I’ve been reading and re-reading this prayer for the last week – reflecting on the last year, and planning for the next… May it speak to you as it has spoken to me…

I Hold My Life Up to You Now

Patient God,
the clock struck midnight
   and I partied with a strange sadness in my heart,
      confusion in my mind.

Now I ask you
   to gather me,
      for I realize
         the storms of time have scattered me,
            the furies of the past year have driven me,
               many sorrows have scarred me,
         many accomplishments have disappointed me,
            much activity has wearied me,
               and fear has spooked me
                  into a hundred hiding places,
                     one of which is pretended gaity.

I am sick of a string of "have-a-nice-day's."
What I want is passionate days,
   wondrous days,
      dangerous days,
         blessed days,
            surprising days.
What I want is you!

Patient God,
this day teeters on the edge of waiting
   and things seem to slip away from me,
      as though everything were only memory
         and memory is capricious.

Help me not to let my life slip away from me
O God, I hold up my life to you now,
   as much as I can,
      as high as I can,
         in this mysterious reach called prayer.

Come close, lest I wobble and fall short.
It is not days or years I seek from you,
   not infinity and enormity,
      but small things and moments and awareness,
         awareness that you are in what I am
            and in what I have been indiffferent to.

It is not new time,
   but new eyes,
      new heart I seek,
         and you.

Patient God,
in this teetering time,
   this time in the balance,
      this time of waiting,
make me aware of moments,
   moments of song,
      moments of bread and friends,
         moments of jokes
            (some of them on me)
               which, for a moment, deflate my pomposities;
   moments of sleep and warm beds,
      moments of children laughing and parents bending,
         moments of sunsets and sparrows outspunking winter,
   moments when broken things get mended
      with glue or guts or mercy or imagination;
         moments when splinters shine and rocks shrink,
            moments when I know myself blest,
               not because I am so awfully important,
                  but because you are so awesomely God,
                     no less of the year to come
                        as of all the years past;
                     no less of this moment
                        than of all my momnets;
                     no less of those who forget you
                        as of those who remember,
                           as I do now,
                              in this teetering time.

O Patient God,
make something new in me,
   in this year,
   for you.

via Ted Loder
~Guerrillas of Grace: Prayers for the Battle