Hopeful Thinking - Saturday, January 19, 2019 - Thank You for My Relief

Dear God, thank you for my relief. Thank you for the ever-lengthening daylight. Thank you for our slow emergence from the darkest part of this long winter. Thank you for my growing relief.

I know that peace, satisfaction, balance, and better blessings than even those all reside within me. They lovingly dole out whatever portions of their grace made possible by the allowing nature of my thoughts. Thank you for placing my hand on the faucet.

Thank you for the friends and family who notice my broadcasting heart in ways I typically forget to notice myself. Thank you for their gentleness—and for my patience with they who are not so gentle. I learn from them both.

Thank you for my health, in whatever capacity it exists. Thank you for every cell and fiber in my body which operates as it truly should. May they recruit increasing strength to heal the ones which cannot do the same.

Thank you for my abundance, in whatever form it appears. Thank you for every debt I satisfy. May those realities together strengthen my precarious relationship with matters of finance. My fears are unfounded. May the hearts of my debtors, both literal and figurative, be at ease in direct proportion to my gratitude for their patience with me. Thank you for our relief.

I say these words not for myself alone, for I am not alone in them. I say them on behalf of us all. All we who suffer to even the slightest degree. No human is completely free of it. Thank you for our relief.

I choose to think in these ways because I shall not tolerate despair. The relief I seek already exists somewhere in some corner I have yet to look. I am grateful for its existence. Let sadness and grief run their course, as they always do. I will run mine alongside them when I must, but in hope. I will imagine the light miles before I see it. I will maintain faith that all shall be well because it already is. I will do my best to remember I am loved. I do not run this race alone.

I will take physical actions which correspond with my desire, rather than with my feelings. My feelings betray me. I sometimes know not what I do. But my desire is constant. My greater intent knows the path. Let it do the driving when I cannot. Thank you for my higher self. Thank you for every time I’m not too afraid to listen to it. Guide my hands, and especially my mouth, according the the will of our divinest spark.

Thank you for every time I am able to listen honestly to others. Thank you for every time I am able to lovingly read between the lines of people’s words to note the character of their fear and sorrow. Let me respond with compassion. Thank you for my remembering that people are not bad, they are afraid. Help my hands and words to do what they can to comfort them. For their comfort often means my own.

Thank you for every time I am strong enough to wish my enemies well. For they are human, too. Thank you for any way in which their hearts are moved toward peace. May they find the ease they seek, if not always perhaps the way they seek it. Their desire for ease itself is just and right. Give me the courage to be hospitable and allowing. For they are the only pathways toward relationship.

Above all, thank you for the innate health of this planet. Thank you for its ability to heal itself. Thank you for every human who does their best to serve it well. For the air we breathe, the food that grows, the life which flourishes, and the waters permeating every corner in every form, thank you. May we learn from those waters which give us all life. That they teach us not only how to protect them, but also wash us clean.

Amen.