This would have been the week of the Presbyterian Youth Triennium. Several young people from our presbytery attended the Johnsonburg Social Justice Summit which was offered after the Triennium had to be canceled because of COVID.  This is a prayer from the Triennium worship resources, adapted from Ted Loder’s Guerillas of Grace.

God of history and of my heart,

so much is happening during these whirlwind days:

I’ve known death and birth;

I’ve been brave and scared;

I’ve hurt, I’ve helped;

I’ve been honest, I’ve lied;

I’ve destroyed, I’ve created;

I’ve been with people; I’ve been lonely;

I’ve been loyal, I’ve betrayed;

I’ve decided, I’ve waffled;

I’ve laughed and I’ve cried.

O God, you know my frail heart and my frayed history.

Help me to believe in new beginnings and in my beginning again,

no matter how often I’ve failed before.

Help me to make beginnings: to begin going out of my weary mind into fresh dreams,

daring to make my own bold tracks in the land of now;

to begin forgiving that I may experience mercy;

to begin questioning the unquestionable that I may know truth;

to begin discipling that I may create beauty;

to begin sacrificing that I may accomplish justice;

to begin risking that I may make peace;

to begin loving that I may realize joy.

Help me to believe in beginnings, to make a beginning, to be a beginning,

so that I may not just grow old, but grow new each day of this wild, amazing life you call me to live with the passion of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Photo by Gelgas Airlangga -used with permission