Tag Archives: mourning

A Prayer When Missing the Saints

01 Monday Nov 2021

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Divine Winds of Comfort,

As the dawn of a new chapter begins, we yearn for the scenes of yesterday. Our hearts miss the saints who no longer abide with us here on earth. Our souls ache to hear their voices once again, to feel our hands in theirs, to hug them again.

On this All Saints Day, give us the strength to move forward in a world without them. Comfort our grieving hearts. May your peace calm the spasms of our spirit when the grief overtakes us. May beautiful memories accompany us each day of the rest of our lives. Amen.

A Prayer for the Needed Time-Machine

08 Wednesday Nov 2017

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IMG_5221God who operates beyond time and space, would you mind transforming me back to one year ago this afternoon?

Would you send me back to a time when hope still pushed aside the climate of despair? A time when I didn’t know death’s frigid grasp so well… a time when my body hadn’t yet become companions with various types of pain… a time when we stood on the edge of a possibility which would have brought prosperity for more of my neighbors and a time when hate was not so loud.

Where is this time machine, God? Maybe I would have made some different decisions, spent more time with loved ones, cared for myself in new ways.

I know we cannot travel back, and I know forward through the tunnel is the only path to journey. So give me the peace and strength as the suffocating shadows swallow me as I drive this stretch of road.

And as I reemerge from the tunnels, may your sunlight warm my soul again.

Amen.

 

Glimpses of Survival Through Grief

06 Monday Nov 2017

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Sturdy God through the flimsy times,
I discovered that I may endure this time in the wilderness.
I may escape the land of everlasting shadows.
I may find more than an oasis from grief.

Now, I’m not sure how I will feel in two hours or four days, but right now, God, I embrace this gift from your Spirit.

Sure, I know the moon’s dance will cross between me and the sun,
And my soul will feel every bit of the lack of light from the eclipse.
And there will be days when the clouds leave no gap to allow the blue sky to show its friendly face.

But I’ve seen those days before.
And I cried and screamed.
And once again, the sun showed her face.

Again and again, after the shadows have had their say, the light breaks through.

This is the human life.  This is the way I know that I will endure.
This is how I know I will make it from one breath to the next
And from one day to the next.

Even as I walk through the shadow filled valleys, you are with me God.
And you will journey with me to sunlight again.  Amen.

All Saints’ Sunday Eve

04 Saturday Nov 2017

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God of the brisk autumn evenings and chilly fall mornings,
Tomorrow is All Saints’ Sunday – the one time per year when we recall out loud the names of our deceased loved ones.
We speak of them aloud to give their lives dignity and grieve their passings.

But All Saints’ Sunday Eve is drastically different than All Saints’ Day Eve.
There is no hunting for Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Milky Ways.
There are no costumes or parties or pumpkins.

Instead, it’s me and you, God.

I pray that I have the strength tomorrow to muddle through the service
To remember my father without publicly shedding copious amounts of tears.

It will sound strange to hear his name read in the list of saints.
And as my skin will crawl when he is named
May your peace be a salve to my irritated spirit.

Amen.

An All Saints’ Day Prayer for Those Left Behind

01 Wednesday Nov 2017

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God of the weeping souls, many of us sit in sorrow today.

Our favorite saint no longer abides with us. With the absence of their voice and facial expressions and stories,  we walk around today in a mid-autumn daze.

Today asks us to remember the saints when we want to forget the pain. Today begs for us to remember voices and expressions and stories as we hold onto memories for as long as possible.

So with the void that we carry around like a 20-pound weight, we face the day one less person in our world.

We logically understand that tomorrows will become more tolerable in this mediocre journey. But today we cry with the absolute loss we’ve been given.

God, you are celebrating with them on that side of heaven, but on this side, you lament with us.  Be in both places at once in this existence that we are all trying to understand.

Amen.

 

A Prayer for the Really, Really Bad Days

25 Wednesday Oct 2017

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God of the valleys filled with shadows, today is one of those days. The “there are no words” for this pain. The triggers are great. The soul is raw. Superglue feels like it keeps me in this space under perpetual cloudiness.

And so, in this deluge of spiritual rain, sleet, and snow, you become drenched with me God.

Even if you can’t lift these clouds, help me to find the light surrounding me and the love that holds me close in the moments of despair.

Amen.

*****

I continue my series on prayers of grief after the death of my father on September 18, 2017.

