Dear God, thank you for the many blessings to ponder in the early dark of Monday morning.
Thank you for soft cat voices asking for breakfast, for fading daffodils and blooming tulips, standing tall and somewhat pretentious. Thank you for spring rain carried on the breeze, for the sounds of organ music pouring forth from my laptop yesterday. Thank you for vaccines and the singular courage of high school students who sometimes sing off key in the high school musical. Thank you for these sore muscles which earned a freshly painted kitchen and for the sister who came and painted too and sang loudly on her tall ladder. Thank you for supervising priests who pray for and affirm me. Thank you for work to do.
God sometimes it all feels so loud and so close and so fast. Thank you for the will and the courage to keep grasping moments even as they slide like sand through my fingers. Thank you for righteous anger and the accompanying tears. For midnight conversations and things left to say and beloved belonging to my spouse after all these years.
I dwell in hope. Someday soon I will kneel at the altar rail and receive in both kinds the sacrament. Someday soon I will force notes through my body, up through my ribs and throat, the highest notes that rest in my cheek bones, carried aloft by the harmony of alto, tenor and bass.
Help us to see the gifts you give in our own lives. Give rest to those who need it, courage to those who falter, faith to those who can’t see you nearly as clearly now. And your peace, the kind that only you can give, as we wake to battle another week, armed with love and kindness and hope for the ushering in of your kingdom.
Amen.
Alicia Hager resides in West Michigan and is a Postulant to the Sacred Order of Priests in the Episcopal Church. Alicia enjoys spending time with her daughters and her husband, is bonkers about her cats, and blogs at astrawberrypointe.wordpress.com.
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Beautiful. Amen.
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