Advent: Follow the Star Day 3
Advent: Follow the Star Day 2
Advent Follow the Star: Day 1
Its Complicated: a holiday prayer
God, I’m sitting with the fact that all holidays are complicated. Thanksgiving is the worst–because let’s be honest, the next one is always the worst one.
We try to remember to give thanks in a country where taking, enslaving and abusing people, land and…well everything is a part of our DNA.
And then there are the complications of not seeing family this year. And perhaps for some people, it’s emotionally safer to not see their family. Queer people who are rejected, disabled people who are forced to pass, victims of abuse or neglect trying to build bridges in a broken system.
So I’m praying for this complicated holiday, where everyone gets to feel especially lonely this year.
Teach us thanksgiving,
The Thanks part, and the giving part too.
Help us to find ways to safely connect and support one another. Help us to find the moments of security in this turbulent times.
But also, let us give ourselves permission for these holidays to be complicated.
Let us take them as they are, and struggle to acknowledge who and where we are this year.
This I pray in the name of the Holy Comforter, the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Feel free to use/adapt with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta
Read about my journey towards a doctorate in ministry in creative writing and give a small donation towards my tuition! About Me: My Story & My Writing
More Pandemic Prayers and Mundane Prayer to Survive the Day to Day
Pieces of Joy & Thanksgiving
God, I’m a the point in the chaos where I am wondering if I am allowed to be happy
Because the world is shitty right now. People are sick and dying. Politicians and governments do nothing and there is real suffering in the world.
And God knows the last recession, we were living on the edge, skirting bankruptcy, playing Russian Roulette with the bills, the credit cards, the job searches
I remember counting property after property for sale in 2010
This time the hurt is less visible. Those who are sick are quarantined, the hospitals are off limits, and poverty is hidden again and again (like we did) because it is a sign of shame.
I am all to aware the the suffering I know is but a microcosm of what is really going on.
So when things go right, when I realize we have enough room to live in, or we enjoy celebrating the youngest turning 9, or I get in to the program I applied for. I wonder is it ok to be happy?
Lord, I thank God for things like the Nap Ministry and Queer Theology and Black Girl Magic which remind us of the value of rest and joy, and that these things must be practiced especially in the midst of chaos.
Lord I give thanks for a moment to soak in the sun, the opportunity to zoom and pray for one another, and the early Christmas tree lights and carols that are seeping into consciousness.
Lord God I thank you for the beauty of snowflakes, the reminder that safe at home can mean cozy at home and the gifts of pets, hot chocolate, and my favorite music.
Help me to celebrate the little things, God. Help me not to forgo joy, but instead to embrace it, and let these moments strengthen me so that I am more able to go on.
Remind me that you give joy to everyone, even those who suffer, and that denial of joy is not helping anyone, I pray.
This Thanksgiving, please give me, and help me to celebrate whatever pieces of joy might happen. Especially give me the spirit and strength to recognize when these pieces of joy sneak up and surprise me.
Help me to enjoy them.
And appreciate them.
And give thanks for them, I pray.
Amen.
Feel free to use/adapt with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta
Read about my journey towards a doctorate in ministry in creative writing and give a small donation towards my tuition! About Me: My Story & My Writing
More Pandemic Prayers and Mundane Prayer to Survive the Day to Day
I GOT IN!!
I GOT IN to Pittsburgh Seminary’s Doctorate in Ministry in Creative Writing!
I’m so grateful for every single person who has read my writing, and prayed with me or shared my resources!
I am now officially working to gather enough resources for tuition.
I apprecaite any and all help including using and sharing my writing, praying with me, and supporting my tuition costs through my go fund me.
Thank you so much!
Exponential Growth Selah!
God, I’ve heard on the radio that it’s hard for us to grasp exponential growth.
That the concept that a 2×2 foot closet can become the size of a country a week is hard for our meager human brains to grasp.
And here we are, face to face with a disease that has exponential Growth. And God as the numbers stare us in the face.
Remind us that our actions are exponential. Please God, help our, you know we are only human, brains to process.
Selah!
For we know we cannot take in the magnitude of the grains of sand in the world, of the variety of species and genders and loves and in the mulitude of stars and planets in the universe.
This is why it is so hard to understand your exponential grace God, for it is beyond counting!
God I admit, I have trouble even grasping what a million of something means.
Help us process the growth of this illness, help us to have eyes to see and ears to hear, and bolster our hearts for we are Covid-weary and slipping into habits that are not safe.