A Prayer As I Embrace Grief’s Journey

18 Wednesday Oct 2017

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IMG_4914God, it appears that I’m making it. I rise each day, take care of what is needed, find healthy ways to express myself.

So I pass grief with flying colors, right?

Not exactly.

I’ll be fine until I see a photo or have a memory or listen to a song from 1975. I’ll be relaxed until something – like a drive or a conversation – takes me back to that chilly September morning. I’ll be traveling home and the warming sunset reminds me of his love of photographing dusks.

Then my heart shudders with the notion that I won’t see him again on this side of heaven. My brain slides back into a dense fog as it tries to protect my soul from intense feelings of loss. My body aches from the heaviness that comes with this extra emotional weight.

And I am reminded again that grief is always a lifelong journey. Completion of this process doesn’t happen here. It’s not a destination. Overcoming it will never happen. There is nothing to win, and I will not get a medal when surviving.

And yet, I’m making it. Fifteen minutes at a time, God, we are making it. For that unremarkable significant victory, I am grateful.

Amen.

A Prayer as I Remember That Moment

12 Thursday Oct 2017

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God who abides fully in the present,
I keep recalling that moment in my mind.

You know the one – the phone call.
The five thirty am buzzing which jolted me awake,
Wondering why and who and why again as I stirred from sleep.

Deciding I needed to pick it up because five-one-three numbers at five-thirty aren’t wrong numbers.
Thinking that it was him just calling because he was awake in his room,
And for one split second not wanting to deal with an early morning conversation.

For that moment, God, I am deeply sorry.

Oh how now I wish it was dad wanting a five-thirty am phone conversation.
How I would sacrifice an entire night of sleep for that discussion.

How I would rather have heard his voice saying “I just wanted to call” rather than the nurse informing me “his condition has changed.”

How I would have rather heard his voice asking me if I was awake rather than a stranger ask me if I wanted him intubated.

How that moment the last remaining garments of childhood which I still wore my soul stopped fitting.  How the tables turned and I was the one who made the decisions about his well being.

How the summertime of my life ended and the gray days of autumn begun.  How the warmth of daylight turned into the cold shadows of night.

Yes, God, that moment turned into all of this for me.  Innocence lost.  Childhood firmly found in the rearview mirror.  Daughterhood shifted.

God, there is little you can do for me to change my memory of that moment.  But, if you can, fill my soul with a little additional peace each time I remember it.

In time, this moment will lose some of its intense chill.  And maybe I’ll find a new level of innocence.

Amen.

A Prayer After Grief’s Trigger-Full Day

11 Wednesday Oct 2017

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God of the rising flood waters, yesterday was a day full of triggers.

It was the anniversary of his rapid decline. And a hospital visit three doors down from his room. And a conversation about what a father of the bride would wear at the wedding.

Intense sessions of crying drowned parts of my day. Yet tear after tear, I made it through.

Yesterday proved I’m nothing less than resilient. But I’m strong because you are my partner in this, God.

There will be more of these days ahead, and my lamenting may melt my heart. There will be evenings that linger forever as each tomorrow seems to delay its arrival.

But morning will appear. And the sun will break through morning’s densely hovering fog.

And you will be with me.

Amen.

A One-Month Prayer

10 Tuesday Oct 2017

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Divine Crafter of Time and Space,
It’s been a month.

Now, I know that it hasn’t been a full month since he breathed his last breath,
Or the last beat of his heart,
Or the very last time I saw him “alive,”
But a month ago we lost the him we knew and a life of familiarity.

We lost his laughter and his political grumblings,
The ability to ask him one more time what the Tin-Man symbolized in the Wizard of Oz,
As well as questions we never knew to ask him beforehand.

We lost his voice.
Of course, we have recordings from the past thirty years-
Videotapes from birthdays and Christmases.  Even a Facebook video or two on a needed Civics lesson.
But recordings, though sacred, just aren’t the same.

One month ago today,
I lost the blessing of receiving his hugs
And his constant reminders to gargle with saltwater
And to get my oil changed and have all of the fluid levels checked.

I lost the ability to see his eyes not only open
But look and interact with the people surrounding him.

His spirit ascended while we were left to descend into the valley of grief.

So until I can climb out of this valley under the dome of cloud-filled skies,
God grant me the strength I need to take life 15 minutes at a time.

Someday, we will find ourselves on even land again,
Even occasionally making our ways to mountaintops.
It will be a bittersweet journey upward and onward,
As I realize Your strength and his love are on this pilgrimage with me.

Amen.

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