A Prayer for When Things Feel Too Serious

Our confession today? We are trying to carry things that are too heavy and wear things that are too big.

We are children in our mother’s closet, sifting through her things. But instead of the joy and curiosity of dress-up, we feel the pressure to find the right way to live up, show up, and impress.

And we are frantic.

We long to be enough and have enough but deep down think this might be impossible. And so we search, we buy, we try on personas and play-act control.

We try our best to manage outcomes, but things are not coming out the way we planned.

And so today, we call a truce between our need for control and our own inadequacy. It seems neither side knows how to play fair anyway.

Instead, we ask that You might empower us to choose lightheartedness.

Spark our curiosity.

Inspire us to play.

For today, we refuse to look with furrowed brow into the future or to wrestle with a regretful past, but choose instead to stay in this day and do the next right thing now.

For today, we choose to trust You.

For today, we choose to believe You.

For today, we choose to know You are enough and so are we.

May joy discover our souls to be a welcoming place to land, and may laughter feel at ease in our presence, we pray.