Sharing a Prayer...

May you have peace within today.

May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.

May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.

May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you.

May you be content knowing you are a child of God.

Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love.

It is there for each and every one of you who choose to claim it.

Thankful for Grace

Slowly, quietly I come. Along this path again. my feet tread, my heart trembles. Like a bird inside my chest. The weeds can look like flowers too you know? Pretty, useful, important. Stuff. Entangles, distracts, turns the soil of my heart to parched clay. I stumble over briers I had not even noticed, I fall and feel, the barren ground of my soul. I need to stop. Turn. Gaze. And let the silence wash over me like a wave of clear, cool, water. These things, this stuff, worthless as dead idols. And I sacrifice to them time and time again, thinking that it's important to pay attention. Plan, organise, structure. Control. And the vine I planted is dying, the fruit is drying on the branch. And all the while I'm watering the weeds and leaving my garden to ruin. But the fragrance, the fragrance of the blossoms he left me all those years ago, Somehow still lingers on the breeze. Reminding me, waking me bleary eyed and sober. So I stand to walk again, along the waters beside the green, green pastures. A little gentler, a little smaller, a little softer, thankful. Always. Thankful for grace. "But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her." "Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain." Photo by Emmy

Which is the One spiritual habit that has changed your journey ? (Holy Experience) Walk with Him Wednesday...

Ann asks this question today over at Holy Experience...
What is the One Spiritual Habit that Has Changed Your Journey?

And the one phrase that keeps coming back to my heart is this... eat regularly!

But this is food of the soul kind! And it is delivered by..
Regular Prayer stops throughout the day.

Even though I can't always find the words to pray the words find me. They have been written somewhere deep in my heart, by The One who made me. Like a seed, they simply need the watering to grow from the darkness.
And like this little sycamore, I need the courage to fall from what I know, what I hold to, my materiel success or failure. Be opened by Love's wounding.
And trust, despite outward signs... that God alone sees the heart.

So, even when I can't locate those words myself. I find them reflected somehow. They speak for me, when words fail me. Prayer... Yes, it is more a practise of love than an active work.

And when this becomes the one priority all other priorities fall into place.

All work is useless and vain without the infusion, prompt and grace of His love anyway. For a plant to grow strong, the roots need feeding regularly.
"I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing." ...
And I have had to make the time. Make it!
Because I am so in need of it. I fail far too easily without it.
"Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain."
And I wonder, how is it that so many things can seem important, uncompromising to the day, demands over spill before me and yet these times, just for Him and Him alone become, so very easily, secondary.

Yes I call out to Him like a child when I need Him knowingly. And I whisper praises in His ear when I am met with undeserved grace, beauty, love. But that is in the middle of my doing.
Sometimes I need to put all that aside and simply be with Him alone.
The desire to eat bread for the body comes before the desire to eat bread for the soul, so many times. I wait for restfulness, peace, quiet, my own pursuits, pleasures and leisure's, then Him. Then only. Him and I alone.

I know that my soul wastes away without sustenance. While it is emptiness and privation that motivates longing in the stomach! The longing grows in the soul only with sustained nourishment, or so it seems.

You see, a soul doesn't live to eat, it eats to live! How wonderful is that!
It doesn't take so that it can take again which is so often human nature isn't it.
No, it shares the broken bread of grace, so that it can give, and give out again.

I read again from the hours today... "Love is always patient and kind; it is never jealous; love is never boastful or conceited; it is never rude or selfish; it does not take offence, and is not resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other people’s sins but delights in the truth; it is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes."

I stand upon this holy mountain of goodness and grace and look down upon my life.
How far below this beautiful ideal I am. How much I need these words to live in my own barren life. Give breath to my actions, my thoughts, my days. Turn my heart of stone to a heart of flesh.
And so someway, somehow. These hours are carved out of a day.

They bring my empty bowl to His alter each time. And each time He serves so that I may become a better servant. And learn to serve Him in those around me.

