You are everyone’s reminder of frailty, of life’s cruelty. Your chronic pain or depression or regular scans remind those around you that life isn’t as fair or easy as they had hoped. Blessed are you who try to hide your humanity. You who temper your complaints, who avoid mentioning your next appointment, who pretend you […]

Oh God, again I lie here.Awake.Too tired, too restless, for sleep to come.How will I ever get through tomorrow?Oh God, bring peace to my mind and body,and blanket me in the heaviness of slumber. Blessed are we, still awake in night’s loud darkness, who say:Oh God, help me. You know the state I’m in.My mind […]

Blessed are you when the shock subsides,when vaguely, you see a line appear that divides before and after. You didn’t draw it, and can barely even make it out.But as surely as minutes add up to hours and days,here you are,forced into a story you never would have written. Blessed are you in the tender […]

Blessed are we,beginning to feel some releasefrom pandemic constraints,from the long sad season of anxious vigilance,the boredom and frustration of plans deferred. There is new ground appearing,and paths we didn’t know were there. Blessed are we who say, okay!but God, you’re going to needto help me wake up, the music,the movement and the color of […]

Yours is the body that bears the burden,  the heart that carries the disappointment  when operations are unsuccessful  when medications cause side effects,  —or don’t work at all.  Yours is the life being dominated by an illness  that shouts so loudly, but in a language no one seems to understand.  Yours is the arrival that […]

God, I am struggling to face the difficult thing I know I should do.The conversation I’ve been avoiding.The help I should have asked for months ago.The symptom I have long ignored. Oh God, help me.I am afraid to actbut afraid to admit my inactionmight be making things worse. Blessed are we who recognize thatwe are […]

Bless all the moms—those who have carried usin their bodies,and in their hearts,and in their minds,and all those who have mothered usin some form or fashion. The ones who answer our callsno matter the time of day,or absurd the request.Those who remind us that we are loved, loved, lovedno matter what. We thank them and […]

Love can break your heart. It’s probably in the fine print.  Didn’t you click the box at the bottom of the terms and conditions?  Blessed are you when your kids are ungrateful,  when your parents are unbearable,  or when they would have been if they were still around.  When you help an unfixable friend,  listen […]

What a waste. That wasn’t going to get you a nicer apartment. Bless those who give their health in service of patients who might not even deserve it. What if that patient took unnecessary risks or was selfish or was never going to say thank you? You could have been protecting yourself or God forbid, […]

Blessed are you in this terrible, wonderful now. Fumbling around for the right words. You need so much and it seems impossible to say at all. Blessed are you for whom prayer feels hopeless, disappointing, futile. Blessed are you in your radical honesty, in the ways you speak of your grief. The long, sleepless nights […]

Blessed are you who have reached a new age— even if it doesn’t seem to fit.  It may feel too big. Too reductive. Too limiting. It may be marked by a life you barely recognize. The kids who have all moved out or settled somewhere far away. Or they have never left and you’re wondering […]

“On the evening of that day, the first day of the week… Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”—John 20:19, ESV Oh God, we stretch out our hands to you in this early Easter darkness.We need you to pull us up and set us on our feet again,for […]

“Blessed are those who have learnedto walk in the light of your presence.”—Psalm 89:15, Oh God, you are interrupting us with eternity once again.Open our hearts and minds and eyes and ears to hear what you have to teach us. On this Palm Sunday, time is marked as one small donkeyplods toward Jerusalem,One with a […]

Blessed are we, who feel the wound of fresh loss.Or of a loss… no matter how fresh… that still makes our voices crack all these years later.We who are stuck in the impossibility of it. Frozen in disbelief.How can this be? It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Blessed are we, fumbling around for easy […]

I see you there, suffering alone,with the illness or pain that lingersthough friends do not,—or cannot. You, in isolation,locked in, or locked out. You, the caregiversstruggling in the certaintythat there is not enoughstrength, time or resources. You who counsel others in their trauma,but suffer deeply from your own. You who are grieving losses, too many […]

God, our bodies remember the sleepless nights and cold sweats and unrelenting stress.Show us how to process all that we suffer. “How frail is humanity!How short is life, How full of trouble!”—Job 14:1, NLT Blessed are we, when we decide to make room for all of it,the fear and the gratitude, the complexity and the […]

Blessed are we in the tender place between curiosity and dread,We who wonder how to be whole,when dreams have disappeared and part of us with them,where mastery, control, determination, bootstrapping, and grit,are consigned to the realm of before (where most of the world lives),in the fever dream that promises infinite choices, unlimited progress, best life […]

Blessed are we who see the impossibilityof solving today.It can’t be done. God, there are lists on listsand errands on errandsand a taste, like tin in our mouths,of the unfinishedness—the imperfectability—of our lives. Are we counting items instead of knowing what counts? God, help us live here,seeing the whole truth of what is. Blessed are […]

