Pause for Prayer: SATURDAY 8/29

Photo by John McGinty

My friend John McGinty blogs at BothSidesNow (see the blogroll on my sidebar) and offers there a powerful reflection on his experience of just a few days ago, arriving at his home on Job's Pond in Portland, CT.  Here's a brief excerpt from John's reflection, followed by my Pause for Prayer:

Forty minutes ago I arrived at Job’s Pond. I got out of the car and just breathed. Blue cloud-marked sky. Green grass. Quiet waters of the pond. Absolute silence. Just the kind of moment I love. Just the kind of moment I need much of the time.

But tonight it is different...  Everything felt different. What was it?

Ah! Obviously. It is the first time this year that I have felt the summer slipping away, pulling away from the dock and beginning the trek to wherever summers spend their winters. That must be somewhere deep in the heart of God...

I grieve these hints of summer's end
stirring in my heart of hearts,
long before the leaves begin to turn...

Summer is slipping away...

And there's nothing I can do to stop her!
Nothing I can do to slow her pace,
her journey to wherever summers go
to spend the wintertime...

I can't hold summer back
but I do know where she's going:
heading home to rest
where she was born,
deep in the heart of God...

My journey is no different, Lord:
I'm always heading home,
home to where sweet summer goes,
the place where I was born,
deep in the heart of God...

So, give me peace, I pray, Lord,
as seasons change and I reach out
to hold what can't be held
until I'm home again 
and you hold me forever
in that season of your love
when summer never slips away...

Amen.

 

     
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