Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Dearest God,

This morning I told my friend I wanted to spend more of my life talking about what matters most.  I want to talk about faith, service, compassion, love, mercy, hope, beauty, goodness, peace, giving, and relationship to you, to family, to friends, and to the world.  Maybe the reason for this shift is that I am growing older.  Or maybe it is the direction where you are leading me in the last quarter of my life.  Although I have known you since the earliest years of my life, these last 25 years I have had the greatest desire to love and serve you.

I remember being about five years old when I saw you the first time.  I stood in the front room of the old log home on the family farm where my father and his brothers were all born.  I saw you in my grandmother's eyes.  Even though at the time I did not possess the language to describe what I saw, I do know there was a sweetness of faith, an extraordinary beauty, a love for others, and a radical kindness.  In a little child's language Grandma Hughes told me what I saw was Jesus.

What better gift can I give to others than the look and love of Jesus?

Thank you
for blessing me
through the years
with eyes
of faith
to see you
through the eyes
of my grandmother,
my eighth grade
Sunday School teacher,
my high school
typing teacher,
my pastor,
my faith-filled friends,
many monastic communities,
and even through
mystical beings
who appeared
to bless,
challenge,
comfort,
love,
and assist me.
Thank you
for all
those pictures
of faith.
Make me
like them,
I pray.

Love, Andrea