now that's a prayer

 I think I need to pray this prayer every day.

A Liturgy Begging the Grace To Accomplish What Is Beyond Me

O Spirit of the Living God, who raises

your people from death to life,

the comforting of your children

in their hard journeys through the valley

of the shadow is, from beginning to end,

your work, not mine.

I am neither wise enough, nor compassionate

enough, nor tempered enough by present griefs,

to form prayers adequate to serve these your

people in the face of an enemy so formidable

as death.

I am wholly unfit to enter the holy sufferings of

others, to give guidance or true comfort,

to speak words of consolation that would name

the wounds of dying and grieving hearts,

or wrap them in compassionate

embrace, or remind them

that there remains a firm, eternal hope

which will outgrow and outlast death itself.

If this is not your work, then I would not have it

be mine.  For I would not bid the grieving hang

their sorrows or their hopes on any words that

cannot bear their weight.

So then, take this meager measure of anything

I might give, O God, and bless it

for the benefit of your people.

Breathe spirit and life into these flawed forms.

Let my insufficiencies be met

by the power of your grace.

I know I will encounter discouragement 

     in this labor

I know I will often experience the creative

     process as an impossible struggle against

     self and darkness.

Even  so, be at work in and through me, O Lord.

I will sometimes falter, lose heart, abandon

course, and be tempted to turn to diversions

and old comforts that cannot sustain.

Even so, be at work in and through me, O Lord.

On my best days I might be too confident in my

own abilities to recognize the depth of my need,

but more often I will be too empty, too spent,

too crippled by my brokenness to believe I have 

anything to give.

Even so, O Lord, be at work in and through me.

In the end, this is my sole means of stewardship:

     to repeatedly ply the imperfect talents with

     which you have entrusted me, daily offering

     to you my poverty, begging you to fill the

     hollow forms of my offerings.

O Holy Spirit, meet, fill, and quicken now,

these insufficient gifts.  Inspire prayers that

would shepherd and comfort your people—

even in their dyings, even in their griefs—

voicing their mortal laments and their eternal

hopes, gently turning their gaze to the promise

of coming resurrection, to the hope of

a world remade, and to the splendor of the

King who soon returns to redeem all sorrows.

Amen.

(Every Moment Holy, Volume II by Douglas McKelvey)