a prayer

Mary, thank you for sharing this prayer, written by a our friend Colleen.

it brought tears to my eyes and soul.
may it be sweet for others as well.
amen.

God-of-the Ordinary…
May we see you in our ordinary moments, and may they come to life with extraordinary flare. May trees dance before us and the familiar faces around us blaze with your goodness. Give us such eyes, Lord. You are the God who exults in monotony and delights in that which we often overlook. Help us to not overlook it, but to see it afresh. We long to be faithful, even when monotony threatens to swallow us up.

God-with-us…
Be with us in our new beginnings – big and small. Cross country moves, across city moves, new house, new roommates, new jobs, fresh starts, stale starts… leave space for us to breathe deeply of You and Your rest this weekend… to breathe joy and goodness and hope into our lungs so deeply that they linger for months to come…. Thank you that you are a God of beginnings. Thank you for the promise of new mornings. Jesus, we anticipate your arrival in our midst this year. We anticipate the ways you will show yourself as good, as kind, as lovely and tender… even if we do not always experience you or life in that way. Thank you that we are never out of your reach. How comforting to know that you knit us and that you know us. Thank you that you are bigger than our brokenness. It is never too big for you and will never be able to keep you away.

What a beautiful promise.

Jesus, There are moments – daily, weekly, yearly… that we begin to feel ourselves fraying at the edges… Father, we need you to come and sit with us in those moments… in those times. When we begin to fall apart, please remind us that we are not alone… that you are good and not as far as you feel sometimes. As the tidewaters rise within, and as the damns begin to break, Comforter, comfort. Heal. Restore. … We are broken creatures. Please patch together your love in the cracks where much is lacking in ours. Where we don’t have words, Holy Sprit, speak for us… in our fallible, fleshy, flimsy selves, we simply reach our ends and need you to fill in and step in for us… and bring your healing and wholeness and renewal. Make us more wholly whole with each breath… and more wholly aware of our need for YOU…

Holy Spirit, thank you. Thank you for the many ways in which you have brought us to this place – in small shiftings and unsettlings to major earthquakes that still cause us tremors. Prepare the way before us this year. Set us forth from here with strength and courage and joy in the midst of whatever fear, insecurities or sorrows we may be surrounded by. Keep your promised resurrection near. Strengthen us where we falter… Birth new life in us… we wait in anticipation for the tiny shoots of green to grow. We need hope in our daily lives to spring up and entangle us in vines of new growth and joy. Spirit, may your power to do the unthinkable continually catch us off guard even as it bridges our way. We need buckets of grace this year, Spirit. Please enliven and season our hearts with it.

Thank you for the many ways you provide… Thank you for never leaving me alone.

May your stillness and your promises surround us. And your grace follow us like a giant pepper shaker seasoning us with every little step we take…
We groan, Father.
We ache, Jesus.
We wait with baited breath and hopeful glances, Holy Spirit.
Please come. In stillness, in newness, in big and small ways. Come.

Amen.