Anna Waring

We live in an age of hurry. The speed of technological change feeds our frenzied busyness. Our constant need for connectivity in this digital world perpetuates a pervasive sense of rush and anxiety. The title of a book written by John Mark Comey, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, takes its inspiration from a Dallas Willard quote, “You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.” John described in his book’s prologue the deleterious impact of hurrying in his own life. His frenetic activity to keep pace with leading a multi-sight megachurch was destroying him. He decided to resign and take a job in a much smaller church. His writing challenges our culture’s pathological need for busyness and lobbies for a spiritual practice that Richard Foster calls “slowing.” The person who wrote today’s prayer has something to teach us about slowing. Anna Laetitia Waring (1823-1910) lived her entire life in a small town in Wales. She became an accomplished poet and hymn writer, although she shunned the limelight. When she published her collection of Hymns and Meditations in 1850, she included nineteen hymns of her own composition yet identified them only with her initials ALW. She considered writing a “pleasant diversion” but resisted the attention associated with it. As I read through her hymns, initially written as prayer-poems, her frequent references to the value of quiet restfulness stand out. One hymn included in her collection, “My Heart Is Resting, O My Lord,” underscores the restorative value of resting in God. She introduces this prayer poem with a verse from the Old Testament book of Lamentations, “The Lord is my portion, saith my soul, therefore, I will hope in him” (Lam. 3.24). Two stanzas from her eleven sectioned hymn lead us to pray: