Sunday 22 December 2024

Come, Holy Spirit and do your thing in my heart today. Leap! Jump! Stir it up! Put to rest all the things that need to get less oxygen in me today and in the coming days. Help me to see my own life – as a human – wrapped up in your story of unlikely plot twists. Remind me that I am chosen by you to be loved. It is a staggering. And you love me just as I am. When I don’t believe it, send me into the path of another who will remind me. Who will leap with joy in my presence. Maybe it’s a neighbor or a stranger. Maybe it’s a family member or spouse or sibling. Maybe it’s another pastor or deacon or chaplain. Because we know all too well the trials and tribulations and weirdness of this calling. You send comfort and reminders in other imperfect people. Thank you for not giving up on any of us. Thank you for not giving up on me. Help me keep my eyes and heart on today, even though everything and everyone around me screams CHRISTMAS NOW. Help to quiet the heart you gave me to sit with you in the now, here, today, in the waiting, the anticipating. The promise you give and bring and is is just, well, it’s all too much. Which is why I can rush into it too quickly too. Because I don’t know what else to do. So help me just consider the joy that is you in this moment. Let it be born in me in a new way today.

I pray, too, for my colleagues who are with me in all of this. Bring them your peace and comfort today too. And for the loves of my life, too. It’s all from you – help me not get in the way of that for them. Thank you for this gift I get to share with the world. But for right now, it’s just for me. Oh thank you. Amen.

Ok dear ones: Believe the angels: Don’t be afraid – you are favored! And God is going to do great things through you. Because God is with you!