Pray the office today by clicking on the link below

For years the office of hours has sustained, nourished and
regularly fed souls throughout each day.
If read everyday for a month, 
The book of Psalms will have been completely
recited.
Complimentary readings from both OT and NT, feast days
along with spiritual writing and prayer have been the food
for many a hungry heart for centuries past.

Visit Ann today to read more reflections on the journey...

Prayer is a gathering (the pilgrimage of prayer "Walk with Him Wednesday")

Prayer is our daily gathering. It is where we meet Him. Like the woman at the well, we can only offer our empty cup and humbly ask " Give me some of this living water Lord".


I bring the children and we meet with Him in this ordinary place of "spirit and truth" somewhere between both the mountain and the temple. A small, simple wellspring from which to drink, in the middle of a busy day.

I bring the children to the source and we stop, we bring the water to our mouths, sometimes our own tears stream too. And the sweetness dilutes till the saline quenches and it feel like forgivness.

Suddenly we are the same, nothing more or less than a child of God. Both them and I.

And all those further out.
The borders to this place are not closed. They touch the ends of the earth. They embrace all they touch.


Prayer is a leveler. On the soil of prayer each of us can only fall to their knees before Him.
There may have been tussles only moments before, an argument, a sore word, discord in a heart. Yet this silence gathers hands, each as empty as the other, cupped and lifted for the water to pour, we are drawn beyond our own horizon lines, our own territories. In this unmarked ground we are His.


Yet takes a small step to make a giant leap.
At times the untidy noise of unwashed dishes rattles in my mind, or I catch myself on the irritation of restless bodies swarming like bees while my mind breezes past the time of an appointment this afternoon, mentally noting how I will fit lunch and naptimes around it's fixed point in the atmosphere of my mind.

And I ask myself, is this what I am orbiting around?

Only the silence of His gaze reorientates me. Changes my possibilities, opens new doors that I had not noticed before.
And on the tips of my outstretched fingers, a warm breath leaves it's vapour.
Like dew.
Manna.
Residues of falling flakes...

*

"Live in me, make your home in me."
John 15

Fall
one by one
*
*
*

"God it seems you've been our home forever; long before the mountains were born,
Long before you brought earth itself to birth,"
Psalm 90

*

"Yes, because God's your refuge, the High God your very own home, Evil can't get close to you."
Psalm 91

*

"Your beauty and Love chase after me every day of my life. I'm back home, in the house of God, for the rest of my life."
Psalm 23

"There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink."
John 4:7

When we come to draw, He asks, he waits for us and asks.
The cup is a shared one.
Prayer is a gathering at the well.
Neither on the mountain nor the temple but in Spirit and Truth we will meet Him here.
In the silence of prayer we draw from the well.
In the drinking we know we are home.

Psalm 23 The Lord is my Shepherd

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures,

he leads me beside quiet waters,

he restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness
for his name's sake.

Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.

A Morning Prayer

Dear Lord,

May we trust in you today. Have complete faith in your works.
Even when things don't look like they are going the right way we know that you hold everything in your hands.

May we be patient loving and kind toward eachother today.
These things are worth more in your eyes than any other accomplishments.
The greatest gift we can give is to love in all we do and have faith that you succeed where we fail.

You search the hearts of men.
May our hearts be with you where you are.

In Jesus's name

Amen.

Listening...

God I hear you say...

Love as you have been loved.
Forgive as you have been forgiven.

Suffering brings you closer to me.
Yield to your pain, I AM with you.

Do not put anything before me.
Come to me first to be your healer, counselor, guide, teacher, friend and lover.

Ask yourself does whatever I am doing increase my love?
Or does it distract, confuse and come between us and what is truly nessecary.
Be like Mary, sit at my feet. Learn what is the essential. It lies between us. It rests in the heart, like a pearl, shining love, just love.

Let your voice become small. There is too much talk.
Let yourself fall freely into my arms, rest a while.

Gaze upon me.
See how I love you as a child.

Take off the masks,
Let the masks fall away from others.

Perfection is not a set of rules,
Holiness can only be found in Love.

See how I love you just as you are.
Love other's this way too.

See how I forgive and embrace you just where you are.
Forgive and embrace others where they are too.

