When I am vexed, let me listen for the lesson you are sending to me. When I am assailed, let me look for the gift.

When success comes to me, let me look for opportunities to share it with others.

Lord, I misperceive my place in your world. Let me see how I am just one among many.

(Letter #1,998)

If there be news to share, let me not proclaim it but spread it quietly through example.

Let me be no peacock, weighed down by my own finery. Let me be your burden-bearer.

Let my industry spread its own news.

(Letter #1,997)

They depend on me. I fear I am not sufficient. Lord, make me your instrument. Grant me knowledge of the right words to say, the acts to take.

You send these gifts my way, clothed as tests. My friends appear as enemies. I see crowds and panic, yet they come to celebrate.

Lord, what joy I live amongst. Let me see it.

(Letter #1,996)

You forgive me, Lord, and with this I am washed clean. No more must I relive my wrongs nor dwell on my shortcomings.

When I forgive my brother and sister, let the hurt be forgotten. Your grace is perfect; if I pass it on then I must love even my enemy.

These paths of relationship are choked with weeds, Lord. Ease our passage and remake our bonds. Let us forgive and love one another.

(Letter #1,995)

My troubles, Lord, are light and momentary. They themselves bring me closer to you – I approach you not in spite of them but because.

Let me not cease walking towards you; let me love these obstacles.

Thy will be done.

(Letter #1,994)

Another dawn, unmerited. The singing of the birds is grace itself – gifts I have done nothing to deserve.

How possibly can I see gray and dull mist? I am in a painting, even the fog is a masterwork.

Let me have gratitude, Lord. Nothing I have is earned.

(Letter #1,993)

Free me this morning from my selfish and twisted thinking.

I look out upon the world and I see only my place in it. Let me walk through the day as one among many, no different than any other pebble on the beach.

Let me quietly do your will, unseen and unnoticed.

(Letter #1,992)

Let me love actively.

Let me extend myself out from this seclusion, Lord. Let me enter into discomfort.

If I am to be your instrument, let me not remain unused with a dull edge.

(Letter #1,991)

I step out my door, and there is no path. How shall I know the way, Lord?

Grant me signs by which to navigate. Grant me eyes through which to see them.

(Letter #1,990)

One day is all I can live through; now is all I have. Yet widen my sight, Lord, lest I become frantic at the ticking clock.

I do not live in it, but there will be a tomorrow. This work on my bench, it will still need attending to anon.

Let me first do what is needful, and calmly. Thy will be done.

(Letter #1,989)