A Prayer For A Restful Weekend
The past couple of weeks have been quite tiring for me. The whole of March threw me off of a normal schedule and had me waking up at a whole slew of varied hours and I found myself waking up late on the weekdays and missing out on my morning routine due to the late wake up. I blame a weird work schedule for Will and the time change. Now we are properly into April and I am hoping that this month will get me back into the routines that grant me rest and rejuvenation and get me up earlier in the morning.
This weekend will be one focused on rest for both Will and me. Yesterday, my left eye was twitching which I have heard is a sign of fatigue and probably stress. So the plan for this weekend is to get some good R&R. Which has already started by eating a healthy, at home Friday night dinner, topped off with ice cream (Tillamook makes some of the best ice cream I have ever had). Watching a go to favorite, Mamma Mia, and starting a new crocheting project, a baby blanket in a soft pastel yellow (a gift).
After a lovely night's sleep in cute, bright pjs Will and I were able to make a homemade breakfast and sit on the porch to watch the runners doing the Bridge Run run by. All these things are helping to bring me back to myself and grant me a sense of peace that has been missing in the past few weeks. So now, here is a prayer for us all, so that we might invite the Divine in to grant us renewal, holy rest, and peace for this weekend.
A Prayer for a Restful Weekend
God of rest, you created the sabbath and invited us to learn from you. You invited us to know that there is a time for work, a time for play, and a time for rest--and named them all as holy. We confess that rest and play are a lot harder than work. We confess that our work consumes us and our minds are too often filled with thoughts of more production, more doing, more work even when we have the time for rest and the time for play. So much of the time we turn to work for comfort and to affirm our worth.
This weekend, God, teach us your ways. Teach us, yes, the ways of working as you intended while also guiding us in the ways of play, providing a lightness to our being that surpasses everything we understand and truly, O Lord teach us the ways of holy rest. May we learn from you what it means to simply be, to be filled with your loving spirit and held in your everlasting arms. Help us to recognize the holy and sacred gifts of delight, joy, play, and rest and to find you in them.
Too often we think we are meant to save the world, do it all on our own and then bring you our shiny success--and that only then we are deemed worthy, lovable, and acceptable to you. Remind us over and over and over again, in your loving, patient, grace-filled ways that we are loved, accepted, and worthy in your eyes--always. Teach us that you are the savior of the world, that you are always at work saving, redeeming, reconciling, binding us closer still to you and to one another.
May we hear again and always, Lord, the loving call of invitation. The invitation you are always offering us--to do this work alongside and with you. To do this work of love with you and your beloved children, our fellow siblings. Remind us when we forget, we were never asked to do this work alone- we were simply invited to join in.
Teach us now how to be here. Gently uncurl our fists so we might open our hands and hearts to you. Spirit breath your breath into us, soften our tense muscles so we can lean into your loving, sturdy, everlasting arms and breathe deeply with the breath of life.
God of the sabbath--meet us in the rest and teach us to be present. May you O Lord grant us the holy rest that renews our spirits and grants us peace so we can continue this journey, together.
It is unto you, God of the sabbath, God of the holy rest--that we give ourselves. We know you are trustworthy, you have everything well in hand, so we trust you to hold us too.
Amen.
