Intercession is heavy work. Writing formation programs is heavy work. Dealing with my mother in the hospital for her new knee is heavy work. My niece turning an already messy house into a pig sty is heavy to bear. Being fifty dollars short of making all the payments that need to be paid, is fraying my nerves. And that doesn't take into account the food we will have to get somehow.

All of that is heavy work. All of it is holy work. All of it is God's will for me at this time. I am exactly where God wants me to be. I continuously turn to God with all the heaviness and frayed nerves and release it to Him. It is only when I keep turning to God moment by moment that I actually stay in one piece and don't go all to pieces. This is a small miracle of faith.

Everyday I turn to God and release what I can do nothing about. It is training for letting go of all the intercessions, for I cannot keep those in my heart. I must pray them and the release them. Pray and release.

Don't feel sorry for me. Rejoice with me that God is giving me the grace to live each day joyfully. The heaviness doesn't burden me, my niece challenges me, but even that might change soon. I wake joyful, and I go to bed thankful.

Blessed by the name of the Lord.

And now poetry I did not write.
John Donne

A LITANY.
I.
THE FATHER.

FATHER of Heaven, and Him, by whom
It, and us for it, and all else for us,
Thou madest, and govern'st ever, come
And re-create me, now grown ruinous:
My heart is by dejection, clay,
And by self-murder, red.
From this red earth, O Father, purge away
All vicious tinctures, that new-fashioned
I may rise up from death, before I'm dead.