JOURNEY CRASHERS - May I invite you to a time of silent, personal prayer, where we allow God to “collect our hopes”, whether realized or unrealized, into God’s heart.
Find a quiet private place and have a pen/pencil and paper with you:
• Take a moment to settle your soul in God’s presence.
• Call to mind the hopes you have had or currently have in your heart. As each one comes to mind, write it on the paper within the outline of a heart shape.
• Imagine that you are sitting with God. “Take” each hope and lay it into God’s heart and hands. Visualize this sharing in any way that is meaningful to you, paying attention to how God seems to look at you as God receives your hopes.
• Imagine that God says to you, “We all collect valuables, don’t we? I have collected your hopes.” Stay with God as long as you wish, don't hurry away.
• You may wish to go to another conducive place for the rest of your prayer time.
• When you are done, simply rest for a while, then open your eyes; and close with a prayer.
O God of Love, like the disciples walking with Jesus to Emmaus, we have learned that to hope is to open ourselves to heartache, for life rarely turns out as expected, and people often disappoint us.
Teach us to grieve these losses, to let go of our expectations, so that you may plant seeds of resurrection. Help us to live in the pain of the moment, so that when we are ready, a new day will arrive.
Death and resurrection, death and resurrection, you are constantly drawing new life out of death. Enable us to believe. Empower us to live like believers. In the Resurrected One, we pray. Amen.
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