My loving God, you have turned my complaining into gratitude, my screams of despair into proclamations of joy. How can I help but explode with praises and vow to spend eternity in thanksgiving to you? You are my hope and salvation, the morning sun and the evening star, my shade in the desert heat, my warmth in the cold of night. You are the Bread of Life, and life-giving springs when my soul is parched and dry. You are the answer to my agonizing questions, the fulfillment of my deepest longings. I am yours, O God, yours forever. Make my life a perpetual offering of praise. For the glory of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Leslie F. Brandt, From Complaint to Gratitude: A Book of Christian Prayer. Eastbourne: Kingsway, 1978. 76.
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Most of you probably know that we lost Molly on Tuesday, and so this is a hard week to think about much else, but I have to go to a job interview this afternoon at 4 and would appreciate your prayers. After casting about for the last few months trying to figure out whether to move or stay put, with associated complications related to where my 13-year-old would live (her dad insisting she stay in Portland), I decided to stop looking at out of state jobs. At this point there are exactly two interim positions and no settled positions available in the time frame that I will need to leave the current interim. I'm interviewing for one today. The other church has done nothing but acknowledge receiving my profile, and they've had it for several weeks, so I take that as a bad sign. If I don't get either of these jobs, I could probably stay where I am, but as of July1, that job will become half-time, and we really cannot afford that kind of cut in pay. I'm confused and beginning to wonder seriously whether God even wants me in ministry, which seems strange given that worship is going well and the interim is going well, but I cannot figure out what I am doing wrong or what I am not considering that I ought to be.
This is a complex request in order to say, please pray for me.
Oh, Songbird, I'm so sorry about how painful this all is. Prayers for sure.
And *please* try not to doubt your very real gifts or call because of the external blocks in living it out....I know from my experience how anguished and yet reasonable/ tempting that mental path can feel. But the blocks *do not* come from God, they come from human choices, injustice, and sometimes just bad luck and circumstance. I think God is holding you close in all of this and preparing a way for you as much as possible.
Okay, end of homily. Please excuse if it was annoying instead of helpful. (((Songbird)))
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