SWIC Prayer of the week - 9.18.06

Dear Lord,

I will remain restless, tense, and dissatisfied until I can be totally at peace in your house. But I am still on the road, still journeying, still tired and weary, and still wondering if I will ever make it to the city on the hill…I keep asking your angel, whom I meet on the road, “Does the road go uphill then all the way?” And the answer is, “Yes to the very end.” And I ask again: “And will the journey take all day long?” And the answer is: “From morning till night, my friend.”

So I go on, Lord, tired, often frustrated, irritated, but always hopeful to reach one day the eternal city far away, resplendent in the evening sun.

There is no certainty that my life will be any easier in the years ahead, or that my heart will be any calmer. But there is the certainty that you are waiting for me and will welcome me home when I have persevered in my long journey to your house.

O Lord, give me courage, hope, and confidence.

Amen.

(from A Cry for Mercy: Prayers from the Genesee by Henri J.M. Nouwen, Garden City: Image Books, 1983, pg. 150-151)