As I listen in, O Lord,
Go ahead an say it.
(Not that you need my permission, because of course you don’t, but, I guess, I just want you to know I’m in this, or I am trying to be in this, or I want to be in this with you. And that means naming it. Saying it. Hearing it.)
Give me the hard bits.
Mention the one thing that is going to set me off, and enrage my soul, and make me want to throw you off a cliff.
Push me, provoke me, threaten me.
Let’s really do this.
Because I mean to grow. I mean to stretch and rip and nearly tear. I mean to wrestle with you until my hip, and my heart, can take it no more.
Give me that gift, trust in me in this way, that you, great coach, should push, and push, and push….
And I pray that I might welcome your harshest, hardest, realness.
Take it in.
And wonder. And hold on. And bend. And learn. And renew. And develop. And reach. And maybe start to understand.
A little.
Some.
Enough to keep following, keep learning, keep trying.
Please, say it.
Again and again.
And help me to receive, know, and share your radical good news.
Again and again.
AMEN.
*Based on this Sunday’s Gospel lectionary text: Luke 4:21-30.
The Rev. Erin Counihan serves as pastor at Oak Hill Presbyterian Church in St. Louis, MO. She blogs at http://www.somewhatreverend.wordpress.com.
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