Let love be the only motive.

Evening Prayers

"If you reach out and put your hand into holy fire it won't hurt you because Jesus's hand will be there inside holding it."
Bujana during prayers ~

Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
I say to myself, " The Lord is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him."

The Lord is good to those who hope in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly
for the salvation of the Lord.

Reflections on caring for a sick child....

I have just laid Matilda down for a rest. We have had a bad night, well it is now a couple of bad nights.
She has, over the last three weeks gone through two courses of antibiotics for recurring ear infections, from last night she is now on her third and strongest dose for a chest infection. I have been watching her most of the night as the medication is not bringing her temperature down properly and much of what medicine and fluid she does take she vomits. I fear that she has become somewhat resistant to the antibiotics as well. We took her to the hospital under advice of the GP, last night. They said she should come back in 48 hours if she isn't any better and that until the antibiotics have a chance to work the best place for her is at home. Part of me is relieved, part scared, am I doing everything right? A question that keeps rebounding round my mind.
So it has been a constant stream of tepid baths, mild camomile teas served in her beaker, cool flannels wiped over her body, stories, lullabies, medicine, vitamin pills and lastly an old remedy of egg whites in her socks which we used last night as a last ditch attmept to bring her temperature down from 40 after she had had all the doses of medicine we could give her. Remarkably, and I say this sincerly as I could not understand how such a strange remedy might possibly work it did actually bringt it down to 38.8 within 15 minutes!
I can only thank my husband's mother who, according to my husband is a " one woman natural pharmacuticul company" There have been many old remedies reccomended from her that I have been pursuaded to try ( such as applying salt on minor burns, underlining minor here, serious burns would need more conventional treatments of course) have you ever tried that though? I tell you it works!!! This is just one example of many may I add!

Looking at my Tilly's sweet face, peacfully sleeping here beside me my heart hurts.
There is a strange feeling of emotions stirring within me. One is fear, cold and clear. That primal, instinct that burns like a fever in itself, gnawing deep down. Shuddering both hot and cold. Yet there is also, strangly, a constant and peripheral sense of peace. Hovering over the heaving waters, that stream and break over me as I tend her. Somehow I 'm being shown in ways I don't truly understand that He is watching, He knows, He hears, He is near. I am so grateful for my faith at times like this, it is the most precious gift. It is times like this that it is really brought into clear relief for me to see. That by imersing myself in His Words, His Love, His Counsel even when I have not felt any immediate consolation is all a preperation for the parched times when I really need to drink deep. Somehow all these things store up in a well within, I think. Somehow I have always felt a profound sense of His presence as a comforter whenever there is illness in the children. I find illness in the children very hard to cope with at times, yet it is at these places, I find Him reaching out to me, His hand upon my shoulder, gentle, still, quietening my mind and my heart. I can't explain it other than there is an almost tangible sense of His presence in the room. This was especially true last night, when I lay next to Tilly, my hand stroking her hair, listening to her breath against me. Her lips scarlet, her face pale, her body like a little hot water bottle simmering under the single cotton sheet.
She was asleep, but her eyes opened once in a while, almost as if she were checking that I was still there. "I'm still here sweetie. Mummy's got you" words almost prayed, in the tepid light.
And she smiled. In her sleep she caught me with her and she smiled. And then another emotion swelled up and rolled over me. One of complete gratitude. I was so thankful that I could be priveliged enough to care for her when she needed me most. That I could be there for her, even as she slept. These moments in a way were a gift to me that brought out everything that matters most into the light, even in the darkness of this bedroom surrounded by sticky medicine syringes, tissue paper, wet flannels and beakers of water and chamomile tea.
And then still something more began to sink into the ebb and flow of my thoughts. Something that made me see with a sudden chill of perspective.
I began to think of all the little ones in this world right now who have no one to wipe their brow or lie down beside them as they sleep, or read them stories to distract them from their discomfort, or rock them gently with a lullaby, over and over and over again till their eyelids droop and their shivering bodies surrender into a healing bath of sleep.
Little ones that have no medicine at all to bring them through endless feverish nights.
And then I prayed, not just for my sweet Tilly but for all the children who are sick in the world right now. Tilly will recover from this bought of sickness, yet for some children in other lands, far from the shores of medical centres, hospitals, new treatments and loving arms, there is no recovery, even for the simplest of illnesses.
And that is an ache I cannot heal within me, because it shouldn't be there. I think He puts the ache there to help me remember this. So I pray, because it is the only medicine I have for this ache.

