They ran eagerly, spreading their cloaks on the road as Jesus came, waving palm branches and shouting “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.” This surely would signal the beginning of their deliverance, and the ending of their oppression, sorrow, and shame. What’s this? No mighty horse or chariot? Only […]
Blessings
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A Blessing for the Body
Blessed is the body that offers soft hugs on hard days. Whose curves fit our pets and our kids and our partners. Whose hands hold another alongside hospital beds and in nursing homes and at the altar and on the first day of school. Whose breasts nurse and legs run to chase littles and whose […]
A blessing for when you don’t feel #blessed
blessed are we who we lose sleep over what troubles us.whose worries keep us watching the clock tick by.who have no energy to do anything but fret.the kingdom of God is here and now. blessed are we drowning in grief.when wave after wave after wave crashes over us.who start to feel okay, then something reminds […]
A prayer for when you feel invisible
Dear God, I always feel like the last one picked. The left out, the unclaimed. It’s hard to miss. My gifts are not welcome. My tears are not seen. My pain is not registered. I feel invisible. Jesus, when You walked among us, You became the one rejected. You were abandoned—even betrayed—by Your best friends, […]
A blessing for when you mourn what could have been (and it needs to feel okay to say that)
Blessed are you, friend, sitting among the shards of what could have been. It is broken now, that dream you loved, and it has spilled out all over the ground. Blessed are you, dear one, letting your eyes look around and remember all the hope your dream once contained. All the love. All the beauty. […]
A Blessing as Lent Begins
Blessed are you, ready to open yourself to a new joy, a doorway that until now has been hidden. In this culture of acquisition and gain, blessed are you who desire fresh ears to hear what might be a bit too loud. Who take the next step to turn it down a notch and make […]
A blessing for Ukraine
God, the unthinkable has happened. Swiftly, relentlessly,by stealth and through open destruction,the peace and beauty of the ordinary,has been shattered in a day. O God of justice and might,We call to you to come and bring this suffering to an end.Comfort these trembling hearts.Shield the vulnerable.Strengthen those with the resources and the resolveto protect what […]
a blessing for when we need to feel good enough
A blessing for when we need to feel good enough (from the appropriately titled book, “Good Enough”). Now available wherever books are sold. Blessed are you, dear heart, when you feel it again. You had a moment there that felt perfect and certain and complete. Like you could taste the enoughness and satisfaction. And you […]
a Valentine blessing (when it’s complicated)
Maybe this year, love is especially complicated.And the hearts and flowers are but a strange reminder of what isn’t working, what isn’t here. Or maybe you are alone, and have been for so longthat romantic gestures are in a languageonly others speak. If that is so, then this blessing is for you: Dear heart, I don’t […]
A Blessing for The In-Between
blessed are we, somewhere unnameable, fully present to our reality. tracking it, with all its subtle gradations and colors and contrasts, the sweetness and the struggle, the stuck and not-quite-fitting. authentic to it, mapping the full strangeness of the new emergent landscape. blessed are we, dear ones, not calling it too soon. not settling for […]
A Blessing for Loving What Is (instead of what could have been…)
Blessed are you who are attempting to love what is here, what is now. You who recognize the wonder and pain looking at life’s rearview mirror, at those things that are gone. The person you were. The quickness and sharpness of a body that didn’t tire as quickly. The relationships and jobs and aspirations. The […]
a blessing for becoming real
Blessed are we who are becoming,who have lived so longin this strange state we call timethat it shows. We are changing,and that’s how we knowwe are alive. Blessed are you who see theevidence of your own becoming,the places where you are wornfrom so much loving. The laugh lines from jokesthat made your belly ache.Crow’s feet […]
a blessing for the life you have
Blessed are you whohold hope with an open hand.You who try not to fix your gazeon time’s far horizon orget drunk on what might yet be. And blessed are you whoavoid walking too far down memorylane, getting stuck wondering if thatwas as good as it gets,if you’ve peaked,or feeling resentful about all thathas disappointed before. […]
A blessing for when you want to change (but not become a self-help perfectibility monster)
God, I carry around this incompleteness, this drive for fulfillment that always seems just around the corner. If only I could get it together and find my true calling, my real passion, or the right plan. God, help me, guide me. What am I missing? Blessed are we who strive earnestly to change ourselves and […]
a blessing for keeping your heart soft when everything is broken
Blessed are you who see it all now. The terrible, beautiful truth that our world, our lives seem irreparably broken. And you can’t unsee it. The hungry kid. The exhausted mom. The woman who wonders if any of this is worth it. The loneliness and despair. Blessed are you who glimpse reality and don’t turn […]
a blessing for when you realize everyone is struggling
a blessing when you realize everyone is struggling blessed are you who have realized that life is hard. and it’s hard for everyone. your awareness came at a cost. you lost something you can’t get back. you were diagnosed with chronic pain or a degenerative disease. your family fell apart and things have never been […]
a blessing for a chaotic season
blessed are we, the fearful. though we long to be people of peace, we can’t liewe are afraid. afraid there wont’ be enough – enough resources, enough time, enough memories. blessed are we who ask You for wisdom, show us what to turn from, what to set aside. come Lord, that we might see you, […]
a blessing for when you’re tired of waiting for the world to get better
a blessing for when you’re tired of waiting for the world to get better. blessed are we who wait with bated breath. who wait for something new to be born–for new hope or new joy or new life. blessed are we whose patience grows thinner by the day. we who are tired of the world […]
a blessing for the brave.
