Lenten prayer

[kimblanchard]

I have been contemplating the prayer my pastor wrote for the service last Sunday. It is a beautiful one, as usual:

God of yesterday, today and tomorrow,

sometimes our past won't stay past.

It seeps into our today and

threatens to float into our future as well.

What's done is done; we know that.

We can't go back: we know that, too.

But it's spell upon us is powerful,

and letting go of what has been

seems never to be through.

Do not let the spell of the past

color and measure all our todays,

keeping us from our tomorrows.

Give us eyes to see you at work

with every sunrise and sunset.

Give us hearts to perceive and follow

through wilderness and desert.

Give us hands to work and receive

the gifts of the day

that will melt by noon. Amen

The theme for our lent is learning to let go - appropriate, huh? And Karen last week preached about the daily bread from Exodus. Every person had to go out and collect manna (which means, "What is it?" I thought that was pretty cool.) and could only take enough for themselves and only for that very day. Except on Friday, when they could take enough for the Sabbath.

And I have been thinking a lot about that for my own life. I don't have the trust I need for this. Never in my life have I sat at table without food, and yet I eat as if there might not be any tomorrow. Today is all we have; yesterday is there for us to learn from and be inspired by, but it is gone. Tomorrow may never come. We all know that better than we wish. We should be the best in the world at accepting our daily bread. I am not, but I am trying to be better about it.

Curtis