And all the while

Let me not be disappointed,
sour,
desolate …

and all the while you love me.

Do not let me break apart,
fracture into hard-hearted fragments
of my former self …

and all the while you heal me.

Draw me to yourself.
Let me find my beauty, my meaning, my goodness
in you.
Let me kneel down sorrowing for all the penny-pinching
ways I find to stop saying yes to the call
to love, to give, to walk the mile …

and all the while you believe in me.

Do not let my enemies triumph.
Do not let the darkness have the last word.
Come Holy Spirit, revive me.
Come Holy Spirit, release me.
Come Holy Spirit, pour your balm of consolation
over all that cries out for healing …

and all the while you lead me.

Having eyes for the good

She is like dry scrub in the wastelands: if good comes, she has no eyes for it, she settles in the parched places of the wilderness, a salt land, uninhabited.

Rather be like the one who has eyes for the good, true goodness at the heart of it all.

With the Lord for her hope ... She is like a tree by the waterside that thrusts its roots to the stream: when the heat comes it feels no alarm, its foliage stays green; it has no worries in a year of drought, and never ceases to bear fruit.
(Jeremiah 17: 5-9)

Oh that I could really trust in the goodness of God this day!
Don't let me settle in the dried out places, where nothing prevails.
Help me notice the spring dressing the trees anew, inviting us into the time that is now.