Dear Lord,

Please be the rocking arms,
The gentle hand,
The cool towel, The soft song,
Be the,
Comforter,
For all who suffer,
Both within and without.
The child with the fever,
The mother with the fire of fear in her heart,
The little one whom no one
watches over,
May Yours be the face
That they see
When they open their eyes
in the empty darkness
Of soft sleep
May Yours be the face,
That they see.
The hands that will touch,
That will heal and
restore,
and renew.
In the morning light.

In Jesus's name
Amen.

Love

I pray today Lord, that I may let go of anything that may stop me from truly loving others.

Whether it's because I feel offended or hurt. Choosing to keep my hurt close , picking at the scabs of my indignation till wounds become infected by anger. Instead of forgetting and forgiving so that my heart can be released, truly healed and strong enough to Love fully again. Only with more compassion than ever before for the hurting the offended and those who are angry

or in difficulty.

Sometimes Lord, Love comes second place when my beliefs, the way I see things and my ideas stand in the way of my fully loving someone very different to me. The argument comes out of my mouth taking first place before Love. I don't leave the judgement to you alone. I forget to remember that I am in no place to judge as I am not free from sin. I pick up the stones ready to cast.

Often I even think that my argument is for my neighbour's own good. Yet I am putting a barrier between your love and them with my words. I must learn to place my trust in you. And remember humbly that I have been confounded to many times before to assume I know the best way for another. The best way to represent you is through loving without judging,

I understand that sometimes I fail to love because I turn away from seeing another's heart and simply judge them as I see them in the flesh,

They may come across as harsh or rude or mean or impatient. Yet how many times have I maybe come across badly because of struggle and lack of understanding only to desperatly want acceptance.

Yet you accepted me as I was. And still do, even though I do the wrong things or act in the wrong way with the wrong motivations time and time again. You gently tell me you love me. Just as a mother loves her small child who screams and throws a tantrum simply because that child is still to small to control herself completly or know how to handle her emotions.

It's true that so often find myself expecting perfection from myself and looking for perfection from others too.

Yet your love Lord, is gentle when I fail. You remind me through this that you simply want my love not my sacrifice.

It's true, I know Lord, I fail to reach out as I should and love fully because I am afraid and I put up defences,

I fear hurt or rejection, yet even in hurt and rejection Jesus loved.

I forget that many words are often useless. Yet loving, truly LOVING, even when it seems that my loving is simply being poured into the ground for nothing, is like planting a small mustard seed in the dirt, or adding a small portion of yeast to the dough. Love comes from God alone and will work without dictation and managment of it's course. Somehow, somewhere and in someway simply loving, will make a difference.

Sometimes I am ashamed to say that my love becomes complacent. There is a certain lack of interest, my life is full enough, Surely there is just not enough "of me" to go around. And there isn't. But there is enough of you Jesus if I only lean on you and take your yoke.

There are many barriers that stop your love from flowing freely through me Lord. Most of them are illusionary and of my own making in the end.

Yet for all I do, or say, or think, or believe, or have, or give, or pray, loving should always come first.

A LOvE that is pure, that cleanses all the worries, doubts, arguments, differences, offences, pridefullness, selfish plans and complacency.

Till all that is left is the Jesus in me and the Jesus in my neighbour.

Lord help me to LOVE the way you LOVED.

amen.

Poverty

One image after another. Passed across the internet, newspapers, television, cinema screens, Music concerts.

Of children dying senslessly of preventable illnesses, teenage women working 16 hr days in sweat shops, suffocating poverty, environmental disasters.

It leaves me completly overwhelmed and empty at the same time.

