A Pandemic Prayer

God,

It’s me again.

I’m lost, I have to admit. And I’m tired.

I’m so tired.

I don’t understand what the plan is, God. I don’t understand how this brokenness is supposed to help.

I don’t understand.

I look around and I see, played out on a global stage, the divides and shattered pieces and hurt that I’ve battled in my own heart and mind and soul.

There is so much hurt.

I was – finally – beginning to heal from my own. I was beginning to reach out again, to connect, to touch people after being afraid of them for so long.

And now I’m asked to draw back again. To contain myself within the walls of my own existence. I may speak, but my voice is not very strong yet. My body is the strongest part of me and I am asked to be still. To fold my hands in my lap. To step away from outstretched arms, to keep from stretching out my own.

I’m so tired, God.

I’m not afraid.

Just tired.

I’m tired of the fighting. The screaming. The fear and hurt and anger and pride. As hard as I try, the voices still creep into my brain and for a time break the quiet.

It’s finally quiet now, inside my mind, more often than not. Even now.

I’ve learned that in order to heal the hurts inside myself I first had to admit they were there. I cannot mend a broken plate if I insist that it is not broken.

Is that part of the plan, God?

Is that part of the hurt?

I’ve learned that I cannot exist without connection, yet for so long now we have made connection a lower priority – work has become the highest priority.

When work ceases, what will the hands do then? Will the hands learn new languages, or maybe rediscover old languages they know but have forgotten to speak? Will they remember how to connect with another?

Is that part of the plan, God?

Is that part of the healing?

The breaking of you will be the making of you.

Is that part of the plan?