Storm Approaching

Fall just resting in the waiting

And all of the Metro D.C. area is moving forward in semi-panic mode. The water is gone from the shelves, the generators have been long gone.  The ice is gone, the coolers are gone, the batteries lurk in boxes to be restocked.

And we watch the weather channel, and redo our appointments, and stand in line to vote early, and go to the grocery or commissary and get things we may not need... and anxiety rises.
As we watch Frankenstorm's approach......

Leaves nestle in the red

And so as the weekend moves forward into the storm, I am comforted with the words of Ted Lober's prayer..

Oh God, gather me now to be with you as you are with me.

Soothe my tiredness;
quiet my fretfulness;
curb my aimlessness;
relieve my complusiveness;
let me be easy for a moment.

O Lord, release me
from the fears and guilts which grip me so tightly;
from the expectations and opinions which I so tightly grip,
that I may be open
to receiving what you give,
to risking something genuinely new,
to learning something refreshingly different.

Forgive me
for claiming so much for myself
that I leave no room for gratitude;
for confusing exercises in self-importance
with acceptance of self-worth;
for complaining so much of my burdens
that I become a burden;
for competing against others so insidiously
that I stifle celebrating them
and receiving your blessing through their gifts.

O God, gather me to be with you as you are with me.

Amen.

Ted Loder, Guerillas of Grace

Gather me Lord, to be with you... Close, near by, comforted and not afraid of the next day's dawn.
And in all of this to be thankful and surrounded in gratitude.