Dear God, My life is filled in all corners with evidence of your grace. These gifts are undeserved. I have love, security, a sense of usefulness, and faith well beyond my due.

Even at such a calm, ordinary time such as this one — my life overflows.

Lord, let me recognize this in each moment. Let me have wonder for the serenity I feel. Who could have anticipated such a gift? Who could say they deserve it?

Let me embody thanks today.

(Letter #1032)

Dear God, there is enough. Plenty to go around. Abundance. You shine on every creature, every human being. You shine on me no less than my neighbor.

Lord, let me not grasp and strive. Let me calmly walk through this land that you have made, doing your will. Let me turn my gaze toward others I can help. Let me glide from act to act, delivering your help at each meeting.

Let me glow.

(Letter #1031)

Dear God, I am thinking of myself. My own will, my status, my comfort. Self.

Such a dead end this is. Such a narrow view of life.

God, let me please turn my gaze to the world. Let me look around me, at all the opportunities to do your will. they are strewn all about me.

Let me not concern myself with my self. Lord, enter my thoughts and force them away from my inwardness.

(Letter #1030)

Dear God, let me live here, now, in the present. Today I have plenty to do. Let me focus on the tasks and events that are right here before me.

My thoughts drift forward into the future and I find myself no longer inhabiting this day. I can barely recollect what happened mere moments ago, for I am not even here.

Lord, draw me back to this day. Let me bring all my energies to bear on the present tasks.

(Letter #1029)

Dear God, let me not shrink from effort today. I have the choice to act on all the opportunities you present to be of service, to be helpful, to be useful, to be responsible. They each beckon, a gift. Yet more often, I will sit idly, watching each of these opportunities pass by like branches in a slow river. They float by, in easy reach, but soon they are gone, disappeared around the bend.

Lord, let me live today with urgency to fulfill your will. You created me for a reason, not to take up space and be idle. Let me be filled with energy to do your will today. Let me stand, walk toward challenge and effort, and in this be a beacon to those around me. Let me call them to follow me, as I follow your will.

Let me be your creation today.

(Letter #1028)

Dear God, I stand in my own way. I am the one who blocks me from being useful to others, from being responsible, from loving all. My shortcomings and failings – my selfishness and judgment. My pride.

Lord, let me accept my own negative role. I create the very conditions I seek to cure, I am my own source of chaos and negativity.

Lord, let me recognize my shortcomings. Let me act in contrary ways. Let me have the presence of mind and self awareness to see you when I am being prideful, selfish, judgmental, arrogant, irresponsible, and envious.

Let me instead act as if I had the virtues I seek: humility, compassion, responsibility, love. Let me, indeed, love all those around me – not just in theory but in practice. Show me how to be better today. Let me be willing to do those things you show.

(Letter #1027)

Dear God, let me not have an idle mind today. Let me fill it with thoughts of faith, with positive ideas.

I feel beset with negative viewpoints all around, and I myself contribute to this through the thoughts I pursue, the conversations in which I take part, the inner dialogue I maintain.

Lord, I cannot wait passively to be struck faithful. You have granted me, your servant and creature, a mind. I can direct my thinking towards love, or towards those complaints and battles that lead, ultimately, to hate. I know well whither those roads go.

Lord, let me consciously choose to be a being of love today. Let me turn away from frustration, judgment, and complaint – mindful of how poisonous those things are to me. Let me acknowledge my own role in my inner life, and root out the things that make me misshapen in outlook.

Let me spread love.

(Letter #1026)

Dear God, when I ask, you visit me and deliver your gifts. But I must be driven by difficulty and woe before I will seek them. I attempt every means to overcome trying circumstances, and only after exhausting them do I turn to what experience and faith tell me is the way: I ask for your aid.

Lord, why is this my last resort? Deliver me from my stubborn self-sufficiency. I am like a cross child, shoving away the help anyone can see I need, in favor of maintaining my illusion of independence.

Let me awaken to my weakness, and come to know and accept the aid you provide without requiring anything other than that I ask.

Let me ask.

(Letter #1025)

Dear God, today, in all small things, let me see the working of your will and give thanks for it. When minor inconveniences appear, let me look past them to see your hand. If I face a large setback let me have gratitude for whatever way this will turn out to be your providential hand saving me.

Every step, every act, every word – your will enacted. Let me therefore rejoice no matter the circumstances, for they all spring from you.

Lord, let me have gratitude today. Let this be my work: to show it under all conditions. Let me be enthusiastic that your will come to pass, and that I have a hand in helping it along.

Thank you, my Lord.

(Letter #1024)

Dear God, let me have simplicity today. Let me shed complication, avoid building contraptions of dependence, and cleave to the singular thing that I know to be true.

What is here, now, before me, tangible – this is what I may occupy my hands with. What may be tomorrow, what others may think even now, what could have been or ought to be – fictions. I think about such things as fantasy and escape from the real.

Lord, let me have focus today. Let me be present in this body, here where it rests, acting as I ought in the current circumstances.

Here, today, now, my sole occupation is rightly this: to seek and do your will for me.

What would you have me do, here and now? Whom would you have me help and how, here and now? What words would you have me speak, here and now?

Lord, let asking these simple questions be my sole occupation today. Let the answering of them be my devoted craft. Thy will be done.

(Letter #1023)