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| Tu b'Shvat moon |
Prayer of the restless, sleepless
and otherwise awake while the rest of the city slumbers
Abba,
Thank you. Thank you for this past day. I know you didn't have to give it to me - it was a total gift from the mercy of your hand. There are those that lost that gift today, and perhaps even desperately prayed for the gift for someone else. I pray for those souls, LORD, as I thank you for the breath that flows in and out of my lungs.
I praise you, my LORD. It is only through you that I can even get in and out of this bed. It is only by your will and strength that I can think and function in a way that may even be slightly pleasing to you. I praise you for all you have done for me today, sustaining me through stress, pain, laughter, and tears. I can do nothing on my own and need you to infuse your power and life into me every minute of the day. For the second you remove your presence from me, I will be reduced to nothingness and cease to exist.
My Master, I humbly bow before you and ask for your forgiveness. Please forgive my selfishness and sinful ways. Please forgive my neglect of others in deference of my own wishes, for my mouth that I just can't seem to control despite my best efforts and for my actions that don't reflect you. Forgive me and cleanse me, remove all unrighteousness from within me and set my feet on the right path. I only seek to follow your will, my LORD, please enable me to do that always. Show me where I have sinned against others so that I may put those things right once again. Help me to be forgiving and compassionate of others as they struggle within themselves, as well. Show me how you view each of your children, my LORD, and put into me your opinion of them so that I may treat them as you would.
I thank you for my husband, LORD. You have provided for me and the children through his steadfast faithfulness to provide for us. Thank you for maintaining his health and his intellect so that he can fulfill his role as husband, father and employee. Thank you for the love that he shows me, always at the times when it's most needed. Thank you for the way you have fashioned him to be a good father to the children - you have enabled him to exercise wisdom and compassion that is invaluable. Thank you for guiding me in my love and care for him, LORD, and help me to make him feel respected, loved and needed.
I am humbled, LORD, that you have granted me time with my three smart and healthy children. Thank you for each of them and I pray, I beg, that you surround them with your love and grace and make their paths straight always. Make your presence clear and strong in their minds and lives, LORD, for it is my first and foremost desire for them to follow your ways in every part of their lives, both now and in the future. I thank you for the strength and patience you have graciously given me as a mother - you have made me into something I could have never become on my own. I need you to guide my thoughts and words concerning them - I ask for your continuing discernment and wisdom in all things concerning their guidance and training, and I thank you for what you have given up to now and what you will give in the future.
Abba, I thank you for the many friends, such beautiful souls, you have graciously given to me to love and nurture. Each of them is a gem of untold value - I hold them all so dear to my heart. I thank you for their tenderness, loyalty and endless love. I'm so grateful that they are following you diligently, and that together you have enabled us to encourage each other, to inspire each other and to hold each other up in ways that only you could have foreseen. You have given me more friendship, deep abiding friendship, than I know some have the privilege of experiencing and for that I am deeply humbled and eternally grateful. Only you know what I need, and LORD I need them all so, so much. I beg you that I be able to show each and every one of them how much they mean to me by my words and my actions. Let me be there when they need me most, and please let me be your hands and your words to assist, encourage and love them as you would.
And lastly, I thank you for teaching me. You alone are my shepherd, teacher and mentor. You have always been with me, and you continue to take me along this path with compassion and care. You have never forsaken me, even when I've been at the lowest point of the pit of despair. I will always praise you, for in truth, you are all I have or will ever have. Everything else will eventually fade away as a vapor, but you, my LORD and Savior, will forever be my rock, my life, my everything. I never thought you would take me in some of the places, both physically and mentally, you have carefully led me, but you have urged me on, never leaving my side...even when I was desperately trying to go another way. I thank you with all that I am for your steadfast love and your never ending lovingkindness to me.
Now, LORD, if it pleases you, can I request the comforting numbness of sleep? If you deem it necessary that I dream, can it be of happy, pleasant times of the past that I will not see again? You can do anything, I know, so I'm asking to visit ghosts of those that I have loved but can no longer be with. And, if that is too much to ask, please forgive me for my selfishness...I thank you for memories and for the good times you have given me.
b'Shem Yeshua,
Amein
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