In recent days/months, I’ve often felt out of sync.  I confess that my life has taken unexpected turns in the past year or so.  What I thought I’d be doing or thought I’d be feeling, isn’t anywhere near what is unfolding these days.  Without going into detail, I feel quite certain that there are many of you who never expected life to be unfolding the way it is, could also be taken aback with all the obstacles, curves, stress and more.

For those of us who are in the “elder” category of life now, we can feel disjointed, feel uncertain, wonder if we are fulfilling what God is asking of us each day.  While for some of us, our days are so busy, we aren’t sure if we can find time to sleep; for others of us, we find ourselves with unexpected amounts of time and wonder what is our purpose at this moment.

Loneliness, sadness, loss, ill health, and strains of many sorts, can weigh upon us.  We might even feel “lost” or like a “stranger” in our own life, our own skin.  And this can be the case whether we are younger or older, retired or working 2 jobs, etc.

So, with that in mind, I’d like to share something which was used in a prayer service I was a part of on Sunday.  There is soooo much to reflect on, chew on, think and pray about in this reflection.  Ultimately, I hope this blessing will offer you solace and hope.  You are not alone…and so……

     “Welcoming Blessing” by Jan Richardson:

“When you are lost in your own life.
When the landscape you have known falls away
When your familiar path becomes foreign
And you find yourself a stranger in the story you had held most dear.

Then let yourself be lost.
Let yourself leave for a place whose contours you do not already know,
whose cadences you have not learned by heart.
Let yourself land on a threshold that mirrors the mystery
of your own bewildered soul.

It will come as a surprise
what arrives to welcome you through the door,
making a place for you at the table, and calling you by your name.
Let what comes, come.

Let the glass be filled.
Let the light be tended.
Let the hands lay before you in your hunger.
Let in the laughter.
Let in the sweetness that enters the sorrow.
Let in the solace that comes as sustenance and sudden, unbidden grace.

For what comes, offer gladness.
For what greets you with kindly welcome, offer thanks.
offer blessing
For those who gathered you in
and will not be forgotten-

Those who, when you were a stranger,
made a place for you at the table
and called you by your name.”

And while I’m not yet at the comfort zone of “letting what comes, come”, I do pray for that peace, for that hope, for that wisdom, for you and for me.

Have a hope-filled week.  Live and be hope.

Sr. Debbie Blow, OP