These images of vulnerable people are passed on, it sometimes seems, as a legitamate way of making a difference.

I can watch, feel awful, pass on the message. Pass on.

Pass by.

Yet like these celebrities, clicking their fingers, the irony makes me deeply uncomfortable.

I don't want to "pass on" pass by. A face that cares but does not change in response.

Also, I must admit that unlike the people on this ad clicking their fingers, I don't have any personal wealth to give, and I'm surley not about to attain any. So what more can I do but watch?

Maybe the greatest difference I am able to make right now comes down to what I can leave out of my life than what I can give from it. Maybe it's about what I choose to do with what I have, however small.

As mother Theresa said so well " We can do no great things, only small things with great love."

I have recently put a fairtrade button on my sidebar, this is something I can do.

I can also choose to by my clothes from second hand charity shops or ethical online stores that stock fair trade. I can make my own clothes even! I can choose to buy fairtrade food. Local food from local suppliers. I can even grow my own in an allotment or in a tub in my own back yard. I can stop buying toys for my kids that are probably made by kids in a factory on the other side of the world.

I can go to reycling centres, charity shops for furniture. I can buy secondhand. I can stop buying new gold that is mined by children in Africa who risk their lives everyday. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CDwJRz6ySU

I have another button on my sidebar for writing to persecuted prisoners abroad. This is something I can do too. As is being an advocate for cases involving human justice through organisations like Amnesty International. I can write.

I can choose to live simply. Use what I need and when I have no use for it any more, pass it on to somebody else.

It has been easy for me to think I need alot of things to be happy, normal, respectable, respected.

A nice neighbourhood to live in, a larger house, a better car, a great collection of cd's, dvd's, books, elegant clothes, toiletries, ornaments, kitchen wear, accesories, highlights in my hair, baby equiptment, toys, possesions that make a staement about who I am, what I believe in. Possesions that define what sort of social bracket I fit into.

Lifestyles are sold to us all the time, as is disatisfaction. I can choose not to buy into the illusion.

I can choose to make up sandwiches for homeless people in my area or volunteer at a soup kitchen every once in a while.
Every day is a gift from God. How can I best show gratitude for that gift? Can I give it back with something more, from myself like the man with the talents. I can increase the value of the gifts I have been given in my life by doing something with them.

I can cut down my children's programs and give that money to children who can't even afford to learn to read. I can do that.

I can visit the old, the sick, the widows in my neighbourhood, offer a helping hand or just stay with them and listen.

I can prioritize.

I can do more than simply watch and click and then watch as others watch and click after me.

Everything that God has blessed me with He has blessed me with for a reason.

And what he has given me does not actually belong to me. Even if I have earned something with my talents I have been given those talents my God.

While my sister lies hungry in Africa I should not be filling my grocery bags with the choicest food. I have not been blessed so that I can indulge without thought.

Sometimes all I do is click my fingers and wait. Wait for somebody else to make the change.

But I can do.

I can pray.


Lord open my eyes to what I can do today.

Let me see my neighbour in the stranger, in the lonley, in the lost.

So that I may stop to help him somehow, in someway ,

Not simply pass on or pass by to the other side of the road.

Lord give me ears that I may hear.

Your voice calling in the homeless, the hungry, the needy, the grieving, the broken, the sorry.

Take my hand and tell me to walk. Lead me to the places where I may find you,

Heal me of my paralysis, when I feel so overwhelmed that I can't do everything,

Give me something, something I can do.

In this day I have been blessed with.

Help me find a way to give the gift back to you.

Deep Peace

Deep peace of the running wave to you,

Deep peace of the flowing air to you,

Deep peace of the quiet earth to you,

Deep peace of the shining stars to you,

Deep peace of the gentle night to you,

Moon and stars pour their healing light on you,

Deep peace of Christ,

the light of the world to you,

Deep peace of Christ to you.

FROM THE CELTIC TRADITION

ECLIPSE

During a solar eclipse.

The earth becmes shrouded in a meshed veil.

Darkness turns the day to night.

