Thursday, February 14, 2013

My dearest God,

How can I become closer to you?  How do I permanently place my hand in yours and feel the tug when you speed up or slow down?  How will I know if you want me to pause where I am to consider life, its challenges, and faith and its wondrous nudges?  How can I put myself in line with you?

Yesterday I began the day at the monastery, in quiet at first, and then in liturgy and worship.  I felt the familiar tug on my heart, a beautiful thing really where I experience the same yearning as the psalmist who said , "As the deer pants for living water so do I long for you, O Lord."  I know the feeling and the wanting.  Although I know I am so blessed, I still desire a closer walk with you.

In my covenant group I shared the ways in which your spirit  moved me in the last few weeks.  At first, I was resistant.  How do you trust those unsuspecting places where you have been hurt?  Yet, I felt your push to move forward, to acknowledge my own brokenness and my failure to trust you wholly, taking matters in my own pitiful hands, and at last to confess my desire to be led by you.  I felt your sweet mercy as I recognized grace at work.

Finally, last night at the Ash Wednesday service, I took upon me the sign of the cross, the dust of my own humanity and I dared to sing with the choir, "Forgive our sins, O Lord.  Restore us, we pray."  Once again I felt drawn into your mystery of God-with-us.  I felt chilled and warmed at the same time recognizing the breath of your spirit.

As I climbed into bed, the pile of covers tucked 'round me, I began to read one of my Lenten commitments, the first chapter of Luke.  How strange to be in a time of Lenten dying, yet simultaneously reading the story of preparation for birth.  But then dying and living are part and parcel of each other, isn't that so?  How can we ever press forward in faith without allowing the death of our stubborn ways?  How can we meet new life unless we leave something of the old behind?

Closing my eyes, waiting for warmth to come in my stone-cold bedroom, I murmured my thanksgivings.

Praise to you,
God of my faith.
Receive my devotion
as an act
of penitence
and renewal.
Take the stuff
of my insides
and remake me
this Lenten season,
I pray.

Love, Andrea