Tag: A Prayer

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

Irresolute: A Prayer for the New Year

God, I’m praying here because I sense this is not the year for resolutions.

Self-improvement does not feel adequate for all that is going on…and it certainly isn’t appropriate when survival has been the first and primary goal.

God, I am trying to practice being thankful for my body. Because thought the ups and the downs my body has gotten me through the year. And am working to process and absorb the trauma that has hammered down. I’m trying to practice gentleness, with the flesh that envelopes me. Did Christ look at his body and struggle with gentleness and thanksgiving?

God, you know I have other things to absorb too. The lessons of economies and ongoing structures of neglect and violence. The rawness of the human condition has been made plain, which is why an individual resolution won’t do this year.

A prayer is more fitting God, because resolutions are about certainty, and prayer is about all the places I’m floundering and trying to figure out.

After all God, it’s been the year of flexibility and pivotry and other bendy things.

So here I am God, praying for the New Year, for the new things. On the things that are unresolved, the things we are working on, the things that are not just about me and now but are more communal and complex in nature.

So, God, help me as I’m irresolute this year. Help me to be okay with it. Or, maybe not. Not everything is ok.

So here’s to an irresolute year–of community and mutual aid and epiphanies and a way to be present.

Let me be as present as I safely can. And let it not be not a resolution or a goal, but rather a way to strive for I pray.

Amen.

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

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