an open prayer

dear God:

have mercy on me, the sinner.

You are glorious, you are almighty, you are holy, and I confess with my lips and with the fear in my heart that You are God.

I am undeserving. Of any of this. Of the body you've entrusted to me to nurture, of this heart youve molded to pour out love, of a mind you've envisioned to be pure: God I have done nothing. I am the one who has fallen away from his original design.

have mercy on me, the sinner.

I don't understand.

How you can still love me, how you can relentlessly demand and pursue me. how you can bleed and die for someone like me, God please, I am not worth it but you keep saying that I am.

but you keep saying that I am.

but you keep saying that I am worth something.

you see something in me that I don't see in myself,

because when I look inside myself I see nothing good. only someone trying to be.

but there has to be something

because when I look at the youth group, I see how much You love them and how much You've grown them right before my eyes. How much they've matured not just as boys and girls, but as believers and kingdom fighters.

because when I look at my family, and despite of our dysfunctional and broken relationships, there are tiny moments of laughter and peace and I feel like that something from my past that I've been longing for is still there

because when I look at julianne i see someone who is so engulfed in you and so beloved, so beautiful and wonderful inside and out, and yet she WILLINGLY chooses someone like me

because when I look at my life and how useless I've been for 25 years and yet you still shake me awake in the morning and even though sometimes I just want to give up you put the air in my lungs and tell me that You still trust me to do the right thing.

because when I look at these things I can't help but throw my hands up in frustration because I can't accept that it's really that simple and that easy. I can't accept that it's all about love: a single, intimate, personal relationship between creator and creation. I can't accept that You care about me. I can't accept that You ...

I look at these things and can't look at You. I'm just ashamed.

have mercy on me, a child.

I have nothing to give to you, and you are still offering an unfair exchange of a life worth something for someone worth nothing.

have mercy on me.



dear God,

you are my portion and my strength.

you are my peace and my salvation.

you are the love of my life.

you have made me bloom in the desert

and kept me secure by your word in a dark place

you fill me when I am dry

and feed me when I am hungry

and hold me when I am lonely

you have never left my side.

you count down the breaths I have left

until I can come home to you

but until then God be the wind in my sails

the path that I run on

the treasure I have sought and found.

have mercy on me, my God

amen