“God forbid . . . This must never happen.” How often have we joined Peter in crying those very words at the possibility of some awful calamity? We hear of some tragedy occurring around the world, and we want to wrap those near and dear to us in a blanket of prayer, to secure them from the horror of what we see elsewhere, just as Peter did. On TV, we see the results of natural disasters, earthquakes and tsunamis, forest fires and mudslides, floods, tornadoes, and hurricanes, and can’t begin to imagine how we could cope with such desolation. God forbid it should happen here. We hear of terrorist bombers aiming to change the world or to protect the status quo and think that must never happen here, forgetting the devastation our neighbors have experienced when bombers visited the Birmingham church in 1963, the federal building in Oklahoma city in 1995, and of course, 9/11/2001. We pick up the newspaper and read of families left bereft when transportation accidents involving cars, trucks, buses, trains, airplanes, boats take the lives of loved ones, and our fear grows. It really could happen to us; God forbid.

When we see folks around us in the throes of any unfortunate circumstance, illness, addiction, the break-up of relationships, loss of any kind, we may be tempted to think: “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” Jesus, however, tells Peter that focusing on how me and mine are affected by the ways of the world keeps us from setting our minds on divine things. As Richard Rohr puts it, in his book by the same title, Everything Belongs. God’s way is to walk with us through all that life brings our way, to infuse us with divine love so that we may have the courage to face all that life offers, and to use us to companion others through their trials. We can trust God‘s steadfast love and mercy to see us through, to bring us that peace that passes human understanding, and to fill us with the joy that comes from God’s encompassing, indwelling presence.