Writing to God: Day 15

Isaiah 41:10
Nighttime Prayer

God, it can be hard to write a nighttime prayer as I watch the sun come up.  The sky getting lighter and clearer; the new day coming into focus - as if you are high up in the sky carefully turning the lens of your camera, until all the blurry images find their true shape.

It can be hard to write a nighttime prayer in the beauty of this new day.

I thought about writing this at night - but I know myself too well!

Although the nighttime is sacred beauty, holding pieces of promise and truth that the day just doesn't understand, it is often associated with our fears and struggle.  You know that.

God - as with all your people, you know me well enough to know my fears of:

• failure
• of not being or having 'enough'
• of losing something or someone too important for loss

And you know the more practical fears that cause me to lock my doors all the time and turn on the security system when Jeff is not home.

You know my fear of reaching the end of life, looking back, and wondering "what if?"

You know my fear that this world will not be a good place to raise children.  That it's only getting more self-centered, more dangerous, more violent.

God, this is my nighttime - these thoughts, these fears.  These are the things that make me afraid to lie awake at 2 a.m., unable to sleep.  It is then when these demons capture and haunt me, refusing to let go until the break of day. 

And the break of day is when the demons retreat back from wherever they came… (in the confines of my subconscious?)  

They cannot compete with your light.  Next to the sun's rays and with the song of chirping birds, those demons look lifeless and out of place.

Because, God, when I am at my very best, I can allow the hope of a new day, the comfort of your promises of resurrection, to lift me from my fears.

When I am at my best, I am able to be comforted and assured by the sun.  Knowing that those demons don't go completely away.  But trusting in the promise that your love and your goodness and your vision for light in this world is so much stronger than they.

Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you, God.

Amen.