Yet the rim of the moon trembles with the concentrated rays of opressed sunlight.

Fraying the edges,

Like a resurection taking place behind a the stone of a tomb.

One sphere moves across the other.

Till the vacant, empty luna shell rolls away,

Without the reflection of the sun it becomes nothing.

It dissolves.

The sun defines it's soft, powdery surface, fragile and potmarked, worn.

Draws it out of the blue with it's warm breath.

I gaze at destruction, lifeless bodies, eyes wounded with tears.

Darkness eclipses so many lives.

Lord, may your light surround, embrace, overcome.

Myanmar cyclone relief


China earthquake relief

A pRAYER fROM sOMEONE sPECIAL

Dear Lord,

I thank you for this day.

I thank You for my being able to see and to hear this morning.

I'm blessed because You are a forgiving God and an understanding God.

You have done so much for me and You keep on blessing me.

Forgive me this day for everything I have done, said or thought that was not pleasing to you.

I ask now for Your forgiveness.

Please keep me safe from all danger and harm.

Help me to start this day with a new attitude and plenty of gratitude.

Let me make the best of each and every day to clear my mind so that I can hear from You.

Let me not whine and whimper over things I have no control over.

Let me continue to see sin through God's eyes and acknowledge it as evil.

And when I sin, let me repent, and confess with my mouth my wrongdoing, and receive the forgiveness of God.

And when this world closes in on me, let me remember Jesus' example -- to slip away and find a quiet place to pray.

It's the best response when I'm pushed beyond my limits.

I know t hat when I can't pray, You listen to my heart.

Continue to use me to do Your will.

Continue to bless me that I may be a blessing to others.

Keep me strong that I may help the weak.

Keep me uplifted that I may have words of encouragement for others.

I pray for those who are lost and can't find their way.

I pray for those who are misjudged and misunderstood.

I pray for those who don't know You intimately.

I pray for those who don't believe.

But I thank you that I believe.

I believe that God changes people and God changes things.

I pray for all my sisters and brothers.

For each and every family member in their households.

I pray for peace, love, and joy in their homes, that they are out of debt and all their needs are met.

I pray that every eye that reads this knows there is no problem, circumstance, or situation greater than God.

Every battle is in Your hands for You to fight I pray that these words be received into the hearts of every eye that sees them and every mouth that confesses them willingly..

This is my prayer.

In Jesus' Name,

Amen.

The Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ

This blog will be "unplugged" for lent.

" Lord that I may see!"

Give me light to see you in my even - Christian,
and to see my even - Christian in you.
Give me faith to recognise you
in those under my own roof.
In those who are with me day after day,
on the way of the cross.
Let me recognise you
not only in saints and martyrs,
in the innocence of children,
in the patience of old people
waiting quietly for death.
In the splendour of those
who die for fellow men;
but let me also disern your beauty
through the ugliness of suffering and sin
that you have taken upon yourself.
Let me know you in the outcast,
the humiliated, the ridiculed, the shamed.
In the sinner who weeps for his sins.
Give me the courage
to look at your holy face,
almost obliterated, bruised and lacerated
by my own guilt, and to see myself!

Look back at me , Lord,
through your tears,
with my own eyes,
and let me see you,
Jesus, condemed to death,
in myself,
and in all men
who are condemed to die.

Not with my will
but with yours,
knowing that you
have changed sorrow to joy,
and that you have changed
death to life.

"The Stations of the Cross"
Caryll Houselander.

Precious Moments

"Life is not measured by the breaths we take,

but by the moments that take our breath."

May every moment inhale life deeply.

Take the time to stop and stare and watch clouds fray the edges of the horizon.

Over spill with the wonder

and beauty of each single, stilled, second.

Silenced by the fragile, bare branches of winter trees engraving, the distant evening sky.

Painting patterns over the tidy white spaces,

Turning the prose of life into poetry.

Hearing a song in the silence.

Dancing beneath the falling leaves.

The way my little ones hair curls around her ear.

The imperfect stitches of a homemade gift.

The warmth of a coat on a cold winter day.

Bubblebath footprints whispering sofly on the carpet.

