Dear God, let my weakness, today, be your invitation to grant me strength. Let me fall to my knees, broken — that you may enter and rebuild me. Let me fear every occurrence — that you may deliver me courage.

Grant me recognition of my weakness — that I may call out to you in total willingness to receive help.

You build me, O Lord, you save me, you strengthen me. I so rarely recognize nor even welcome it. Let me be fully ready to accept your aid.

Thy will be done, today and all days.

(Letter #1004)

Dear God, help me to be a source of strength to others today. I am focused on myself: on my difficulties, on my frustrations, on my worries for the future. I am wondering how best I can get what I want. Lord, set all this to the side. Grant me better thoughts.

Let me actively seek to aid my fellows. Let me not passively wait for such opportunities, but instead let me search for them, even create them with enthusiastic energy.

Transform me, Lord, from a selfish child into a reflection of your love and light. Let this come through effort, my effort. Let me use effort and energy as my expression of gratitude towards you. Let me expend effort and energy in helping others today.

Thy will be done.

(Letter #1003)

Dear God, each morning I mouth the words of devotion, but if I truly examine my soul, these words are false. I proclaim faith, yet I doubt. I ask to be led, yet I make my own path. I say I trust you, Lord, to provide, yet I make feverish contingency plans.

My Lord, my Lord. Set my intentions aright. Let my faith be actual and true. If I say I trust, let me then trust.

If I draw near to you, then you will allow yourself to be known. Yet I do not draw near enough. Let me walk toward you.

Let me abandon worry. You support me through all. Let me abandon plans. You guide my feet whether I know it or not. Let me abandon self-reliance. You reward dependence and trust.

God, let my faith grow. It is so inadequate. Let me trust in you ever more, even in spite of my doubt. Let me do your will today, and let this be my expression of devotion.

(Letter #1002)

Dear God, some mornings, I cannot even place into words my longing for your help. I am so needy. The difficulties I face feel insurmountable, I can do little more than utter “God, help me.” A whimper.

In darkness, your light shines back to me. It lights the corners of my life and these nameless difficulties vanish. They are phantasms. Illusion.

Why, Lord, do I concoct such a false world? I am beset by monsters, or I am ruler of my domain, or I am the worst in the world and deserving of condemnation. All these scenarios are fantasies that grip my thinking so tightly that they are my reality. All false.

Lord, let me please see the real world. Stay with me, chase away the illusions. Let me learn better to act without drama, serve without complaint, wait without impatience.

God, help me.

(Letter #1001)