PrayingWithMyFingers

Dear God,

It is 8:45pm, Ash Wednesday.  The day has been long.  I am exhausted.  After all, I was up at 4am!  I do love Your sense of humor though.  I remember my last prayer of the night being “help me,” because I was worried about oversleeping and missing the 7am church service.  So, You used the puppies to wake me – earlier than I thought I needed but did my Lenten devotions and meditation and got to the church on time!

I have felt so grateful all day because I see this day and all of Lent as a time for returning……..returning to You God because I am always leaving.  But You never leave me.  Thank You, God.  I realized today that I have been playing fast and loose with my spiritual life – that in neglecting my daily spiritual disciplines, I move further and further away from the life I believe in and live more and more in the world – I become more and more of the world and, Your Light in me flickers and becomes dimmer.

So, with ashes on my forehead I began my day of renewal.  My pleasant demeanor lasted at least until mid-morning but then You sent a true opportunity my way in the form of a woman I don’t like and who I find to be — well, stupid…….and tedious………and bothersome.  And, true to form, I fell right back into my usual behavior of judgment and condemnation of this person.  Oh well.  Nobody is perfect, right?  Wrong!  I didn’t even have the good graces to be sorry and to feel ashamed of my attitude.  I felt justified!  I am sorry that I didn’t feel wrong because I do believe my attitude is wrong.  But, I am willing to be corrected.  I am willing to have my attitude changed but, I am dependent on You to change me.  Yes, I know I have to do the footwork.

Another church service at 7pm tonight.  I am just realizing that a second service was probably a little over ambitious for me considering the day begun at 4am!  Nonetheless, I enjoyed it.  That leaves me still writing this blog at 9:50pm, not having exercised and missing my 20 minutes of evening meditation.  Clearly, I have not met my goals but, perhaps more clearly, I see that I can only do the best I can one day at a time — even when that best seems far short of my ideal.  Even the saints fell down…..but, they simply got up again.  I am good at trying to beat myself into being a “good” person but, today I think I am only supposed to remember, “Dust Thou Art, and Unto Dust Shalt Thou Return.  All of my life is subject to Your mercy and, I celebrate that mercy.  Thomas Merton says, “Lent is then not a season of punishment so much as one of healing.”