broken, day 2

Come to Stillness: Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God.

Opening Prayer:
O persistent God,

deliver me from assuming your mercy is gentle.

Pressure me that I may grow more human,

not through the lessening of my struggles,

but through the expansion of them…

Deepen my hurt

until I learn to share it and myself openly,

and my needs honestly.

Sharpen my fears until I name them

and release the power I have locked in them

and they in me.

Accentuate my confusion

until I shed those grandiose expectations

that divert me from the small, glad gifts

of the now and the here and the me.

Expose my shame where it shivers,

crouched behind the curtains of propriety,

until I can laugh at last

through my common frailties and failures,

laugh my way toward becoming whole.

(Guerrillas of Grace by Ted Loder)


Psalm for the Week: Psalm 31

Scripture for the Day: Luke 22:24-34

Reading for Reflection:

Frederick Buechner once said, “To be a writer, one must be a good steward of their pain.”  I think that is true as well for those who would pray.  To be such a steward creates the possibility that others might be healed by your witness to such a thing, that others might see mercies granted to you in your suffering as evidence of the compassion of God for those who are broken.  This gift of our brokenness is often the only real gift that we can give or receive with any real honesty and with any real hope and with any real power.  We do not demonstrate our faith when we live in the light, we show our faith when we live in the dark.

     To embrace one’s brokenness, whatever it looks like, whatever has caused it, carries with it the possibility that one might come to embrace one’s healing, and then that one might come to the next step: to embrace another and their brokenness and their possibility for being healed.  To avoid one’s brokenness is to turn one’s back on the possibility that the Healer might be at work here, perhaps for you, perhaps for another.  It is to turn one’s back on another, one for whom you just might be the Christ, one for whom you might, even if just for a moment, become the Body and Blood. (Living Prayer by Robert Benson)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: Come Ye Sinners

Come, ye sinners, poor and needy,
Weak and wounded, sick and sore;
Jesus ready stands to save you,
Full of pity, love and power.

I will rise and go to Jesus,
He will embrace me in His arms;
In the arms of my dear Savior,
O there are ten thousand charms.
Come, ye thirsty, come, and welcome,
God’s free bounty glorify;
True belief and true repentance,
Every grace that brings you nigh.

Come, ye weary, heavy laden,
Lost and ruined by the fall;
If you tarry till you’re better,
You will never come at all.


Closing Prayer
Now,
O Lord,
calm me into a quietness
that heals
and listens,
and molds my longings
and passions,
my wounds
and wonderings
into a more holy
and human
shape.
(Guerrillas of Grace by Ted Loder)