hope – Choose Joy: Poems, Prayers and Prose

A New Year’s Day Prayer

It’s the first day of the new year, O God.

I thank you for the past year – with all its

…blessings, hardships, and challenges.

I thank you that you were with me

the whole time.

Even in the darker days, your Light

shone

… to illuminate my path,

… to warm my heart,

and lead me forward.

Now here I am,

at the beginning of a

new year.

May I go through this day and this year,

with confidence

in your everlasting, unconditional

love.

May I look up to You, who look upon me with

favor,

not because I am perfect, but because you are

perfect

and by my faith in Jesus, you have made me your

child.

Send me forth then into this new year, into your

world,

with hope and strength

to be your living, breathing blessing

to everyone I meet on this path,

journeying together…

to the future that you have prepared

for all your beloved children,

with faith, hope and love.

In the name of Jesus, the Alpha and the Omega,

the Author of my beginnings and endings.

Amen.

Dad’s Stories

No one else will tell Dad’s stories –

of carabaos fighting,

he, surviving

caught in between locked horns.

… a pot of rice

rolling down the hill,

cooked, caked

rice escaping,

Japanese soldiers laughing,

one life spared,

the tragicomedy

of war.

…trekking up

the mountains of Maasin

with a few worldly goods

and St. Teresa of Avila’s bust

wrapped in a cloth.

No one else will tell Dad’s stories

Unless I do

to a new generation of survivors

in this fighting, divided world.

I have to tell Dad’s stories!

They are Dad’s whispers

of hope.

An Advent Prayer

Our Good and Gracious God,

In this season of waiting, I pray that you will wait with me…

…in hope

…in peace

…with joy

and love.

I humbly pray that your holy, comforting presence keep watch with me

and my beloved who lays broken, waiting to be made whole.

Like Zechariah, may I embrace the silence of not knowing, with faith.

With Elizabeth, help me to have the courage to live through this season of waiting.

With Mary, lead me to a place in my heart that dares to sing with joy

in the midst of unanswered

questions.

In all these longings and pleas, may your Holy Spirit empower me and all I love

to be bold in claiming your gift of salvation, who came to us first as a tiny, fragile

baby, cradled in the hay of our humanity.

In the precious name of Yeshua. Emmanuel. Amen.