(From my journal, dated 12-3-94, as I worked through the book, Six Weeks to a Simpler Lifestyle by Barbara Degrote-Sorensen and David Allen Sorenson)
A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But [Jesus} was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”
Mark 4:37-40 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
I am to choose a sentence, phrase or word to calm me: Psalm 46:10 (“Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”) or the “Jesus Prayer” (“Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”) But I choose “Peace. Be still” (Mark 4:39 KJV), and the mental image of my small, storm-tossed boat suddenly calmed by the Lord of my circumstances, the Master of my life.
“Peace. Be still.” Yes, Lord. In this time of plague and fear, I choose “Yes.”