Remind us that just as COVID19 multiplies, every single act we take for safety also is multiplied. That when we was our hands, or wear a mask or decline an invite or meet outside we are protecting millions of people.
Multiply our intentions to care for one another we pray. Make them twofold, fourfold, twelvefold, a hundredfold, for you know we need the support!
Increase our fortitude so that it burns on even when we feel like we are completely out of oil.
Bolster our socialization, so that a little bit on zoom or through car windows or across a field, might be nourishing enough for us to make it through winter.
Increase all of the good in the world God, so that the evil that is this virus can be defeated, I pray, and as I pray increase my prayer so it is your prayer, and your neighbor’s prayers, and let it become the prayer of the world. Extend this prayer, so that as we see Coronavirus surge, our mutual uplifting will flood as well.
Remind us that many waters of Covid19 cannot quench our love, neither can coronavirus flooding the very hospitals that heal us, even then Love cannot be drowned out.
Intensify our love for one another, especially in the midst of this crises we pray to you Oh God.
We pray all of this in Christ’s name, and in the abundance of the Holy Spirit, Lord hear our prayer. Amen.
Permission to Use/Adapt with Credit to Pastor Katy Stenta
Read about my journey towards a doctorate in ministry in creative writing and give a small donation towards my tuition! About Me: My Story & My Writing
More Pandemic Prayers and Mundane Prayer to Survive the Day to Day
Advent Hymns to Christmas Carol Tunes
#Advent Hymn tune of #SilentNight “#God of #Peace”
Silent Night Tune for an Advent Hymn
via #Advent Hymn tune of #SilentNight “#God of #Peace”‘
*Hymn “God of Peace” to tune of Silent Night
words by Pastor Katy Stenta
God of peace, God of life
Prophesy, Give your breath
Teach us how to make dry bones dance
Reveal to us your abundance
Be our God, evermore, Be, Our God evermore
God of peace, God of life
Dwell with us, in our breath
Make us prophets and dreamers all
Come to us, Emmanual
Come be with us Lord, Come be with us Lord
God of peace, God of life
King of Peace, Light of Light
Send to us your only son
Redeem us all, with the promised one
Jesus our savior, Jesus our Savior
Ducks & Wild Geese
Lord God, I know that my ducks aren’t in a row,
because I don’t even know what my ducks are anymore.
How do I prioritize when everything is important? How do I do self care when my hours are chunked in weird ways and the schedule remains nebulous and to the wind.
Even when I breathe sighs of relief, or take moments of joy…I know that the ducks are waiting.
Sometimes they quack at me in the middle of the night, awakening me with all the things I’ve forgotten, or all the problems I’m not sure how to solve.
Lord knows, (that’s you God) that I don’t have my ducks in a row.
My work is never perfect no matter how much I try, my kids need more attention than ever (not to mention socialization) and I can’t seem to find a minute for myself.
Plus everything is different, still! Again! Always!
And ignoring the fact we can’t keep the house clean anymore isn’t really working either.
Are these even the duckies I should be worried about? What ducks am I missing? I’m sure I’m missing some, somewhere.
And I wonder if this is how Jesus felt, as he was chasing down that Wild Goose of the Holy Spirit.
Did he look around at the ducks and said, one of these is the goose, but I just can’t find the one I’m supposed to chase down and catch first.
But maybe, hopefully, the chase is enough. Hopefully between the chasing and the quacking, I have a moment to reflect on what I have completed, or what has gone right.
Or perhaps I will give myself one of those adulting prizes: for sleeping or eating or drinking water or moving around or taking medication. Those all count as important things done.
God, maybe my ducks have never been in a row–after all they are all your ducks and geese anyway. But help me to organize myself in such a way that I can let go of the ducks I can let go of and chase the right things to pursue the Holy Spirit of inspiration, comfort, energy and hope.
Maybe it isn’t about ducks at all, maybe it’s really about the Wild Goose of the Holy Spirit. Remind me to chase down the Wild Goose, and that this Wild Goose Chase is surely worth it.
God will help us to flourish, even at such a time that we don’t know where our ducks are.
Remind us of this we pray. Amen.
Feel free to use/adapt with credit to Pastor Katy
Read about my journey towards a doctorate in ministry in creative writing and give a small donation towards my tuition! About Me: My Story & My Writing
More Pandemic Prayers and Mundane Prayer to Survive the Day to Day
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