P-e-f-e-c-t

God,
this is the time of year
to reflect

To think about all that has been
accomplished
or not

We human really like progress
but really hate change
How did you do that God?
Make us this way?

We want to be prefect, pefect
perfect
Whatever that means….

I am, as you know too well God
a recovering perfectionist
so full of goals
Give me a minute
and I can give you plans, dreams
ideas to fill a jar

But this year
when I got the Star Word* intention
I politely

declined

I am trying to fall into God
this time

I am trying to
wait

I am trying to
Sabbath

I am trying to do this thing
perhaps you have heard of it

Trust in God

It is not easy
I am more of the
goal-setting, work-hard-and-be-rewarded
early-bird-gets-the-worm
plan your way out of catastrophe person

But I am not a catastrophe
or a trophy

I am beautifully
and fiercely made

And perhaps
unfinished–and
that thought should not
be scary
but
comforting

God has more to do with
us

There is peace
to be made

Hunger for righteousness
to be fed

Help that needs
to be given
(and perhaps more scarily)
asked for

So here I go
into a new year–
reaching up
and out

full of prayer
and letting go
of intentions

Amen.

Feel free to use/share/adapt with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta “KatyandtheWord”

*Star Word is an Epiphany Practice to pull a word to help set an intention/focus for the upcoming year

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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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