A hymn of gratitude

Lord, thank you for this past week:
for all that I understood and did not understand;
for that which threw me for a loop,
and that which made my heart soar with hope and faith and love.

Thank you, Lord, for all that was a challenge,
all that presented opportunities for spiritual growth
and aliveness in the Spirit.

Thank you, Lord, for deepening my faith in You
and for the invitations to humility and trust and
genuine love—a love that runs deep, like underground rivers,
that its activity is not seen by the naked eye,
in short, the kind of love I now know existed
in my mother and father
and is being emulated by so many in this world.

Lord, thank You for this week ahead;
its hopes,
its opportunities,
its challenges,
its potential learnings,
the possibilities of new discoveries!

Give me the courage this coming week
to ponder as Mary did,
to repent as Peter did,
to love as Mary of Magdalen did,
to go into the tomb as You did and rise renewed,
to die to that in me that needs to die
for new life to emerge,
to rise with You to new ways
of thinking and loving, being and doing.

May I step up to the plate this week, Lord,
to become the woman you are calling me to become,
to let my light shine in a world of darkness,
to let my love grow in the toughness of life,
as do blades of grass and small shrubs from mountain sides.

Yes, Lord, may I be more like you at the end of this week
than I am at its beginning.