Prayer Journal, March 5, 2000

Dear God, This morning I woke early with enthusiasm that I haven’t felt for a
very long time. I’m not fighting getting up, but am eager for this time with you
with uninterrupted quietness. Thank you for the good sleep. Thank You for returning life
five weeks after the flu began. It’s been a long time since I woke with eagerness.
Thank You, thank You, Lord. The long winter’s night will end soon and I’ll be
able to get out and walk in your sunshine and feel alive again.

It seems that I am standing at a crossroads. Either I am going to become a
fragmented older woman or a centered wise one. The difference will lie in who
has charge of my life. The pull toward fragmentation is strong because even in
this early morning uninterrupted time is scarce. But also because my mind
flits here and there. That happens a lot in aging. I am afraid of it.

Yet in my life now which seems to have not only many interruptions but
also many lists, details to care for. How much I need Your grace to quiet my mind
each morning, to linger here by my eastern window with You. It’s not interruptions
and details that take my peace and stillness, it’s my own choices, my own
powerlessness to make it different.

Teach me, Lord Jesus, to abide in You. All the time, deep in my heart no
matter what’s going on elsewhere. Help me to love Your Word, to run to You
constantly and consistently through the day. I’m beginning to see how that
can happen. My fragmented side makes it ever more evident to me that
without You, I am a scattered nit wit. My words are just chaff that the wind
blows away. I will not be, I cannot be the wise old woman I long to be—the
Spirit-filled woman who sees as You see and is able to articulate Your words
to others. That’s what I long for.

Lord, I ask for only one thing today—Your presence. Your Grace to
actively accept today as it is. To live it—not float through it. To allow You
to flow through me, making my heart tender and alive. May this day be full
of You and what You want me to do. May my words be not mine but Yours.
Hold me, Jesus, so I can know how much I am loved. May love—Your love–
flow through me, not hindered by me. May I give over and not give up.
Abide in me, my God, and teach me to abide in You. The second part of
that is what makes it an active process isn’t it?

“Listen to me, who have been borne by me from birth,
carried from the womb, even to your old age I am He,
even when you turn gray I will carry you still.
I have made and I will bear; I will carry
and I will save.” Isaiah 46:1-4