God, this is the week that never ends, in the year that never ends.
Always, towards the end of the school year there is an impossible week.
Where spring and summer activities collide in their not quite done, and just getting started-ness.
Always there is a week where the schedule doesn’t work, every day has triple obligations, and on top of that everyone is cranky.
And then, someone doesn’t sleep, and someone else doesn’t feel well or the car has trouble or the pet has to go to the vet or the computer quits working or a something else impossible happens.
God, timing is everything.
And this year, when I have spent more time with parts of my family than ever, and seen other parts and my friends almost not all…
This year when vacations and retreats are just gasps of breath in the midst of survival mode…
This year when all the “fun things” I thought I was doing to have fun turned out to be coping mechanisms essential to surviving, as they have fallen by the wayside and the to do list somehow continues while these other things don’t..
God Almighty, You know, how this year has been never-ending.
Like a song that is stuck in your head, nagging at you day in and day out, that’s how the pandemic works–always in the background, giving your headaches and heartaches. Always on the calendar as you figure out what to do and how to do it.
The stress presses down, on my head, on my heart, on my soul.
God, I have been praying without ceasing this year. I have cried and sighed and laughed and zoomed and emailed and turned on cameras and turned off camera, have put on masks and then then washed the masks, every single day of this never ending year.
I have examined every ache and sniffed and listened to every lonely heartache of my friends and family…..and taken-just-a-moment-to-center-myself all in prayer.
I am living into the rhythm of prayer Lord–one that is both structured and spontaneous, one that has been out loud and quiet, one where I’ve known exactly what to say and one where I’ve murmured nonsense to the Holy Spirit.
It’s the longest week, in the longest year I’ve ever lived.
So I will continue to pray, and live.
Thank God you are eternal, thank God that prayers do not cease, and are picked up by friends and families and churches and strangers when mine falter.
Thank God you are the song that never ends God.
Amen.
Feel free to use/share/adapt with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta
katyandtheword 