Category: prayer

Children’s Letters to God

Dear God:

My Mommy is sad a lot since Daddy went away. We can’t find him. Can you?

Dear God:

My turtle died. We buried her in our yard. Is she there with your now? If so, she really likes lettuce.

Dear God:

I have scary dreams at night. Mommy says I can’t come in with them anymore ‘cuz I’m too big for that. Where do scary dreams come from, or should I ask the devil that?

Dear God:

Did you invent skateboards? Do you have them up in Heaven too? I love mine a lot and can do lots of tricks already. Do you like watching me?

Dear God:

I’m sorry I forgot the words to your songs yesterday in Sunday School. I don’t sing that good anyway so sometimes I just hum along. Is that o.k. with you?

Dear God:

Could you please make my legs be strong? I want to play like the other kids. They tease me so please make them stop.

Dear God:

Do you throw the lightening down at us? It scares me a lot when it goes BOOM. Please stop it.

Dear God:

I love Jesse a lot. When I told him, he pushed me down and made me cry. Mommy says he must like me too. What do you think?

Dear God:

Molly got new pink shoes, and I want them. Is that bad? I won’t steal them or anything, but would you send me some too?

Dear God:

I hate it when Daddy drinks his beer. He smells awful. Then he sleeps. He gets mean and yells at me a lot. Did you make up beer? Why?

Dear God:

When I get big I want to play basketball. Maybe you could make my skin black so I can play better. Also, make me really tall, too.

Dear God:

Do you like it when I pray to you? I do, too.

Dear God:

My Sunday School teacher says you always love me. Is that true? Even after what I did to Sara yesterday – or do you know about that? I really am sorry so I wish you would still love me.

Dear God:

My grandma is dying. She says you want her back with you, but I want her to stay here with me. You can have anyone you want. She’s all I have, so please let her get better and stay.

Dear God:

Did baby Jesus cry all the time? My new brother does, and I don’t like it. Mommy says all babies do, and I did when I was little. I’m six now. I don’t think baby Jesus ever cried. He’s your son, so you must know the answer. We have a bet on it, so please write back.

Dear God:

Why did you make snakes and spiders? I’m afraid of them.

Dear God:

Could you send me a horse? Caitlan has one, and she’s always bragging about how fun he is. I want a bigger and smarter horse than hers. My horses’ name will be Bullet so make him the fastest too, please.

Dear God:

My teacher is mean. She always yells at us. She’s old and ugly. Why did you make bad and mean people?

Dear God:

Help me to not wet my bed anymore. I keep getting whippings, but I still can’t stop.

Dear God:

Why do old people smell funny?

Dear God:

I saw a kangaroo and a buffalo today at the zoo. I like the lion best. What is your favorite? I think the ostrich is funny looking – did you do that on purpose?

Dear God:

I don’t like brussel sprouts. Do I still have to eat them? I don’t like milk, either. Mostly I like pizza.

Dear God:

I love you, God.

Dear God:

Would you make me a little brother? I want to have someone to boss around like my brother does me.

Dear God:

Why didn’t you make me special? Cloe is specially pretty and Janine is specially smart. Ryan can run faster than anyone and wins all the races. Tina has perfect teeth. And Carmen can speak two languages. Did you forget to give me something special to be?

Dear God:

My dog, Bowser is getting really old now. He gets up slowly and doesn’t keep up with me anymore when we run. Mommy says he’s going to die one day. Could you just make him a puppy again instead?

Dear God:

I have no best friend. Everyone at school seems to have a best friend but me. Could you send me one, please? And hurry.

Dear God:

I have a spelling test on Tuesday. I never get all the words right. Maybe you could help me this time. Or is that cheating?

Dear God:

I have a lizard named Ernie. He only has three feet ‘cuz one of them got caught in the door. I didn’t mean to do it though. Would you fix it back again?

Dear God:

In Sunday School we learned that You are everywhere. How big are You? As big as Shaq? He plays basketball and is the biggest I’ve ever seen.

Dear God:

Do you know when I’m bad or good? Or is that just Santa Claus?

Dear God:

I play worse than anyone on my soccer team. I’m the smallest one, too. That doesn’t seem very fair. Did you play a dirty trick on me?

