CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Days of Winter

JUST AS I AM             [Su, 8-2-20]

 

Take, O Lord, my anger

Take my doubt and confusion

My ignorance and despair

Welcome them as my prayers

 

Receive the raging heat

That controls my brain and tongue

Accept it as an offering

On the altar of sacrifice

 

Take my frantic flailings

As the water rises o’er me

Receive my fear as homage

My gasping adulation

 

Take the messy garbage

Muck that is my heart

And accept it as a feast

From out my soul

 

I ask not that you change

The anger and the fear

That you take away

The doubt or desperation

 

For then you would be

But a magician with a wand

An alchemist, the chief

Fooler of the fools

 

No, let me be me

I pray

Let God be God

 

John Robert McFarland

 

“After all, a prayer is just a way of saying to the universe, ‘I care.’” Now That I Have Cancer I Am Whole, p. 37 [2^nd edition]