A Winter Prayer

Grant me Your Sense of Timing
Prayer by Ted Loder from his book Guerillas of Grace:

O God of all seasons and senses,

grant me your sense of timing

to submit gracefully

and rejoice quietly

in the turn of the seasons.

In this season of short days and long nights,
of grey and white and cold,
teach me the lessons of waiting:
of the snow joining the mystery
of the hunkered-down seeds
growing in their sleep
watched over by gnarled-limbed, grandparent trees
resting from autumn’s staggering energy;
of the silent, whirling earth
circling to race back home to the sun.
O God, grant me your sense of timing.


In this season of short days and long nights,
of grey and white and cold,
teach me the lessons of endings:
children growing
friends leaving
jobs concluding
stages finishing
grieving over
grudges over
blaming over
excuses over.
O God, grant me your sense of timing.


In this season of short days and long nights,
of grey and white and cold, teach me the lessons of beginnings:
that such waitings and endings may be a starting place,

of planting seeds which bring to birth

what is ready to be born—
something right and just and different,
a new song, a deeper relationship,

a fuller lover— in the fullness of your time.

O God, grant me your sense of timing.