A child to small to speak holding her hands in prayer.

The curled pages of a well loved book.

A baby smiling in her sleep :0)

Let me remember to unwrap every moment like the precious gift it is

Angelus

A small prayer for Christmas

My child's tears can be dried with kisses.

My child's pain can be soothed with a song.

My child's sleep is found between warm blankets.

My child's saddness is softened with a smile,

My child does not know of a hunger that can hurt.

My child does not know of walking barefoot in the dirt,

When my child is afraid, I put a light on in the dark.

When my child falls, I open out my arms.

By the grace of God there goes my child.

Lord,

Awaken my spirit, to suffering I so often choose to close my eyes to.

Lord, Open my heart to give beyond what is easy for me to give.

Christmas belongs to you Jesus.

You live within the poor, the needy, the homeless, the hungry, the oppressed and the persecuted.

For you are all who are broken and alone in the world.

And every child belongs to you.

http://www.greatgifts.org/?adid=wvxmas08hom2

http://www.samaritanspurse.uk.com/index.asp

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gOD bLESS THE LITTLE BOY AND HIS SISTER IN THE PICTURE

aND ALL THE OTHER CHILDREN IN THE WORLD

Ecclesiatstes

Ecclesiastes

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“Cast your bread upon the waters,
For after many days you will find it again.”

Lord, May I give of myself abundantly, freely, recklessly, joyfully.

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“So then, banish anxiety from your heart and cast off the troubles of your body.”

Lord, may I look to your kingdom first. Help me take the shackles from my hands and feet that keep me bound to the fears rooted in the soil of this world.

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“He seldom reflects on the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with gladness of heart.”

Lord, let me see your reflection in each moment. Set my sight upon you alone.
Till I hardly notice the passing of time. Only the distance between YOU and I.

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“The sleep of a labourer is sweet, whether he eats little or much
But the abundance of a rich man permits him no sleep.”

Lord, help me to find a path of service. Let me find a way to kneel at your feet each day in the things you call me to do.

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“ God gives a man wealth, possessions and honour so that he lacks nothing his heart desires, but God does not enable him to enjoy them.”

Lord, I know that all want beyond my portion is unsatiable. Make me long for nothing but YOU.

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“That everyone may eat and drink and find satisfaction in all his toil, this is a gift from God.”

Lord, may I live a life of simplicity. May I find Joy in the ordinary and the Sacred in the everyday.
Lord help me to do all I am given to do with grace. Lord, help me to recieve anything at all I am given in the spirit of your grace.

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“ The words of the wise are like goads, their collected sayings like firmly embedded nails given by one Shepard.
Be warned, my son, of anything in addition to them.
Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the mind.”

Lord, remind me not to become distracted. Keep my feet upon the small straight path toward the narrow gate. All I need is your word to guide me. All I need is your grace to feed me.

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“The sun rises and the sun sets and hurries back to where it rises. The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round it goes ever returning on it’s course. All streams flow into the sea yet the sea is never full.”

Lord, I know nothing can be satisfied in stillness, silence and solitude without you. Even the sun, the wind and the waters are restless to reach YOU Lord.
All effort is pointless if not done for YOUR sake.
All my life is meaningless if not given unto YOU Lord.

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Having a Mary heart and a Martha Mind

Having a Mary Heart and a Martha Mind

Lord of all pots and pans and things, since I’ve no time to be A saint by doing lovely things, or watching late with Thee,

Or dreaming in the dawn-light, or storming Heaven’s gates,

Make me a saint by getting meals and washing up the plates.

Although I must have Martha’s hands,

I have a Mary mind,

And when I black the boots and shoes,

Thy sandals, Lord, I find.

I think of how they trod the earth, what time I scrub the floor:

Accept this meditation, Lord, I haven’t time for more.

Warm all the kitchen with Thy love, and light it with Thy peace;

Forgive me all my worrying, and make my grumbling cease.

Thou who didst love to give men food, in room or by the sea,

Accept this service that I do -— I do it unto Thee.—

Cecily Rosemary Hallack (1898-1938)