Jill Carroll was released from captivity today. Jill, a reporter for the Christian Science Monitor, was kidnapped by Iraqi insurgents almost 3 months ago. David Cook, Washington Bureau chief of the Monitor, said "This is a wonderful day!" when he heard the news. A former colleague of Jill's at the Jordan Times, Natasha Tynes said "...our prayers have been answered."

Prayer has been a constant for thousands of people around the world. Christians, Jews, Muslims, all faiths, have joined together to pray for her safety and release. And this has led to extraordinary practical efforts by political, non-political, NGOs and even inter-faith groups from many countries to join hands and make strong appeals, both public and private. The US Government, the Iraqi government, the Christian Science Monitor, the Jordan Times, Reporters Without Borders, and the inter-faith group of Detroit (a large Muslim community) are just a few groups that have steadfastly persevered to get Jill freed.

I woke up this morning thinking about Spirit (this is another way of describing God to me) and the divine quality of "steadfastness." It is a thing I really try to do every morning before I get up: think about a quality of Spirit, then think about how that must be reflected by the creation that Spirit made...which includes all of mankind and even me! Through the day, then, i think about it and very very often it helps me bring a spiritual perspective specifically to a problem I am working on or some news event I see.

So when I saw on the news this morning about Jill I immediately thought of "steadfastness." Many times during the last 3 months I have joined others in prayer for Jill. About a month ago I remember thinking, "Time has nothing to do with changing anything about who Jill is as a child of God or how safe she is in God's care. Her life is the same today as it was two months ago or even a year ago." And I also prayed for myself to be steadfast in affirming this about Jill's life.

The notion of "time" really turns things inside out and adds a negative dimension. When you eliminate time from working out problems, a lot of the stress goes away and you can think more in the present, in the NOW. So, insead oft thinking "She's been held captive for 3 months...its too long," or "I have been sick too long," or "I have been stuck in this job for too long" - how much better to focus on just the now. Like, "Right now God loves me and wants only good for me at this very moment." Then, being steadfast to just the present moment, to just what you know is true right now, can keep you in series of moments that are good, positive and uplifting. No time element, just now.

Some years ago I was working on a project that seemed to go on forever and wasn't productive. Every attempt made to close it out just didn't work and I was unhappy with the lack of progress. I got to thinking, "this has been going on for months just the same and all I can see is more months of this." I really got caught up in the time factor because that made it even worse. I was stuck.

So I prayed. I prayed to listen to whatever God wanted me to know at that moment. I pushed out all the unhappy, stressful thoughts and just listened. What came to me was Patience. But not patience IN time, Patience without any concept of time. Like, get rid of the time element and know that patience means waiting on God to move, adjust, reveal whatever needs to be moved, adjusted, revealed. In God's "time," not mine. And if it is in God's time, then there can be no suffering, no sacrifice, no loss of any kind.

One of my most influential spiritual authors, Mary Baker Eddy, writes a lot about patience. And usually includes it with the idea of unconditional love. So, patience with love is way more peaceful and uplifting than patience with time!

This totally released all the stress and unhappiness I was feeling about this project. Each day I listened for what new activity I could do, on this project or other projects. And new things came to me to do. I was active, productive and happy. Within a month or so, the project was closed out, to everyone's satisfaction.

Mario Tosto, who writes a blog called Godbert, wrote a poem that sums up very simply the joy of steadfastness and patient waiting with joy:

Praying with patience
Is waiting without time,
Resting in the
Center
Of that which never changes,
For the change that
Must come.

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