On
Thursday, August 9, 2007, Presiding Bishop Mark S. Hanson called on the Rev.
Anne M. Svennungsen, newly elected president of Texas Lutheran University,
for a Dwelling in the Word moment at the 2007 ELCA Biennial Churchwide
Assembly.
Pr. Svennungsen told about being called to the hospital in the middle of the
might when her husband, who was recovering from surgery, had taken a turn
for the worse and had been put on a respirator. During that night in the ICU
waiting room, she had read psalm after psalm. It was if she was starved for
the Word of God: "Make haste to help me, O Lord."
...neither can the human spirit survive without the
Word.
The psalms place our lives before God, the heights of
joy and the depths of despair. Her husband recovered, she said, and they both
still loved the Psalms. She commented that as bodies cannot survive without
food, neither can the human spirit survive without the Word. So individuals
need help from others to read and dwell in the Word as well as reflect on
it. She added that she prayed the Spirit would encourage everyone to dwell
in the Word and be nourished every day.
Augsburg Fortress is the ministry of publishing within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
