didn't "have to" read, painting pictures, and learning the words to all the songs on the 10-cent music sheet that was purchased at the candy store.

No schedules to keep, no mother frantically driving me from one activity to another, no air-conditioning either-instead a romp through the sprinkler or a bus ride to the nearby beach with my parents, brother, and sister, and an assortment of Ukrainian neighbors-all of us lugging heaps of food.

I didn't know my Bible verses very well in those days. The words, "Be still and know that I am God," were not in my vocabulary. However, they were surely felt in my heart. They were also a real part of my experience in that garden and with those people who were quietly such an influence on my youth.

In today's busy and stressful world, I remember that verse from Psalm 46, and I drift back to that time when God revealed himself in quiet ways. I am thankful to have that place in my memory, my own personal retreat, so well-expressed in the words of K. Dornacher, "O Lord, to be quiet, to hear only Your voice is the desire of my heart."