Pause for Prayer: SUNDAY 9/22

 

You know better than I, Lord,

just what prayer looks like -

but I 'll bet you see a lot of prayers

that look just like the one above:

 

    Watermarked pages, Lord,

    embossed with tear drops,

    prayers with no words at all,

    prayers of tears, 

    tears of prayer...

    The paper absorbs our weeping

    but not the sobbing sounds

    in each drop's moist assault upon the page -

    but you, Lord, hear each drop,

    you feel each tear falling on your heart,

    inscribing there our pleas, our cries,

    the litanies of our hearts

    that failed to come to speech...

    You hear what we can't speak, Lord,

    you read what we can't write,

    you know what we so long to know:

        the answer to our prayer,

        the healing of our pain,

        the end of our sweet sorrow,

        the gift of consolation

        and grace of finding joy again

        where once it filled our soul...

 

But then, Lord,

there's that curious letter N:

    our final edit, a correction 

        on our imperfect prayer

read by you as our incomplete but pure 

    supplication

for your attention, the intervention

    of your mercy and compassion,

your mending of the brokenness

    that breaches every heart...

You love us, Lord,

and you love, even, the imperfections in our prayers:

    mistakes ready for your healing correction;

    fissures to be filled with your saving grace; 

    carelessness seeking your tender care; 

    and missing parts longing, pining to be found...

 

Hear us, Lord, we pray...

Hear the prayers we cry to you...

Hear our prayers that have no words...

Hear our stumbling, bumbling prayers...

Lord, hear the prayers we only groan...

Hear every sob that rises

    from that place deep in our souls

where we cry out to you

    and you reach out to dry our tears...

Amen.

    

    

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