At one

Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit. (Psalm 51:11-12)

At one

I long for you on these white winter days, O Lord.

I want to feel the warmth of your love welling up from deep within so that I know your presence. So I come here, to this place of prayer, where I speak and hear the sound of my needs echoing on the wall. 

I pray my emptiness, my regrets and my fears for those I love, hungry for the joy of simply knowing you. And it happens.

In the middle of a sentence, in a tear that springs to the eye, amid my awareness that I cannot give my heart what is most needed, you come. And in that moment, I know you.

Your heart fills my own, and I know you are pleased to come and fill me with a lightness of being where worry ceases and anxieties evaporate.  

There is only you … quieting my heart and letting me know that you long for my presence even more than I need yours.

So come to us on these wintry days, O Lord, lest our souls freeze hard as the chill winds that make us shiver. Teach us to pray our lives, and interrupt us whenever it pleases you.

We don’t mind. Not one bit.

Pr. David L. Miller