A Place Of Refuge

Recently the weather has turned quite cold—much colder than this SoCal girl has known for most of her life. The lows have dropped below freezing most of the last few nights, with a couple extreme temperatures finally stopping at 18 degrees.

Of course, that is nothing to be compared to the Fahrenheit weather in Canada, where my good friend Jurgen and his wife, Rachel, live. They shared it was 40 degrees below as they drove from Emo to Thunder Bay. Jurgen mentioned in passing that just a moment in that kind of weather, not properly covered, would freeze a person’s skin in a minute or less. Yeah… Just say No!

This has been good weather for soup and tea, and lots of mochas, long naps, puzzles, reflections on life…

I bought a couch when we first moved into the house in 2022. I found it at a thrift store. The cushions had been strewn all over, and the color and fabric of the couch was nothing plush or shiny, or even amazingly tactile as I ran my hand over it, but nothing was ripped or torn. It all looked fairly sturdy and intact, albeit a bit homely. I reunited the cushions with the frame and then sat on it for a bit, and even stretched out just to see how it felt. It was lovely. It was all of $17. I wasn’t even totally sure we could cram it into our car—but we did. And it came home with us.

And that couch has become, more than any other location inside our house, a place of refuge. I nap there. Sometimes I just sit there for a while—I don’t even know what I am thinking in the moments I recline there. But there is something of a welcome and a rest about this particular piece of furniture. And, when the world feels like it is screaming all around me, this little couch has been a place of solace.

I have a special plaid wool blanket which I found at an estate sale that adorns the back of my couch when I am not curled up in it. The blanket is from another era with snaps so that a person can be entirely bundled up within its warm and woolly (but not scratchy) embrace.

Why do I share these things? Because the world continues to increase the volume, more angry, divisive, garish, ugly and hurtful—and these things seep into all of us. They stir up reactions in response that make it harder to remain in the world and somehow still not be of the world. The toxicity of our environment, government, and society in general is ramping up in what seems like a completely unprecedented way, and places and people of refuge seem harder to find in these days.

The Bible talks about cities of refuge for people unjustly accused. I have always loved that idea. I think, those of us who are believers in Jesus are supposed to be like a city of refuge, a sanctuary, a place set apart for people who are in pain, or lost, or suffering injustice. I believe our ministry, in all its aspects, has carried some of that sensibility in it, a lot of times without even knowing. But those who minister in that way also need places of refuge. Times to be still and remember He is God.

My couch may not last the number of years I have left on the planet, and at that point I may have to find something else to take its place. But my great overriding comfort is that God has said, He will never leave us or forsake us. And on His word I entirely rely, in the times I can hear Him so clearly in my spirit, and in the times when I am drowning in my own blindness and stupidity. He will never leave me or forsake me. He is my portion—my eternal place of refuge.

-Sally Klein O'Connor

1/22/24