Dear God:

Please make me pretty. Because I think I’m not very smart.

Dear God:

Do you listen to my prayers every night? Do you really know when I only pretend to brush my teeth? Don’t tell Mommy, O.K.?

 

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A Prayer of St. Anselm

A prayer of St. Anselm

Lord Jesus Christ; Let me seek you by desiring you,
and let me desire you by seeking you;
let me find you by loving you,
and love you in finding you.

I confess, Lord, with thanksgiving,
that you have made me in your image,
so that I can remember you, think of you, and love you.

But that image is so worn and blotted out by faults,
and darkened by the smoke of sin,
that it cannot do that for which it was made,
unless you renew and refashion it.

Lord, I am not trying to make my way to your height,
for my understanding is in no way equal to that,
but I do desire to understand a little of your truth
which my heart already believes and loves.

I do not seek to understand so that I can believe,
but I believe so that I may understand;
and what is more,
I believe that unless I do believe, I shall not understand.

Source: The Oxford Book of Prayer, George Appleton (gen. ed.), 1985, 2002.

A Wing and a Prayer– Thomas Merton

 How close God is to us when we come to recognize and to accept our abjection and to cast our care entirely upon Him!  Against all human expectation He sustains us when we need to be sustained …  Hope is always just about to turn into despair, but never does so, for at the moment of supreme crisis God’s power is suddenly made perfect in our infirmity. So we learn to expect His mercy most calmly when all is most dangerous, to seek Him quietly in the face of peril… 

 Our weakness has opened Heaven to us, because it has brought the mercy of God down to us and won us His love. Our unhappiness is the seed of all our joy. Even sin has played an unwilling part in saving sinners, for the infinite mercy of God cannot be prevented from drawing the greatest good out of the greatest evil.  

When the Lord hears my prayer for mercy (a prayer which is itself inspired by the action of His mercy), then He makes His mercy present and visible in me by moving me to have mercy on others as He has had mercy on me. This is the way in which God’s mercy fulfils His divine justice: mercy and justice seem to us to differ, but in the works of God they are both expressions of His love.       

Yet it is precisely in punishing sin that God’s mercy most evidently identifies itself with His justice.  The mercy of God does not suspend the laws of cause and effect. When God forgives me a sin, He destroys the guilt of sin, but the effects and the punishment of sin remain. 

   

Thomas Merton, in No Man Is an Island, Burns & Oates, 1955   

    

   _____________________

Thomas Merton’s Prayer

MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
  
  
 
– Thomas Merton, “Thoughts in Solitude”
  

BB Thoughts for Saturday, 11-14-09

crossred“The Lord afflicts us at times; but it is always a thousand times less than we deserve, and much less than many of our fellow-creatures are suffering around us. Let us therefore pray for grace to be humble, thankful, and patient.”    John Newton (1725-1807)

Rambling thoughts…. 

For the person who believes, this can be a real thorny issue. Can a God who will and can afflict us for our good, can he be trusted?  There are some who suggest that God is intentionally malicious; like a young boy pulling the  wings off of flies in bored amusement, to watch them scramble about.  I am certain this is not the case.

Those of us with mental illnesses who are believers will face this issue fairly often.  I get terribly depressed, to the point of despairing and even suicide.  One of the inner dialogues that happen, is “Why?”  “Does God know?”  “Does he care? ” “Why is this happening to me?”  You know what?  Only God knows, and he is not telling.  Sometimes we just have to live with questions.

The believer must accept this at face value.  It really doesn’t matter.  You face the fiery furnace, and that is a fearful thing.  But whatever transpires, our trials teach us about love, especially when we find a fellow-sufferer.  I have found that mentally ill people are almost always good, gentle people.  They have finally learned how to love, they generally have the scars to prove it.

To get stable, a prayer life should be established in our lives.  (If you have tried and tried, I would recommend getting prayer beads.)  Praying will clarify things and settle things.  Luther once said that just like “a cobbler’s task was to make shoes, so a Christian’s is to pray”.  Prayer is real-life for the believer.  It is a shot of adrenaline into the heart of a dying man.  I take my meds and I regard prayer as one of my other medications.  Prayer for me is both an anti-depressant and a mood-stablizer.  It is that significant.