Friday's Faith - Prayer for the New Year

Friday's Faith

Prayer for the New Year

~revgalblogpals.blogspot.com

Holy One,

We thank you for coming into our world as a baby bringing your love, and your joy into the world.

It seems like just a short time ago we were celebrating his birth

 and now we are taking a peek into the New Year.

We have no idea what the New Year is to bring; 

and at the same time some of us are setting goals and making resolutions.

Lord, we pray for a good year for all, we pray that we all may grow in your wisdom.

We pray that all grow in your grace with you and with each other.

Lord our world could use more people who are wise and have grace with you.

 But often Lord we don’t know how to grow in wisdom and in grace with you so we pray you would clothe us in your wisdom;

......with your love which brings perfect harmony to the disorder of our 

...........lives.

......with your compassion that brings calmness and soothes the anger 

...........in us.

......with your kindness that is a balm to our pain.

......with your humility that allows the ire of pride to settle down to join 

...........and collaborate with others.

......with your meekness that stops the wars and bleeding.

......with your patience that keeps us from impulsively giving into our 

...........urges.

......with the ability to bear with one another instead of turning our backs 

...........on each other.

......with your forgiveness that we can forgive others as you forgive us.

......in your peace so that we could live in peace with one another.

......in gratitude that we would praise you and thank you with grateful 

...........heart.

Lord,

We pray for comfort those who have had deaths during this season

......or facing painful and sad memories and anniversaries of loved ones.

We pray for healing for those who are ill, struggling with failing health, 

......and whose loved ones are sick.

We pray for restoration for those who have been affected by tornados, hurricanes 

......and other forms of natural disaster.

We pray that violence would end and that your peace, love and joy may reign.

Amen

Posted by Abigail Carlisle-Wilke 

~revgalblogpals.blogpost.com

Picture: thanks to Grieving Mothers

Tuesday's Trust - Getting Through: Walking Through Child-Loss Grief

Tuesday's Trust

Getting Through:

Walking Through Child-Loss Grief

Getting through, Getting through...

Is that all by grief I do?

Lord, Your children walked with You

Through the desert a time or two,

Time not wasted, time not spent

Without merit, their spirits rent.

Who's to know what makes us strong?

Muscles weakened, tested, tried...

Counter-intuitive, but not wrong...

Test my heart, by faith abide...

Getting through, Getting through...

Is that all by grief I do?

Who's to know the way of the Lord?

The Way of Weeping brings reward!

Others fear our hearts are torn...

(You say,) "Blessed are those who mourn."

Who's to say that tears aren't right?

Deepest love stirs deepest mourning!

(You say,) "Weeping endures for the night

But joy cometh in the morning."

Be our Fire that guides by night;

Be our Cloud that guides by day.

Who's to say grieving's not right?

We look to You to show the way...

Getting through, Getting through...

Is this all by grief I do?

As long as You lead the way --

Fire at night, Cloud by day...

Time with You amidst the fire

Quickens hearts as You inspire.

Getting through, Getting through...

Is this all by grief I do?

Do not fear. God knows the way

Through Grief's Desert, our Desert Storm.

Look to God to lead the way;

His heart burns for all who mourn.

He'll quench grief's thirst along the way.

Getting through, Getting through...

Is that all by grief I do?

If that's My way, will you follow?

What's grief to you, my precious child?

My Child died...yours to reconcile...

O my Lord,

"Thank You for such sacrifice!

You lead, I'll follow," says Your humbled child...

*****

The LORD went before them in a pillar of cloud by day, to guide them along the way, and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them light, that they might travel day and night. The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people.

~Exodus 13:21-22

Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children.

~Ephesians 5:1

Picture: http://bit.ly/gZV9sT

Poem - Getting Through - Angie Bennett Prince - 12/27/10

Friday's Faith - Making Music With What You Have Left ~Jack Riemer, Houston Chronicle

Friday's Faith

Making Music With What You Have Left

~Jack Riemer, Houston Chronicle

(With special thanks to The Compassionate Friends, Atlanta for sharing this inspiring story with me recently.)

These past two weeks have been hellatious, Trauma City for this "Trauma Mama" (as my best friend Danielle Helms calls herself and me in that tragically, we have both lost our only daughter). Secondary losses piled onto the Major Primary Loss over these weeks, and my poor heart has no room for any more Grief nor Trauma! O so painful. O so traumatizing. O so much sleep loss. Devastating.

And yet God proved faithful. Early in the Trauma week, He whispered re: my current secondary loss,

"You must go through this; you can't go around it."

I hate to admit I responded to my precious Lord with a cuss word. (Has anybody else had that dynamic at play? I used to never - well almost never - utter a cuss word; now they seem to be the only words fitting the occasion. God help!) God has held us together and even provided many healing opportunities; He is an amazing God.

So reading the following article was quite significant for me because I feel I am at my wit's end with almost nothing left...

*****

Making Music With What You Have Left

~Jack Riemer, Houston Chronicle

On Nov. 18, 1995, Itzhak Perlman, the violinist, came on stage to give a concert at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City. If you have ever been to a Perlman concert, you know that getting on stage is no small achievement for him. He was stricken with polio as a child, and so he has braces on both legs and walks with the aid of two crutches.

To see him walk across the stage one step at a time, painfully and slowly, is an unforgettable sight. He walks painfully, yet majestically, until he reaches his chair. Then he sits down, slowly, puts his crutches on the floor, undoes the clasps on his legs, tucks one foot back and extends the other foot forward. Then he bends down and picks up the violin, puts it under his chin, nods to the conductor and proceeds to play.

By now, the audience is used to this ritual. They sit quietly while he makes his way across the stage to his chair. They remain reverently silent while he undoes the clasps on his legs. They wait until he is ready to play.

But this time, something went wrong. Just as he finished the first few bars, one of the strings on his violin broke. You could hear it snap- it went off like gunfire across the room. There was no mistaking what that sound meant. There was no mistaking what he had to do.

People who were there that night thought to themselves: "We figured that he would have to get up, put on the clasps again, pick up the crutches and limp his way off stage- to either find another violin or else find another string for this one."

But he didn't. Instead, he waited a moment, closed his eyes and then signaled the conductor to begin again. The orchestra began, and he played from where he had left off. And he played with such passion and such power and such purity as they had never heard before.

Of course, anyone knows that it is impossible to play a symphonic work with just three strings.

I know that, and you know that, but that night Itzhak Perlman refused to know that.

You could see him modulating, changing, recomposing the piece in his head. At one point, it sounded like he was DE-tuning the strings to get new sounds from them that they had never made before.

When he finished, there was an awesome silence in the room. And then people rose and cheered. There was an extraordinary outburst of applause from every corner of the auditorium. We were all on our feet, screaming and cheering, doing everything we could to show how much we appreciated what he had done.

He smiled, wiped the sweat from this brow, raised his bow to quiet us, and then he said, not boastfully, but in a quiet, pensive, reverent tone,

"You know, sometimes it is the artist's task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left."

What a powerful line that is. It has stayed in my mind ever since I heard it. And who knows? Perhaps that is the [way] of life--not just for artists but for all of us.

So, perhaps our task in this shaky, fast-changing, bewildering world in which we live is to make music, at first with all that we have, and then, when that is no longer possible, to make music with what we have left.

http://www.tcfatlanta.org/Waitingforthemusic.html