Restraint Collapse: A Prayer

Here’s a Prayer for all those who collapse
at the end


Who are just holding it together
Somehow
Til the end of the Day


And then lose it
When they get in the door
Or are asked to do a thing
Or have to leave their comfort zone/thing/activity

Here are for those for whom the “Simple” tasks are not easy
Socializing
Being Organized
Paying Attention
Meeting People’s Eyes
Going Outside
Sensory Overload
New Things
Exposure
All the Things the one has to Weather

Here is a prayer for those whose bodies react
with twitches, or sleep disturbance, or accidents
migraines or other body aches

This is a prayer for those who have to acclimate
to this STRANGE thing everyone else calls the norm

I want to tell you, God thinks you are beautiful
and perfect, exactly as you are
and I hope you are safe
and beloved–and you have spots of sanctuary
moments of hope
and experiences of full self

Here’s a prayer for those who experience after school restraint collapse
Like ripe apples or rainbows of leaves in the fall
or tacos that are too full of good things to eat
or cake that is overfull of icing and sprinkles–

We all fall apart sometimes,
Jesus wept,
and ran away
and napped on a boat
and cursed a fig tree.
And went alone to a garden to pray–
but asked his disciples to body double him while he was there.

Here’s a prayer for all of us who collapse, because we are overloaded
May we, like Jesus, rage or weep or pray or rest.


Whenever we need to, and find what we need along the way God.
We pray this in the name of your Counselor and Comforter the Holy Spirit–
Amen.

Feel free to use/adapt/share with Credit to Pastor Katy Stenta

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Author: katyandtheword

Pastor Katy has enjoyed ministry at New Covenant since 2010, where the church has solidified its community focus. She now works at Capital CFO plus as the Non Profit Director. All opinions expressed on this blog are her own and do not reflect those of Capital CFO plus. Prior to that she studied both Theology and Christian Formation at Princeton Theological Seminary. She also served as an Assistant Chaplain at Trenton Psychiatric Hospital and as the Christian Educational Coordinator at Bethany Presbyterian at Bloomfield, NJ. She is an writer and is published in Enfleshed, Sermonsuite, Presbyterian's today and Outlook. She writes prayers, liturgy, poems and public theology and is pursuing her doctorate in ministry in Creative Write and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. She enjoys working within and connecting to the community, is known to laugh a lot during service, and tells as many stories as possible. Pastor Katy loves reading Science Fiction and Fantasy, theater, arts and crafts, music, playing with children and sunshine, and continues to try to be as (w)holistically Christian as possible. "Publisher after publisher turned down A Wrinkle in Time," L'Engle wrote, "because it deals overtly with the problem of evil, and it was too difficult for children, and was it a children's or an adult's book, anyhow?" The next year it won the prestigious John Newbery Medal. Tolkien states in the foreword to The Lord of the Rings that he disliked allegories and that the story was not one.[66] Instead he preferred what he termed "applicability", the freedom of the reader to interpret the work in the light of his or her own life and times.

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