Category Archives: Blessings

Seeing Me

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Seeing Me

Blessed are You,
Lord our God,
King of the Universe,
for deciding my worth
without consulting me,
and for creating me
without weighing Your options.

Blessed are You
for seeing me
in a way no one else can,
and inviting me into Your seeing.

I was born in extravagance,
created out of abundance,
celebrated from conception,
even until now,
seen in the purest
and deepest sense
of who I am.

Blessed are You,
Lord our God,
King of the Universe,
for burning the cardboard cutouts
and tattered layers of labels,
revealing the me carved in marble.

Thank you for leading me to myself—
through the ashes of paper tigers,
to the masterpiece.

Photo by Jose Aragones: https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-islamic-window-3254036/

Degrees of Comfort

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Degrees of Comfort

Blessed are You,
Lord our God,
King of the Universe,
for cold,
without which I would not know
the comfort of warmth.

Blessed are You
for frosty eyelashes,
toes numbing,
breath visible;
for gloved hand cupping heat against my nose,
tingle of warmed water on cold lips.

Blessed are You
for autumn, crisp apples and air,
for quiet of winter snow,
rushing, melting spring,
giving way to still, hot summer.

Blessed are You
for burning sun,
my skin hot to touch,
breeze over sweat,
the relief of shade,
comfort of cool grass on bare feet.

Blessed are You,
Lord our God,
King of the Universe,
for heat,
without which I would not know
the comfort of cool.

Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

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Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

Blessed are You,
Lord our God,
King of the Universe,
for being upside down.

We layer things up
and You overturn them,
like a pineapple upside-down cake.

Blessed are You
for teaching us
to stand on our heads,
to see what we did not see before:
the poor are favored,
enemies are beloved,
forgiveness predates repentance,
trials are joy,
lost lives are saved lives.

Blessed are You,
Lord our God,
King of the Universe,
for inviting us
to grab a fork
and try a bite,
and for chuckling
at our look of surprise.

Seeing God

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Seeing God

Blessed are You,
Lord our God,
King of the Universe,
for dragonfly wings
and broken things,
fire and wind,
storms and dewdrops.

Blessed are You
in brimming eyes,
sparkling eyes,
vacant eyes;
in friend and foe;
in the mirror.

Blessed are You
for revealing Yourself
in ancient words,
or present vision,
a thousand ways,
ten thousand places.

Blessed are You,
Lord our God,
King of the Universe,
for seeing us,
and for letting us
see You.

Pocket-size Love

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Pocket-size Love

Blessed are You,
Lord our God,
King of the Universe,
for pocket-size love—
3am conversations,
fuzzy blankets,
quiet mornings,
little faces.

Blessed are You
for dessert and coffee,
anything that warms my feet,
the delight of creating,
and a sigh of acceptance
as I nightly surrender to my pillow.

Blessed are You,
Lord our God,
King of the Universe,
for honest friends
affirming my humanity
by baring theirs,
and for soul sisters
whose healing gently nudges forward
my own slow and brave recovery.

Undivided

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Undivided

“A house divided against itself will not stand.” – Jesus

Blessed are You,
Lord our God,
Queen of the Universe,
for moments that return me
to myself;
when I discover
I am not my own enemy
but my greatest ally.

Blessed am I,
for what I desire
is even now within me.
I need not fight
against myself.
My present wholeness
is an invitation to hush.

Blessed are You,
Lord our God,
Queen of the Universe,
for inhabiting me,
imparting courage
for me to inhabit my self.

Canvas of Emotion

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Canvas of Emotion

Blessed are You,
Lord our God,
King of the Universe,
for sky—
canvas of emotion,
wild and expressive,
ever changing;
so bright we look down,
or so dark we look up,
searching for light.

Blessed are You for clouds—
wistful wisps,
satisfied puffy marshmallows,
hurrying shape-changers,
angry billows no longer white.

Blessed are You for lightning—
shocking us into being present;
for rainbows—
causing us to stare and point;
for winking stars and harvest moon—
inviting us to be still,
just for a moment.

Blessed are You,
Lord our God,
King of the Universe,
for sunset valentines,
hopeful sunrises,
depressed skies of flat gray,
and joyful skies bright blue—
giving us permission to feel,
nothing or everything,
intense or peaceful,
romantic or solitary.

Blessed are You
for daily permission
to feel our ever-changing inner world
as we look up
and see it mirrored in the sky,
sanctified
by the expressions above us.

Desire

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Desire

Blessed are You,
Lord our God,
King of the Universe,
for lust,
alerting us to the depth of our hunger,
and our fear that we are not worthy
of wholeness.

Blessed are You
for addiction,
desire that overtakes us,
hiding us,
for we are afraid to be seen,
naked and ashamed.

Blessed are You,
Lord our God,
King of the Universe,
for becoming flesh,
hungering and thirsting with us,
inviting us to be seen,
and suggesting that we may be satiated—
embraced in the mystery
that Your desire meets ours.

Peace by Presence

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Peace by Presence

Blessed are You,
Lord our God,
King of the Universe,
for turmoil,
propelling me to seek Peace
and treasure it when I find it.

Blessed are You for insisting
You will be present with me,
though You are soiled by association
and condemned
for holding my hand.

Blessed are You,
Lord our God,
King of the Universe,
for showing up
to tell me who I am;
for taking up residence in me
and declaring,
“Peace in this place.”

Photo by İrem Meriç: https://www.pexels.com/photo/couple-sitting-on-brown-wooden-dock-11726374/

Alive

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Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, for breath,
the rise and fall of my chest,
bringing life to my body one moment at a time.
I cannot store up breath,
and breathing out is equally as important as breathing in.

Blessed are You for this gentle infusion of life,
without which I would die,
and yet of which I am hardly aware.
You would think, knowing if I stop breathing I’ll die, that I would obsess over it.
But I trust my mind and body to keep the rise and fall of my chest
and the beat of my heart
and to let me know if anything goes awry.

Perhaps Your Spirit in me is this way.
I don’t need to always be aware of it for it to be always there,
tending Life inside me,
centering me like a deep breath,
spreading life to the very edges of my body
every moment,
gently,
and so faithful that I need not give it a second thought,
except to pause in gratitude that I am inhabited by Life
and this is the Lord’s doing.

Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe,
for the reminder that I can work hard to hold on tight,
or I can remember that You are inhabiting me,
and rest.