MEDITATION:
Written by Julian of Norwich (1342-?), an English anchoress (a woman who chooses to withdraw from the world to live a solitary life of prayer and mortification. This is an excerpt from her work “Showings.”
God showed me something small, no bigger than a hazelnut, lying in the palm of my hand, as it seemed to me, and it was as round as a ball. I looked at it with the eye of my understanding and thought: What can this be? I was amazed that it could last, for I thought that because of its littleness it would suddenly have fallen into nothing. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and always will, because God loves it; and thus everything has being through the love of God. In this little thing, I saw three properties. The first is that God made it, the second is that God loves it, the third is that God preserves it. But what did I see in it? It is that God is the Creator and the protector and the lover. For until I am substantially united to God, I can never have perfect rest or true happiness, until, that is, I am so attached to God that there can be no created thing between my God and me.
PRAYER:
Written by John Eldredge, a contemporary American author, counselor and lecturer on Christianity.
Heavenly Father, thank You for loving me and choosing me before You made the world. You are my true Father – my Creator, my Redeemer, my Sustainer, and the True End of all things, including my life. I love You. I worship You and I trust You. I give myself over to You now to be one with You in all things as Jesus is one with You. Thank You for proving Your love for me by sending Jesus. I receive Him and all His life and all His work that You provided for me. Thank You for including me in Christ, for forgiving me my sins, for granting me His integrity and righteousness, for making me complete in Him. Thank You for making me alive with Christ, raising me with Him, seating me with Him at Your right hand, establishing me in His authority, and anointing me with Your love and Your Spirit and Your favor. I receive it all with thanks and give its total claim to my life. And I bring the life and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ over my home and over my family this day, over my life and throughout my household and my vehicles and my work and my finances and throughout my domain. I stake it there in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
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