blessed are you, brave one. you who perform big courageous acts of sacrifice. the firefighters and military and activists and doctors and nurses and paramedics. you who move toward danger so the rest of us feel a little more safe. blessed are you, brave one. you who do small acts of great love. the memory […]
a blessing for learning to hold on and let go
let go, let it all go except, of course, when you can’t. living in the present is nice in theory. except when you are in pain.so let’s bless that tension, the push pull of wanting to let go, sometimes needing to let go, and also needing to hold on. God, sometimes it feels like a […]
a blessing for life after loss
blessed are you, who feel the wound of fresh loss. or of the loss… no matter how fresh… that still makes your voice crack all these years later. you who are stuck in the impossibility. frozen in disbelief. how can this be? it wasn’t supposed to be this way. blessed are you, fumbling around for […]
a blessing for the day we mourn our dead (All Saints’ Day)
today we are drawn into remembrance. the complexity of love and loss both warms our hearts and chills our bones. invisible connections are revealed just as the light of the sun illuminates the lines of a web, we see that our lives are connected to those who are no longer here. blessed are we who […]
permission to feel it all
I feel things big. And for the longest time, I felt so much shame because of it. I need reminders that my emotions are not bad or good. They’re just information. You feel angry because this is unjust. You feel sad because this is awful. You feel tired because this is exhausting. Your emotions are […]
A blessing for learning to delight again.
blessed are you, the pragmatic. you who have run the math and know what adds up… and what doesn’t. you have set it all down. you who don’t hope or dream or plan anymore because… what’s the point? but blessed are you, learning to live here. your world has shrunk. pain or grief or fear […]
a blessing for the grace that makes no sense
blessed are we, the graced.we who don’t deserve it, whose failures haunt us, the things we said, the things we left unsaid, the decisions and addictions and broken relationships that have ripple effects we still feel today. somehow, we are the recipients of this mysterious gift. grace doesn’t erase the pain or harm we’ve caused, […]
a blessing for when you just need to put one foot in front of the other
oh God, the thought of trying for a new and improved me just makes me tired. I am barely getting anywhere,so draw me closer to a different vision,one that sees that I don’t need perfection —I need love. I need freed from the expectation that life should always be better. the every day stressors—the bills, […]
a blessing for when there’s no cure for being human
God, I feel it again, the burden of being human, and the fact that nothing will exempt us from the pain of it. wherever you go, you bear yourself, and always find yourself.– Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, transl. Leo Shirley-Price, 1952. blessed are we, Your human creatures,with mind and soul and spirit […]
a blessing for courage
God, I have no idea what courage is or where to get any, but I really need it.help me in my fear. blessed are we who say, God,fear is taking up too much space and I have little bandwidth left. if courage is a gift, then please give it.and it if is a thing for […]
A blessing for that space of yes/and
blessed are you in the tiredness, the beauty of your grief,where half-closed eyes can better hold and rememberall that is somehow good. no contradiction here, no either/or,just two truths we wouldn’t otherwise have seen,let alone wanted to embrace. blessed are you, settling yourself therein the space of yes/and,where all that is true can be welcomednot […]
a blessing for when you’re scared your kids won’t get the school year they need
oh God, this plague has already lasted so long and taken so much from kids and their teachers, and now pandemic pressures are rising all over again. oh God help our kids and their teachers have a safe and strong and beautiful year. and He took the children in his arms, placed His hands on […]
a blessing for the safety of the people of Afghanistan
o God, we have seen the heartbreaking images of Afghan people in peril after its takeover by the Taliban. o God, send help in this grave hour. give justice to the lowly and the orphan; maintain the right of the poor and the destitute. -Psalm 82:3 God, you call us to more than “thoughts and prayers.”we must be […]
a blessing for when you just can’t find any peace
God, I am troubled in spirit and there doesn’t seem to be an end to it.show me the way toward peace. I look up at the vast size of the mountains—from where will my help come in times of trouble? Psalm 121 Thank You for the freedom that comeswhen I begin to admitat how powerless […]
a blessing for getting unstuck
God, I am in the wrong place and I know it, but I can’t get out. I do not understand the mystery of grace — only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.― @annelamott blessed are the poor in spirit,ready to say: I have no idea how […]
a blessing for when you can’t love yourself
God, I don’t love myself, so how can anyone else? Blessed are we who say, God, maybe I can borrow some of Your mercy, as I unfold to You the unloveliness within. Maybe as I hand it all over, I can borrow some of Your gentleness and grace to use for myself, to help me […]
a blessing for being scared and grateful at the same time
God, it’s been a truly scary time. I’m grateful for help that has come, but my body still holds the fear. God show me how to process all this.how frail is humanity! how short is life, how full of trouble!Job 14:1 NLT blessed are we, when we decide to make room for all of it, the fear and […]
