Love can break your heart. (I think it’s probably in the fine print.) Blessed are you, whose ability to love crosses differences and divides that would keep others apart. Whose love advocates for weakness and fragility. Soft heartedness and “Are you okay?” You who know that this kind of life-expanding love will cost you something, maybe…
Blessed are you, resisting the urge to reframe. You who are sick and tired of silver linings. Blessed are you, speaking honestly about what is right in front of you: This is hard. Things might not get better. This really has gone horribly. There may not be a different way. You who risk honesty, especially when the world around us…
(maybe today could be more than bearable. It could be beautiful.) Blessed are you, the pragmatic,You who have run the math and know what adds up—and what doesn’t.You who have set it all down.You who don’t hope or dream or plan anymore,…because what’s the point? Your world has shrunk.Pain or grief or fear has sucked…
Blessed are you, faced with the impossible. You who do not take your eyes away from what threatens to swallow you whole. You who stare down reality, though your heart quickens. You for whom action comes swiftly, as you chart the next step or bulldoze a new path yourself. You know how to turn hope…
Lord, here I am. How strange it is, that some days feel like hurricanesand others like glassy seasand others like nothing much at all. Today is a cosmic shrug. My day planner says,rather conveniently,that I will not need you,cry for you, reach for you. Ordinarily, I might not think of you at all. Except, if…
God, it seems that stopping is impossible. Dishes need to be washed.Kids need to be fed.Aging parents need to be cared for.Deadlines need to be met.Medicines need to be administered.Diapers always need to be changed.(They multiply if I sleep, after all.) Can you ease the burden of perfection? Free me from this fantasyof the better…
I am rummaging through this dayin search of evidencethat tomorrow could be different. As many times as I wake updetermined to bend the futurewith each effort and expectation,my conviction evaporates by the day’s end. Lord, we are given so few chancesto direct the course of our lives.So with what little is in my control,could you…
God, you called me to lovebut people are inherently risky.Telling my story, being known, asking for help,complaining again aboutthe thing I worry might sound cliché by now. Shouldn’t I be over it already? But something is happening when I am known.I am becoming stronger somehow. I am reminded of the pillars I’ve seenholding up cathedrals.Flying…
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…
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…
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….
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,…
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