A Year of Prayer: Season One Weekday DevotionalsSample

The following is from ‘O My Garden’ by Aux. Lt. Rosy Keane, a spoken word:

Refresh
My thirsty
Grounds
The ground that needs
The soil
refreshed
Fresh rain

The right season

A pinch of pH correctness
And a walloping from the
sun

Will you
Don your battered gardening gloves
The ones with the frayed thumbpads
Worn in all the places that your callouses
Have already risen to meet them in.

And wear your beaten hat!
Splayed threads like a crown of

Straw fingers on your head

Your lined eyes, and those like race-car tracks,
Hidden beneath the floppy flap
Your old shirt, half tucked
… Not that the dirt ever bothered you!

Nay, you embrace it like an old friend.

Run your fingers through my heart
Breaking up clumps and plumping the soil
Anoint these seeds with your anointing
oil
Let your sweet whistle and song
coax
this sunflower face toward your tune
Prune

O God!

Prune
Though I hate it
And worry my foliage will never grow back
Pare back
To the healthy places
That your fruit may replace this leafy
Coverage
Yet leave me naked and unashamed.

And in the heat of the evening left,
The shade of the twilight nigh,
Walk with me through this garden of a longing soul

Touching leaves
Stroking limbs
Knowing me
Speaking softly
Let us walk in unison
as
Holy Spirit swings and laughs just up ahead
And we marvel at just
How we grew this leafy
Paradise
together.

Prayer: God, your word and wonders never cease to amaze me. Help me to learn to forgive and forget the former things so that I may be seated with you in the presence of my enemies. I love you forever.

Action: Spend time in silence and recollecting words of God and times you have experienced God’s nearness and comfort to you.