WELCOME

Welcome, welcome, welcome.  I welcome everything that comes to me today because I know it’s for my healing.  I welcome all thoughts, feelings, emotions, persons, situations, and conditions.  I let go of my desire for power and control. I let go of my desire for affection, esteem, approval and pleasure.  I let go of my desire for survival and security. I let go of my desire to change any situation, condition, person or myself.  I open to the love and presence of God and God’s action within. Amen   Father Thomas Keating
I was introduced to this prayer. It spoke to the desire of my heart to humble myself or as Pastor Curt said in a sermon one Sunday, to gently yield myself to the Lord and His Lordship in my life.
I do not know what or if there were specific circumstances that surrounded Father Keating when he wrote this prayer. I also know I cannot fathom the difference it would make in my life to have this attitude each day as I wake to face the day because I do know I still resist to yield myself to God and His ways, especially when my thoughts, feelings, emotions, situations, relationships or conditions are not as I would like them to be. What difference it would make in our lives if we did indeed let go of power, control, security, or the desire to force the change in our situations, marriages or even in ourselves. If we would, as C.S. Lewis says, “put first things first…” in other words, want to know God  over what we want. Welcoming all that comes in as part of His leading us, inviting us to be open to His love and presence and the actions He desires within us as He writes our faith stories -for ourselves, our marriages. Lewis says "if we put first things first, second things are thrown in. But if we put second things first, you lose both first and second things.”
Jesus tells us in Matt 22, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself."   Our spouses are our nearest neighbor.
"But now, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are ALL the work of your hand." Isa. 64:8. God is working within each of us for the good of His glory, His majesty, His name. He tells us in Isa. 41:10, "fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." Repeatedly in Isaiah he tells the Israelites - I am the Lord your God, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.
I pray as we each live each day on the continuum of our lives we will Welcome, Welcome, Welcome everything that comes to us each day.  Gently humbling ourselves to our Lord, opening ourselves to His love and presence and the work He wants to do within so that His love will flow out of us to our spouses, children…
Welcome, welcome, welcome.  I welcome everything that comes to me today because I know it’s for my healing.  I welcome all thoughts, feelings, emotions, persons, situations, and conditions.  I let go of my desire for power and control. I let go of my desire for affection, esteem, approval and pleasure.  I let go of my desire for survival and security. I let go of my desire to change any situation, condition, person or myself.  I open to the love and presence of God and God’s action within. Amen