Oh God, the calendar tells me a big day is comingand this is the first one in this new reality.I don’t know how to get through it. Show me what to do withthe memories, the traditions,the pain, and the excruciating beautyof all that was. Blessed are we who come to you, oh God,in the midst […]

Sometimes love isn’t enough.It can’t save them, save us,save the life we had together. We are finite.And so much is out of our control. So bless the ones with the courageto walk all the way to the edge,who peer over the cliff . . .and feel the updraft of the abyss,and who will do it […]

God,complaining is completely underrated. How else can I be honest? Every frustration has me spinning. And the sheer volumeand timing of each new problemhas me convinced this is a conspiracy. Are they trying to ruin this for me? I’m trying.I’m honestly trying here. God, come meet me here.Chip away at my chippiness.Calm my racing heart.Loosen […]

God, you called me to lovebut people are inherently risky.Telling my story, being known, asking for help,complaining again aboutthe thing I worry might sound cliché by now. Shouldn’t I be over it already? But something is happening when I am known.I am becoming stronger somehow. I am reminded of the pillars I’ve seenholding up cathedrals.Flying […]

Today is new, oh God,The light is gathering and spilling onto everything. The sleeping and the sleepy.The trees brushing the window.Even the unwashed dishes know it’s time. What a gift.Unopened. Lord, you know the obstacle course ahead.The intractability of most of my problems.The irritations I will need to smile through.The forgetfulness that will undo my […]

Blessed are we, living in this small space, in these bodies we now inhabit, within the walls of circumstance, in these short years and finite strength, and with these eyes that see only so far. We are fragile, contingent beings. Yet blessed are we, recognizing that it is our limits as well as our gifts […]

God, I carry around this incompleteness,this drive for fulfillment that always seems just around the corner.If only I could get it together and find my true calling,my real passion, or the right plan. God, help me, guide me. What am I missing? Blessed are we who strive earnestlyto change ourselves and the world around us,but […]

God, this is a kind of magicthe way this day shines so strangely,how it sparkles beyond our understanding. (Yes, it was a disasterthe way the food turned out this yearand how what’s-her-face said (I told her not to)What shouldn’t be repeated.Again this year.) But, somehow, this daynever fails to awaken a longingto love well—or at […]

We are saying Merry Christmasbut these are heavy days—for our struggling earth,for our countries and their leaders,our friends and families,and for ourselves. Blessed are we with eyes open to seethe world as it really is,who say: where are you God? andwhere are your people?the smart and sensible oneswho fight for goodand have the power to […]

Oh God, I am done with broken systemsthat break the very peoplethey are meant to serve. Harness this anger.Channel it into worthy action and show mewhat is mine to fix and what boundaries to patrolto keep goodness in and evil out. Blessed are we who are appalledthat brute ignorance can so easily dominateover decency, honesty, […]

I stand, stone still, at the edge of disheartenment.I have nothing but this certainty:nothing changes, nothing lasts.I feel hollow. God, this world you made is full.Warm earth pushing up new seedlings,unfathomable oceans teeming with mystery,and the miracle that our clay bodiesbear even the possibility of creating new life. We are all swimming in wonderso, God, […]

God, I am angry and hurt and so incredibly sad.The very people who were supposed to love me and know me besthave let me down.I don’t know if I’ll be able to let this goor find a way forward.I am losing my sense of home. And the reality of it all fills me with a […]

God, it seems that stopping is impossible. Dishes need to be washed.Kids need to be fed.Aging parents need to be cared for.Deadlines need to be met.Medicines need to be administered.Diapers always need to be changed.(They multiply if I sleep, after all.) Can you ease the burden of perfection? Free me from this fantasyof the better […]

God, awaken us to the everyday miracle of a simple meal.Whether it is take-out that took a phone call,a recipe that took an entire afternoon,or the cereal-for-dinner again feeling this meal creates,bless it all. So blessed are we, sharing a meal today.May we recognize God’s goodnessin the thoughtful preparation,in the delivering,in the eating together,savoring something […]

Sometimes bodies or minds come undoneand you are carried by a caregiver (often literally).Whether you wanted this or not,you have been given the great gift of a Witness Bearer(or Med Tracker or Insurance Battler or More-Ice-Chips-Please Fetcher). But other times,you haven’t found a partner.Or you never married. Or they left.Or your person died.Or you feel […]

God, I’m fumbling around for answers, reasons, meaning. I can’t find any purpose in this pain.Why me?Why them?Why now? I don’t know when this is going to get better. Or if I will ever feel relief. Blessed are we who need to be remindedthat there are some things we can fix…and some things we can’t.  Blessed are […]

Bless you, you big hearted one.You who always show up or stay late or offer to bring dessert.You who are the first to volunteer or drop off dinner or help them move.(Really… when do we age out of helping people move? Asking for a friend.) You offer a gift of love that doesn’t keep scoreand […]