Father God Lord Jesus Holy Spirit We present ourselves before You again this Sunday. It is no small thing that we are gathered here To give our attention to You. To turn off our phones, to shut down The always available distractions. We come with our particular stories, Telling of both grief and joy; Calamity and happiness; Pain and pleasure. Only You know the depths Of what we’ve lived through. Even if we live an intimate life With a spouse, only You Are truly present in every detail. Like no one else, You rejoice when We rejoice and weep when we weep. Isaiah says that in all Israel’s distress, You, too, were distressed. We can trust You because You know What we carry. You are not aloof or cold Or distant or all those other lies Satan says. We worship You because your promise is that Every burden will be released, Every fear will be undone, And Sam Gamgee’s hope that everything sad will Come untrue will be realized. We will never give up attending to You. There’s always more to experience. And the best is yet to be, inhabiting your realized Presence of joy, together, forever. Amen.
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Hi Karen,
As I read your phrases of His knowledge of our suffering and His understanding of all we carry, I was struck by this thought:
Do I know what He has suffered, and do I know all He has carried?
I feel called (after reading your poem), I feel called to move my understanding of my suffering into re-narrating it into "suffering with Christ."
Thanks,
Sam