a blessing for when you might not know how to pray (or want to)
Blessed are you in this terrible, wonderful now.
Fumbling around for the right words.
You need so much and it seems impossible to say at all.
Blessed are you for whom prayer feels hopeless, disappointing, futile.
Blessed are you in your radical honesty, in the ways you speak of your grief.
The long, sleepless nights in a still-empty bed.
Or the physical pain you feel, the joints that don’t work like they used to, the brain fog or chronic migraines, who speak of your loneliness, the empty home or nest or womb.
Blessed are you who have the audacity to ask for the miracles you need, the healing or a new friend or a redeemed family.
Blessed are you as you learn to trust, trust a God who hears, who listens, who hasn’t left your side, who prays on your behalf, interpreting those deep groans you can’t quite put into syllables or sounds.
Blessed are you, as you settle into acceptance.
And blessed are we who live here in the someday, but not now.
This blessing was inspired by my conversation with Father James Martin on the Everything Happens Podcast. Listen to it here.