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Be with me in my unfolding

“For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven. “
Ecclesiastes 3:1

As I walk in the changing spring weather, as I dig in the garden, as I feel the warming wind in my hair, the coolness of the nights, I am filled with the promise of new life, new beginning. I humbly share this spring prayer by Ted Loder. May you be blessed with God in your unfolding, your longing and your reaching:

“It is spring, Lord,
and the land is coming up green again,
    unfolding
      outside my well-drawn boundaries
         and urgent schedules.
and there is the mystery
    and the smile of it.
The willows are dripping honey colour into the rivers,
and the mother birds are busy in manger nests,
and I am learning again that “for everything there is a season
     and a time for every matter under heaven.”
O Lord, you have sketched the lines of spring.
Be with me in my unfolding.

It is spring, Lord,
and my blood runs warm with the song of the sap,
   longing
     for a beauty I would become.
And there is the mystery
    and the smile of it.
The buds are swelling on the bush,
    the sun is beginning to coax the colour,
       from where it’s been curled against the cold,
          the air is sweet to the nostrils;
even the city seems to be rubbing its eyes
   from a long sleep;
and there is a promise in the season
   I know no name for

        except life.
O Lord, you have sketched the lines of spring.
Be with me in my longing.

It is spring, Lord,
And something stirs in me,
   reaching, stretching,
      groping for words,
         peeking through my defenses,
             beckoning in my laughter,
                 riding on past my fears,
                      pulsing in my music.

And there is the mystery
      and the smile of it.
Be with me in my reaching
      so, I will touch or be touched,
           this time,
                by a grace, a warmth, a light,
to unfold my life to a new beginning,
       a fresh budding,
           a spring within as well as around me.
O Lord, you have sketched the lines of spring.
Be with me in my reaching.”

Photo by Landon Martin on Unsplash