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)

Dear God, of late I have felt desperation and longing, indeed for days this has been so. This morning, you have awakened me with a feeling of wholeness. You are present with me; I feel your nearness.

I so often pray to become as a child, trusting and simple. But a child has no duties, yet I owe you devotion and service. Let me become, instead, your servant. Let me serve you through service to all those around me.

You have populated my life with opportunity to overcome all the small feelings and selfishness that bedevil me. Let me bring peace to those around me. Let me serve those around me in large ways and small. Let me sacrifice comfort and ease, as my expression of devotion and gratitude to you.

If I am truly grateful, I will not rest until there is peace around me and all are in harmony.

You have entered into my heart. I was a wretch before your coming. I was laid low, low enough to seek you. You allowed yourself to be found. Now I am whole.

Let me bring wholeness to every single person I encounter today. Let this be my aim. Let me ask myself, “How can I best serve?” Let me listen for your answer, and act.

Shine through me, Lord, upon this world.

(Letter #1,000)

Dear God, the most difficult task for me is sometimes to wait quietly. I am agitated, expectant.

All the things in my life that are not as they ought to be, all the things that I wish were different, all the challenges that face me daily – my exertions directed at these things are so often nought. Instead you call me to wait, quietly and calmly, until you improve conditions in your time and in your manner.

Lord, let me have true devotion to you. Let me rest quietly, receiving the warmth of your love.

I perceive the ineffectiveness of my actions as weakness, impotence. Yet, if I look differently, I might see that you in fact are granting me luxury. I am blessed with leisure, not afflicted with paralysis.

Let me view this day with gratitude. Let me do that which you impel me to do, no less but also no more. Let me exert my energies in finding you. Thy will be done.

(Letter #999)

Dear God, when I am in deepest pain, my prayer to you is most honest. “Lord, help me.” Anything more I might say is simply embellishment.

How, Lord, can I be equally honest with you even when I am not desperate? But instead I dress up my prayer in elaborate thoughts and words.

Lord, burn away my affectation. Burn away my self-congratulation. Burn away my pride. Leave me naked before you, a child calling for help. Let my call to you be so straightforward that the very prayer is its own answer.

Let me do your will today.

(Letter #998)

Dear God, sit with me. Be my companion. My interior life is a turmoil, even as my outer life appears placid. My mind tumbles event upon possible event; I craft great palaces in the future and like a child I kick them over with equally great imagined calamity. All false.

Sit with me. Be my companion, a fellow sitting beside me, watching the smooth waters of an indifferent lake. On the far shore, a deer grazes without fear. Nearer, a fish jumps. The sun shines.

When filled with worldly vexations, I am blind to all the serene beauty around me. Sit with me. Calm me, let me see it. Make it visible even when I am shut away in an interior room, or thronged by others with their demands.

Let me quietly feel your nearness. Let me be settled by it.

Thank you.

(Letter #997)

Dear God, let my thoughts rest here, now, in this present moment. Already, so early, my mind casts forward days, weeks, and even months. Hopes and fears cloud my thinking and I barely know where I am and what is real.

My body, seated, still, in this room with you, breath slowly moving in and out. Lord, bring my attention here. What transpires here, between me and you, is all I need to be attentive to.

Let me please place my relationship with you in the center of my thoughts. Let it be the only reality with which I concern myself.

Let me do your will today, O Lord.

(Letter #996)

Dear God, cease the chatter in my mind. The worry, the fear, the planning, the scheming, the envy, the self-regard. Burn it all away and leave my thoughts a clear plain. Let me recognize the landscape of my day for the trivia it is.

All the little happenings and challenges. Let me look past it all to see your will for me.

Lord, I know you support me underneath all. Let me perform my duties obediently, without fanfare and without doubt for my future. Let me act as a child, secure that at day’s end, when I lay my head down, you will have provided all I need.

Let me become willing to seek your will in all things and at all times.

(Letter #995)